..As far as horror movies go, Jaws has had the greatest impact upon society in general. It continues to terrify entire generations of folks into staying out of the water.
Yeah, well, I guess in order to have that effect you'd have to have watched it at the time it was released. At the time I watched the movie it was very clear to me that the movie wasn't realistic in its portrayal of the shark. But you're right that movie has given sharks a really bad reputation in many people's minds.
However, when movies were still new, people got scared out of their minds by close-ups of insects. People also outright panicked after listening to Orwell's radio broadcast 'War of the Worlds'. Neither is something I consider to belong in the horror genre.
Anyway, I think it's still clear that people react differently to different kinds of horror movies.
E.g.
- I was bored to tears by 'The Blair Witch Project' and generally dislike found footage movies.
- I was scared after watching the original 'Nightmare on Elm Street' movie, though. But none of the superficially similar movies from the 'Friday the 13th' or 'Halloween' franchise felt frightening to me. The important difference being the idea of being attacked in your dreams.
- Brian de Palma's 'Carrie' was really shocking to me mostly because of the sudden change to violence and the use of split-screens.
- 'Event Horizon' was another movie that I found quite tense, even though it's a sci-fi setting. 'Alien' on the other hand is a movie that I considered my favorite movie for a long time, but never thought of it as a horror movie.
- Oh, and 'Eden Lake' was also pretty terrifying because of the realistic outset and the relentless but still somehow believable escalation.
I think all of these movies were 'scary' (or not 'scary') to me for different reasons.