I have always been drawn to the aspect of horror even as a young kid, I don't know what that says about me. The strange fascination with ghosts and aliens and what happens when we die and what if that thing you see every day mysteriously vanishes and nobody knows why and what is really hiding in that pitch dark space in the closet or under the bed.
Maybe it has to do with imagination and overthinking, two things I am also susceptible to. As I've grown older my interest in horror didn't go away but it changed. Now it's less about waking up and seeing a ghost in the doorway and more about the feeling and tension those situations elicit. That's my favorite kind of horror book or movie, one that is drenched in atmosphere and dread. These things I find best constructed when they're only fragments, letting my own horrifying mind fill in the gaps. Stories that spoonfeed me or tell me what to think or feel don't usually interest me, and that goes beyond horror really. I need my imagination to be a part of the conversation if I'm going to be fully engaged. Now that I think about it, this might even go beyond movies and reading, something for me to think about later I guess.
Another thing I love about horror is when it is real and uncompromising. Sure maybe it delves into the fantastical, but it should stay grounded when it comes to thoughts and feelings and the human experience. In horror, just like in real life, something the endings are bad. Sometimes things get messy. Sometimes there are no answers. Sometimes things are scary at first but not later on. Some things truly are evil and sometimes you must step up to fight them. And in life, much like in fiction, sometimes the evil monsters are ourselves.
Some horror things I like:
Pet Sematary by Stephen King
Gone to See the River Man by Kristopher Triana
Anything by Jack Ketchum but The Girl Next Door most famously
The theme from Halloween (the movie is good too but the music never gets old)
American Psycho, both the book and the movie
The Descent
Pretty much everything by Edgar Allan Poe
Robert Eggers' movies
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Twilight Zone
(Most of) The Walking Dead, the TV show
Bates Motel
Freddy vs Jason
The Substance
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury