Vintage Horror and What To Do When You Aren’t Scared

Everything grows old. Even mountains are reduced to dust by time.

But some things age more quickly than others, and with varying degrees of grace. There can be beauty even in decay.

Across essentially every medium, horror loses its potency faster than any other genre. For those of us that have a special place in our hearts for cinematic and literary terror, this is a serious problem.

It’s an issue I’ve lightly referenced in my articles concerning Poe, The Haunting of Hill House, and Dr. Caligari, but now I hope to tackle it head on.

In short, here’s what to do when you aren’t scared anymore.

Defining the Problem

One of the most common instances where we find ourselves unafraid is when we watch or read horror from a much earlier period.

Whether it’s something we’ve seen a million times, or something we are discovering for the first time, horror is often a function of time and even geography.

Clowns are a perfect example. No one was afraid of clowns until late into the 60s and early 70s where the introduction of characters like Batman’s Joker, and the real-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy made clowns a subject of fear. By the time it was 1986, the stage was set for Pennywise.

Now, most people find even ads featuring Ronald McDonald from the 90s to be pretty unsettling. In 40 years, perhaps we will lose our fear of clowns. Perhaps not. Sharks are another example.

Unless the book, show, or movie is tapping into something truly universal and doing it uniquely well (like The Twilight Zone), you’re likely to feel a lack of fear if the story is older than a few decades.

So what do you do if you find yourself partaking in something we might call ‘vintage horror’? Do you have to give up on it entirely?

Not at all.

The best thing to do here is employ what I am calling The Museum Mindset.

The Museum Mindset

This is exactly what it sounds like.

The attitudes and expectations we take into a piece of media can almost completely determine how we feel about it afterwards. We’ve all been delightfully surprised by a movie we walked into expecting nothing from and walking out impressed. We’ve also all been disappointed by something we had high hopes for and turned out less than satisfactory.

So what’s the right attitude to take into vintage horror? Or even just horror that is starting to show its age?

I recommend the mindset you use when walking into a museum or an art gallery. Most people watch movies or read books to be entertained, and in the case of horror, to be scared. But that’s not why we go to museums and galleries.

When we go to such a place, we go with the attitude of appreciation, to gain a new perspective and to appraise and value the things we see. We go with the eye of admiration and to have our tastes expanded.

If you take that same mindset into an old horror movie, or an old anything, you’ll be shocked at how much more enjoyment you’ll get. Suddenly you’re impressed by the angles and effects achieved without computers or advanced machines. Out of nowhere, you’ll find the clothing and costumes interesting and the dialogue charmingly old-fashioned.

You’ll also start to see how modern media is influenced profoundly by these older films, and develop what we might call historical empathy for the people that found these movies chilling in the extreme.

Show It To a Friend

This is a great one for books or movies you love but have lost their edge due to repeated watches or listens. Even the scariest story can become familiar with time.

One of best ways to recapture the magic is to show it to a friend who’s never seen it before. This works especially well for movies, since by the end you’ll be watching your friend’s reactions more than the film.

Watch parties are even better if you like this. If you have a high tolerance for terror, then getting permission to show it to someone you know with a much lower tolerance can be a blast too.

Roger Ebert was once asked if he could have a single wish, what would it be? He responded that he would wish to see his favorite movie again for the first time.

Showing something we love to a friend is about as close to this as we can get, and can be seriously rewarding.

Nostalgia Vision

Another easy technique is to put on the old nostalgia goggles.

Interestingly, it doesn’t seem like you need to have been around during the original period the product was made for this to work.

There’s a certain cringey charm that many of us recognize, and some of us love, called ‘camp’. Something campy often walks a tight-rope of so-bad-it’s-good flavor and can result from technical effects or dialogue that by today’s standards feels ridiculous.

There are quite literally hundreds of horror movies you can almost take as comedies and have a great time. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Mars Attacks, and countless others are hilarious.

A little suspension of disbelief can go a long way, especially with old films, and they can be great background atmosphere at a party.

Outside of that, a lot of vintage horror has a visual aesthetic that many people find interesting or genuinely nostalgic. If there’s a particular decade of fashion or dialect you have an affinity for, then go dig up the movies from that period. You’ll be glad you did.

No, you won’t be scared, but you will have fun. And isn’t that what you wanted to be scared for anyway?

Symbolic Analysis

The last technique you can use to get more enjoyment out of vintage horror is to analyze the film symbolically. This is an outgrowth of the Museum Mindset and has to do with watching the film for what it means and what it says rather than the story, acting, and cinematography.

Alongside science fiction, horror is one of the genres most used as social commentary in addition to storytelling. As such, you’d be very surprised just how many horror films have analyzable messages and intended statements as well.

Even outside of socio-cultural criticism, plenty of horror tales are full of plain, old-fashioned morals going all the way to Grimm’s Fairy Tales. And somewhere between a classic moral and piece of social examination, horror stories like Dracula and Frankenstein are symbolic in a literary and archetypal sense.

If you’re watching or reading vintage horror, or even if it’s a modern flick that’s lost some of its shine, then try analyzing the movie and looking for what the story could mean. Depending on the kind of person you are, this can be really fun and truly deepen your appreciation for something you already love.

Or even better, symbolically analyzing vintage horror might make you change your mind about something you didn’t like before.

There’s always hidden value in horror.