Violence scares me. It seems not to scare most people. At least, not when they're watching movies, TV, or other media, all of which we will call "movies" in this post for the sake of succinctness.
I have seen little violence outside of movies, and I have seen few people seeing violence outside of movies. When it occurs in movies, though, people don't seem that scared. It's weird, especially since they seem to fear perfectly unscary movie elements: bugs, ghosts, paintings, ugly creatures that are no more dangerous than anything else, or creepy MUSIC, for crying out loud. The music often leads up to more unscary stuff, and it can make the moment seem intense but that's all. If it does lead up to something scary, like violence, people seem less scared of the actual violence than the build up to it. Evidently people are most scared of tension and suspense. However, when characters get torn limb from limb, the viewers don’t blink. Geez. They should be scared of violence. I decree it. From this day forth, people shall fear violence first and foremost, ending all war, pain, and...well, violence, instead of wasting their efforts killing innocent spiders. It just seems people are scared of all the wrong things.
For example, somewhere on the internet, someone said the animated movie 9 contains situations that would scare uncringing fans of Jurassic Park. 9 isn't that scary though. It shows dead bodies and soul-sucking machines but very little gore, guts, and violence. Well, it has violence, but it surrounds sack dolls, who don't bleed, and machines, who don't feel pain. (I’m more ok with violence when non-humans are fighting, dying, etc.) I can’t imagine how sack dolls could feel pain either. They apparently do in some scenes, and apparently don’t in others. 9 passed out because he tore stitching in his shoulder, but 7 hardly made a noise when she was shot through the leg. It could be she’s exceptionally stoic, but I prefer to think the dolls can’t feel pain, and they pass out because…I have no idea.
Anyway, Jurassic Park is much scarier than 9, because it’s much more violent. It has blood and people getting ripped apart and banged up and so on and so forth. Jurassic Park isn’t even that bad, compared to other movies, but it's still scary, and the point is that people are scared of the wrong things.
Coraline stands as another example. Even while adoring Jurassic Park, Iron Man, and The Dark Knight, some people hate Coraline because it's “so freaking scary." Coraline is not nearly as bad as those other movies. Even if it is a bit scary, Coraline has almost no violence. The most violent part was the reference to sewing buttons into eyes. I admit that's pretty terrifying. But at least it never showed this. The second most violent part was the cat clawing out the Other Mother’s button eyes. I’m not even sure she can feel pain. Certainly not enough to stop her from chasing Coraline. The movie showed no blood or beating of humans. What makes it so scary? The ghosts? They're tragic, not scary. The beetle candies? They're gross, but not exactly petrifying. The candy blob of Ms. Spink and Forcible? Alright, that's freaky. But still not as scary as Iron Man, and even Iron Man isn't bad.
I can tolerate mild violence in movies if the story is really compelling, but after a certain point, it’s not worth it. I got through the latest Skulduggery book without skipping the description of Tanith nailed to a chair. (I totally WOULD have skipped it if I’d known it was coming, but it first appeared Tanith was just sitting there, and then the book just popped out with the explanation.) I read through that one because the Skulduggery books are amazing. Actually, though, I almost didn’t get through the first book because of such violence. It was just barely compelling enough, but the books got a lot better after that, so it wasn’t as hard to finish book 4.
Some other fears of mine are: Rotating doors (how do you use those things without DYING???), and…
Well, I’m sure there’s more, which is why I’m going to continue this later.
As a final note, I don't mean to be insensitive to anyone's fears. I actually understand some of the fears I called "silly" more than it might have appeared. I was only determined to speak strongly about this because I'm annoyed at the lack of, well, everyone thinking the same as me. I am always right after all. The world would do well to agree with me.
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