Horror Films

I like to think of myself as a fairly open-minded person, films-wise. I'll watch more or less anything, and the genre won't dictate whether or not I like it. I get really irritated by those people who praise every film made of a certain genre, but either abuse or ignore any other kind of movie. For me, to call yourself a true film-buff, or movie-nerd, or cinema-freak or whatever you want, you have to be able to appreciate - at the very least - a wide range of genres, maybe even all genres.

And I try to stick by that; I'll happily settle down to a romantic comedy, a swashbuckling adventure, a spaghetti western, a disaster movie, a biopic, an indie arthouse film, a psychological thriller, a period drama or more or less anything else. However, there's one particular kind of film I avoid at all costs, and I feel it's only fair to explain that I will never be reviewing them.

Horror films are, with me, pretty touch and go, but I'm not averse to them. My Dad was determined for me to never be one of those girls that wimps out of going to see the latest action-adventure or crime thriller because it 'looks too scary', and as such had me watching the Alien movies (and Predator, and 28 Weeks Later, and Nightmare On Elm Street, and The Sixth Sense, and...you get the picture) when I was about eleven. The only films that ever really scared the bejesus out of me were Jaws (I honestly don't know if I was scared BECAUSE of my fear of sharks, or if I became afraid of sharks by being so scared) and The Ring (which I saw on a plane when I was about twelve, turned off after half an hour and still had to sleep with the lights on for a month). So horror itself isn't a genre I object to - I wouldn't choose it, but I'll watch it, and I have a lot of respect for horror films that rise above the gore and silliness I associate with the genre and make a good story out of it. I mean, I'm not saying I'm un-scareable. Far from it. I actually have a scale of horror films - the more Friends episodes I have to watch to get it out of my head and get some sleep, the worse it was (current record-holder is 28 Weeks Later, which took 8 episodes to stop zombies appearing in the window).

But the films I won't touch with a barge-pole are, basically, hardcore Slasher movies. Films like Saw, which I have never nor will ever watch, or - worse - The Human Centipede and films like it; films which offend me simply by existing. I don't even like talking about them, because I'm just so very not interested. Maybe it makes me snobby, but frankly I just think it makes me normal. There's something deeply wrong about being entertained by that kind of horror movie - it's not like Evil Dead, in which the gore is so OTT and daft the only reasonable reaction is laughter. They're gruesome and traumatising and just not something I want to waste so much as ten seconds of my life watching. I know my reaction to it wouldn't be enjoyment or appreciation; it would be nausea, sleeplessness and probably mental scarring.

So I will never, ever be reviewing movies of that kind. Classic horror and psychological thrillers are fine, but I'm never, ever going to put myself through The Exorcist. Just so's you know.