Do you obey the audience speed limit when watching a movie or reading a book? In other words, do you dial your expectations up and down for each piece of entertainment that you come across? Or do you expect every one to have the same level of intensity or suspense or action or humour or whatever it is that you picked up that item to get? Horror is one of the hardest hit genres for speeders who expect and need every new book or movie to be as frightening as the last, as dangerous for the characters, as personally involving in the terror. Often times the complaint is that there isn't enough escalation. Being as horrific as the last one isn't enough. It doesn't matter if each has a different creator. It doesn't matter that some people have a greater fear of particular elements than others. It's all about more, wetter, flashier, exponential pulse acceleration.
I do my best to follow the audience speed limit and take the horror movies, books, and games that I spend my time with, at face value. I don't go into Paranormal Activity and expect it to be, or get aggravated that it isn't, Silent Hill or Hellraiser. I don't even look at sequels or other movies from the same creators in comparison to those other films and novels until sometime after the first interaction with them. The same holds for remakes and reboots. Each gets to be its own animal for a time. That said, sometimes incorrectly aimed hype will adversely affect my reaction at some level. If you're led to anticipate hard horror and get a dark crime drama instead you can't help but feel that you've been misled. Some of it can be chalked up to, again, a different value in what is scary or intense, but some of it is pure misdirection. So not only it is important to obey the speed limit, but to also post it correctly.
Music: Music: Objects in the Rear View Mirror by Meatloaf and Watching Over Me by Iced Earth.
