Fear (and Loathing) in the Movies

So I've been thinking about horror movies lately (probably caused by seeing Final Destination 2 on television). To set all of my cards on the table, I have loved watching horror movies, especially the ones from the 80s that were cheesy and more comedic than scary. Many of today's horror movies have gone off into "torture porn" where gratuitous torture scenes fill just about every second of the movie. I cannot bear to watch those movies and their inherent sadism at depicting higher and higher levels of realistic torture is beyond my comprehension. I can't understand anybody deriving satisfaction from watching them, except for the fact that it speaks to the unthinkable levels of sin to which we as humans are capable of sinking were it not for 1.)The indwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers and 2.)God's common grace in restraining evil in the world in general.

It got me to thinking about the genre of horror movie in general (tame and over-the-top) and whether Christians should watch them in general. My natural thought was then to do a word study on "fear" in the Bible to see what the Bible says about fear.

The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (TWOT) notes this about the Hebrew word for fear and its usage in the Bible:
"biblical usages of yārēʾ are divided into five general categories:1) the emotion of fear, 2) the intellectual anticipation of evil without emphasis upon the emotional reaction, 3) reverence or awe, 4) righteous behaviour or piety, and 5) formal religious worship."

From that entry alone, we can see that some forms of fear--those connected with reverence and awe of a superior--are right to be had. Examples of this would include: Leviticus 19:14, 2 Kings 17:34, and Deuteronomy 17:19.  Yahweh's covenant people are to "fear" Him and give Him the proper respect and devotion due to Him (it is interesting to note that obeying God's commands are a way to express "fear" of Him--fodder for another blog post sometime). However, it's also obvious that this sort of fear is not that which horror movies intend to instill in people.

Negative examples of fear (probably falling under TWOT's first usage) include: Genesis 26:7 (Issac feared to call  Rebekah his wife due to what he perceived as a threat upon his life), Genesis 31:28 (Jacob fears what he thinks Laban will do), Genesis 32:11, 42:35, 43:18; Exodus 2:14, 14:10, 34:30; Numbers 14:9, 21:34; Deut 1:21, 3:2, 3:22, 7:18; 1 Samuel 3:15, 4:7, 18:12, 29; Jeremiah 42:11; Zechariah 3:15; many other references could be listed here.  I'm actually surprised at all of the occurrences of "fear" in the Old Testament. 

Ultimately, it seems that fear in the Bible is associated with a lack of trust. The Israelites are not to fear bigger armies, strong warriors, mighty kings, etc. Fear as an emotion seems to betray a lack of trust in what Yahweh is able to accomplish. It is an emotion expressed in the face of overwhelming threats. Fear seems to be the opposite of trust. Outside of religious contexts, it is seen as being a negative emotion.
The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) seems to confirm this. It states, "We often find fear of specific people, Mk. 6:20; Mt. 25:25; Lk. 19:21; Ac. 9:26, or the whole people, Mk. 11:32; 12:12; Mt. 14:5; 21:26, 46; Lk. 20:19; 22:2; Jn. 7:13; 9:22; 19:38; 20:19; Ac. 5:26; Gl. 2:12...The significance of fear as a relational term may be seen in the fact that all hampering anxiety is rejected whereas fear of God cannot be separated from faith as a basic attitude of the man who depends wholly and utterly on God."

So if the only proper object of fear is God and the emotion of fear as lack of trust is seen as being a negative thing and something which God's people are not to have, should we watch movies that fall within the "horror" genre where the entire purpose is to elicit fear?  It seems to me that a Biblical worldview answer would be "No" (and that's not even referencing Philippians 4:8 [whatever is pure, etc.]).

Thoughts, clarifications, nuances, disagreements are welcome.

Soli Deo Gloria