I find none of it horrifying, and I am kind of worried about that. If I can continually get publish, my main genera would preferably be horror. However, everything Ive read on the genera states that you must scare the reader. how do you do that when you yourself feel no fear? lol.
For me, horror is more of a stress release. A ghost terrorizes a family. A serial killer abducts some one. It is the entertainment I desire sense doing theses things in real life is very much frowned upon. Also, many of the horror short stories ive enjoyed the most, made no attempt at fear.
Ive been 20 yards from a cougar and it scared the hell out of me. The same event written out would not so much. sure, the writer could make it entertaining, but it would not scare me.
And of course there are aspects i try to avoid. namely theses would be Vampires, Zombies and Cannibals. The first two are way overdone and the last is just not appealing. If the only aim is to elicit the gross out factor, I'll pass. I dont do gross just for the sake of gross. I am far more tolerant of violence just for the sake of violence if its good. Good story trumps all.
Done right, the fear comes not from the cougar, but from fear the cougar might kill your favorite character. Few readers live in a place where cougars are a worry, but all of them can be frightened that a favorite character is about to become Kitten Chow.
A serial killer, I think, is different. Fear a favorite character will be killed still plays a part, but while most will never have to face a cougar, anyone can be the target of a serial killer. This, I think, is a good time to work real numbers into a story. Most people don't know there are from thirty-five to fifty serial killers still on the loose at any given time.
This shouldn't frighten people, but I've found it usually does, so it's kind of a double whammy. I'm always looking for such things to work into a story.
An extremely common fear is having your children harmed. Not much scares me in real life. Not even a nose to nose encounter with a cougar or a bear, not free climbing cliffs, and not even being shot at.
But even a stray thought of someone harming my grandchildren terrifies me. True terror.
Anyway, I think you have to look at each type of situation a bit differently. You can scare the bejeebers out of readers without being scared yourself. Sometimes you make them afraid a favorite character will be killed, and sometimes you make them go check the locks on the door, or make them call to see if the grandkids are sleeping soundly.