I'd argue scary movies give room to jade past fictional problems and adapt to responding less to things like "Jump Scares". Someone with a fear of something could watch it repeatedly to desensitize themselves to it before exposing themselves to the real thing with diminished triggers, a lesser form of aversion therapy. Avoiding problems enables them to remain problems through reinforcing your sense of safety through it. After enough trials, the exposure has you get over it, while never bothering to go back has it dwell and ruminate instead with trigger risks.
Scary movies don't affect me even a little bit though. The genre itself always has me too aware that I'm watching something unless it's writing is designed to get into your head. Stepping on a crack's scarier than that half-assed genre usually shows itself to be, mostly appreciated for it's B Movie qualities and antagonist concept designs.
"Fear is a weakness"
Fear is a strength as much as it's a weakness. Those who are fearless tend to have impulse control issues, dissociative problems, or other issues going on with them. Fear is not a weakness solely, it's a tool. Courage comes from being able to face your fears, not ignore them.
"humans who do it to themselves I think are a bit simple."
I'd say people who avoid media "because it's scary" are the cowards (as opposed to those who expose themselves to that media) who enable their own under trained resistances to external stimulus. It's avoidance.
"They think it makes them braver, but I disagree. you have no memory of a monster jumping out at you until you see it in some movie,and then imagine it, in the middle of the night, and scare yourself."
If you have no imagination whatsoever, you'd be right. However, monsters have been a thing feared since before the television was a thing. "And scare yourself" is a bit presumptive too.
Being prepared for imaginary threats can have you ready to face situations similar to it, if not allowing yourself to flex both that area to exercise it more and somewhat shape the viewer's potential imagination in many areas.
"People who don't watch scary movies are much less inclined to be afraid of the dark."
I'd argue otherwise beyond the short term. "The Dark" still represents the unknown.
"Stop watching scary movies people!"
They're usually pretty damn funny when they aren't the occasionally tastefully or artistically done one. Fear is something you have to learn to resist and control, overcome, not something to avoid "because it's scawy".
I'm curious how you'd respond to the game Eternal Darkness on a 0% sanity run now.
"but watching fake situations like a monster or alien or w.e is just experiencing something that you could otherwise never experience"
Does this make things like Godzilla a bad thing?
Seeing what you could never experience isn't a bad thing either. I'd say it's good for getting those creative juices flowing or seeing other underlying concepts that are based on real experience.
"i watched the grudge once, and now im afraid of attics. not because of rational thinking, but because we humans have less control over our mind than we think, and when i go into an attic, i start picturing the grudge, and my heart gets going and my experiences of the past, my subconsciousness cant separate what is real and what isnt, and so ya."
So this isn't about "we humans", this is about you and your irrational fear of a movie being justified through "we humans". Not everyone thinks those sorts of movies are scary since it's, well, a movie and not real life.
Luna, do you think that one who overcomes their fears with courage becomes a stronger person? And that the more a person has to fear (or the more dangers they must confront), the more chances they have to test their own courage and develop it? Or do you believe humans should try to block out as many of the anxieties that are a part of the mortal condition as they can, and conceal themselves from the outer world in cocoons of ignorance?