personally its the threat, be it creature or killer that danger posed by them is what scary, and they got to seem strong

Watch Dr. Pimple Popper and you'll see my fears. That and itty bitty holes all over someone's body... you ever seen a frog with holes in its back while other frogs hop it's just... disturbing.

I personally don't find gore or dismemberment disturbing, but I have a specific fear when a woman who's all dainty, sweet, and soft-spoken gets dismembered or shredded or set on fire. I remember Akira freaking me out when Kaneda's girlfriend gets crushed like a zit and her eyes pop out. She didn't deserve that. She was literally the sweetest character in the entire movie.

I have a personal belief that those types of girls should never.... EVER die. They deserve all the hugs and chocolates and giant stuffed teddy bears in the world (yes I have a type, how'd you guess?), but when you do it out of nowhere it sorta reminds you that death don't discriminate. But I guess that's what happens when sweet girls like that hang around with criminals.

It scares me even more when it happens to ladies with glasses. Like in GTA V. There's a scene where you chase this chick down to the airport. You weren't going to kill her. You just wanted something from her. Even the character you play as was like "Just... chill", but she gets so scared she tries to run inside the jet while the turbines are still running and she gets shredded. Just blood starts spraying everywhere. All she wanted was to make her boss happy, who doesn't even love her, but she's obsessed with him. But again, it reinforces that no one's safe when working with these types of people.

Speaking of which, I remember Deadpool 2 freaking me out with the scene where the X-Force was getting killed one-by-one. Probably the most elaborate way to scare me. They've set the X-Force up like the Avengers through advertisement and was super meta about it. And then Shatterstar being incinerated by Helicopter blades and then Hazmat falling into a woodchipper.

Also woodchippers scare me. Getting your head run over by a car scares me. Yeh....

I will say, I will include stuff that scares me in my stories because why not?

Violation of bodily Autonomy. Slowly changing into something you can't recognize, involuntary surgeries, losing control over your body while remaining conscious. That shit terrifies me.

I recently realized that the stories that disturb me the most are weird doppelgänger stories or stories of creatures mimicking humans to lure them in. Like the Mandela catalog that blew up recently, the not-them from the magnus archives, SCP-939, and of course,THE THING! It’s not a chase, it’s a mind game. Especially if the original person is still alive and they have to decide which is the real one and the story ends but it’s not super clear if they made the right choice?? Agh, gets me every time even if it is kind of cheesy

Straight up fight-or-flight type scary? Jumpscares and chasing.

Disturbing? Undertale's True Lab and genocide route ending screwed me up :'D

(I guess in general I like horror elements in media that's not primarily horror; if it's dark all the way through I tend to have 'braced myself' when the really horrifying stuff come)

I don't find demons or ghosts scary at all.

The thing that bugs me more is realistic body horror or graphic physical abuse. Dismemberment and true crime stuff tends to disturb me more. I tend to try to avoid that stuff because it will effect my emotional state, I get intrusive thoughts, and I end up getting really depressed.

Woof, let's see:
-body horror, the whole "losing control of your soul's house" thing makes me squirm
-cannibalism is a big one for me, not sure why, the movie "Parents" is great, by the way.
-People's minds being altered or overwritten so they kill/hurt the people they love (that one came about around the time I became a big sister)
-knives or other sharp objects piercing or slicing the body, that one came about after an incident involving a butter knife that left a scar

Mm, I feel that a little bit...

It's not that I'm 'unshakeable' or anything-- there are plenty of things that make me uncomfortable, like gore and other types of visual horror in particular. But I don't think being nauseous is quite the same thing as being scared. ^^;

If we define 'scare' as 'makes your heart race in a negative way, elevates your concern for the characters involved' I think the only thing that comes close to getting that reaction out of me is claustrophobic situations.

Like, if MC is hiding from the monster in a closet, it's whatever; I don't care, I might even still be laughing at that point (yes, I'm that kind of horror movie watcher).
But if MC is hiding from the monster in, like, a coffin, and you've got the camera jammed in there with them, NOW you have my undivided attention. 8[ I do not deal well with that kind of thing...that one scene from Kill Bill messed me up for years, and that wasn't even a horror movie...

There hasn't been a horror movie that scared me per se... as many, they feel so goofy. However, as a kid, the T-1000 from Terminator 2 was scary, as hell.

He's, basically, indestructible.. he can shape-shift and turn into other people and imitate their voices and he's a killer machine. The way he murders people is quite brutal and unforgiving. He's after a kid and would do anything to get him. Imagine yourself chased by something like him.

Forget the Exorcist girl, the T-1000 would slice her up and comes after you.

Jump-scares aren't really considered scary, it's just a Surprise "Gotcha Bitch!" moment. I am fond of steady types of horror where you can see the scary scene visibly and it is getting closer, and closer to the characters without jump-scares. That is the kind of horror I miss.

What I am scared of some scary women whose face is cover with her black her and it is crawling towards you like the grudge, or Mama. That gives me chills all over me.

The scariest things for me are bizzare / without explanation + a big part of it stays mysterious,
everything else maybe frighens me for a second

Horror things don't scare me as much as they should. Even my nightmares seem like pleasant dreams to me. Maybe it's because I know what's going to happen, for example, a group of friends hanging out in the woods with a serial killer on the loose or a supposed legend of a monster. Yeah, I know what's going to happen to that one guy that decides to wander alone in the dark. I enjoy horror because I like exploring the unknown, and I think monsters are cool and interesting, but scary? Not really.

I don't really get too scared of fictional works as much, but yeah I agree with you. I do get scared of chase scenes in horror games and if I take my headphones off I can play it without being scared, but that also kind of beats the purpose of the experience. I think what's the most chilling experience I have with video games that left me not wanting to play another horror game again is Dark Deception, especially in chapter 2 where I hear the monster breathing down my neck. Talking about it just makes me wanna run to bed and stay cover under the blanket for a while.

Something realistic that could happen to anyone at any moment scares me the most, like "Final destination", especially if it's graphic

My reflection on the screen when the movie ends

I think movies like "Aniara" are what's truly frightening. That's no monster. The horror isn't "other people are monsters" (although the people are horrid to each other in the movie). The horror is the infinite vastness of space and how small we truly are compared to it. (If you know, you know!)

Something that inspires dread and turn your own mind against you. Just plopped into a situation where it seems like something is going to happen, and you're waiting for that something to happen even though it never did–the paranoia slowly driving you to insanity. That terrifies me.

And I did watch Hereditary once. It shook me to my core. Never again will I watch that movie.

I hate stagnation. I hate unending bureaucracy. I hate "functional" dystopias.

• Creepy ambience
• Extreme body horror
• Dread and paranoia. Scenes where it seems like something bad/terrifying/shocking is going to happen without anything necessarily happening, always keeping you on edge. Like what @wispysing said. They always get my heart racing.
• Claustrophobic environments.

@simonitropunk I love the T1000, Robert Patrick does an amazing job in that movie. I think that touches on a great group of frightening antagonists, too. Terminator, The Thing, the monster from It Follows...

They don't stop, and they cannot be reasoned with. Their thinking process may even be completely alien and incomprehensible... but unlike a simple natural disaster or animal, it's clear that they do have a goal: you. There's something uniquely horrific and personal about that.

"A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality." Exactly what you don't want chasing you around in the dark...

I think the best horror is ones that even just slightly bend expectations of reality. Often though, I find the more relatable the horror the better. Akin to @NickRowler paranormal creatures inherently isn't scary for me, though if executed well it can be great. I would possibly say the only exception to that would be the game anatomy maybe because of the unbearable expectation that there has to be some physical entity behind the lingering uneasiness.
That being said, I think the scariest pieces of media I can think of are the movies 'Midsommar' and 'District 9' not necessarily because of themselves but their created hyper-realities. they both arguably are effective and turning the audience into the victim and oppressor respectively.
Mild spoilers:
For Midsommar the scary part is how prevalent the idea was that the movie had a happy ending displaying how easily audiences bought into the cultish behavior that had brainwashed the protagonist clearly displaying the ease in which our minds are influenced.
The horror of District-9 comes often on a second viewing particularly in the popcorn scene of burning the aliens' houses. Most everyone I know (including) myself who have seen the movie finds the scene extremely uncomfortable upon rewatch because of how much they're reminded how easily they took part in the (speciest?) racist trap in the beginning.
Then there is the story the double by Fyodor Dostoevsky. A story I saw too much of myself in I swear it's convinced me that one day I will be replaced by a doppelganger that I see in my waking dreams. (A fear that actually inspired the first short of my series on Tapas)
I know it's not really conventional horror, but I think there is something to this kind of simulacra horror.

Also this:

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Pikachu has acquired status traumatized

I've watched quite a bit of horror movies in college so little really takes me for a spin anymore, but for some reason Tusk really creeps me out more than most infamously "disturbing" movies. I legit got disturbed at the trailer even after watching other comparatively "worse" horror movies- just the body horror, and the horror of him even losing the ability to speak really gets to me.

I usually do prefer paranormal/supernatural stuff though, Tusk is the exception as usually I don't really feel that much fear for non-supernatural threats . . . plus, when it's more realistic sometimes it just makes me very sad LOL.

Anything by Junji Ito

I usually get affected the most by all the gore...

Ever since I became a father, I have become incredibly sensitive to anything involving bad things happening to children. I just immediately project my own son or daughter onto it. So, the opening of It did one hell of a number on me.

LAWD that scene in Hreditairy shook me too. Like that despair was palpable and I just felt bad all over. In recent years, that was the scariest movie I had seen. Mainstream horror these days, to me, is to uh clean...er that's not the right word. Smooth....digital? Yeah. The things that scared me the most growing up was honestly just how freaky practical effects and costumes could be with the proper lighting and good acting, So my fav horrors were from the 80s & 90s.

Hmnn, personal scares... Anything that causes a body to look melted but still be alive and it's/they are in agony and you can tell. Freaks me the F* out.

Another thing that gets me is being touched by something you can't see. So like I played Death Stranding a few years back, the amount of heart racing -palpitating-screaming I did had my nerves on edge while playing. At first anyway, but there is only so much fear one person can take and so halfway through the game I just started getting mad at ghost hand feet people grabbing Sam and started slicing all the umbilical cords. like even going out of my way to do it bc I was fed up about my packages getting wrecked :V.

Oh yeah, John Carpenter's The Thing comes to mind in terms of practical effects.

Jumpscares actually give me a feeling of great relief hahaha :')

I really loathe the buildup of tension and anxiety that comes beforehand, knowing something's going to happen but not knowing when. Better that the thing shows itself so the protag can start running or fighting. Action is better than helpless waiting.

Otherwise, I'm the person in my family known for being unfazed by horror, but there are a few things in fiction that scare me.

• Chase scenes are my most frequent nightmare. I hate the feeling of restless anxiety, having to be constantly wary, knowing I can't hide because it will always find me. These dreams usually end when I allow myself to be caught or stand and fight, because it's better than the anxiety of trying desperately to escape.. I hate this in video games. ;-;

• Abduction scares me in movies because it's a real fear. Used to have tons of recurring nightmares of people grabbing one of my little siblings in a public place and running off. I'm never fast enough to stop it.

• Sexual abuse was always really deeply and uniquely disturbing to me. I'm mostly desensitized to it now, but even a slight, subtle implication of it happening in fiction was enough to give me nightmares when I was younger.

More abstractly, the concept of losing your grip on reality and not being able to trust your own senses is also terrifying.

For example.. the protagonist sees people as devils leering at him before his vision clears, showing that they're just normal people, giving him odd or concerned looks. Or, protag sees blood pouring from the faucets and showerhead and smells it on his skin. Hallucinations and insanity scare me because they cast everything into doubt and nothing can be trusted.

I tried watching it and...I clicked off after the first gory scene 🤣 but I definitely want to suck it up and get through it since it seems like a good movie.

Coming back to say that demons scare the living you-know-what out of me.

Like there's obviously stuff we don't know about in our world/universe and I've seen Exorcist priests who are... so matter of fact/scientific. I remember my Mom thinking that the dust particles in her room were ghosts and she talks about seeing demons in her nightmares, but the priests were just like "....do you know what a demon looks like?" And my Mom was like "...No" and the priests were like "Then it's just your imagination".

And that just stuck with me. Also the idea that demons were once angels and the concept that they know about us than we know ourselves is... freaky as Hell. I remember reading about this exorcist where this little girl's demon told off a priest saying something like "HOW DO YOU EXPECT TO TAKE ME ON WHEN YOU COULDN'T SAVE YOUR WIFE?!?". One of the deacons had to run out of the room because he was so scared. I dunno if he was a newbie, but if he isn't then... damn.

Also you can't beat demons up. This ain't Devil May Cry. You can't outsmart them because like I said... they know everything about you. They just remind you that you can work out as much as you want. You can become this big badass and all that, have everyone fear you, but at the end of the day, a demon can just use you as a meat puppet.

Parasites. Things that lay eggs in you and feed off you...
I love the first two Alien films, but parasites seriously scare me