Your logic makes sense, but there's something special about visual imagery - the way the images go directly into our brains without being filtered through our imaginations - that gives it true power.
When I was a kid, I read a lot of horror. Mostly Stephen King, and Clive Barker, which were far more than my 8-year-old self should have been reading, but for the most part, I could handle it, just fine. (Stephen King's It was really the only book that scared me beyond the moments I was reading). On the other hand, the violent films I saw (Aliens, Robocop, etc) proved much harder to shake off. Remember the end of Robocop where they guy gets toxic waste dumped all over him, and his flesh starts dripping off? I spent weeks trying to get that image out of my head. Hell, even the end of Raiders, or the Ceti Eels from Wrath of Khan disturbed me far more than anything I read.
As an adult, I watched Devils Rejects - a truly great film that I cannot recommend to anyone because of how disturbing I found some of the imagery in that.
Or, to take a real life example - plenty of us are fine with reading accounts of terrorist beheadings but purposefully avoid watching the videos of the events.
Just to show how different people are, my experience was the opposite. My parents never censored anything (within reason), but reading let my imagination fill in the blanks to a more disturbing level than movies could offer. Even stories from pretty silly books like "Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark" would leave me freaked out for days, and then of course I would go back and read them again like an idiot. Audio tapes by Jackie Torrence, a great storyteller, would also get me good. Meanwhile I could watch all the classic horror movies, Freddy, et al. without as much issue...still scary as hell but in a more superficial, short-term way. It also could have something to do with the fact that I watched movies with other people, whereas reading/listening I was usually alone in my bed at night.
You have a point about terrorist beheadings though...can't watch them. I guess cause I know it's real life and the empathy is too much.
Oh, man. I totally forgot about "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark". Yeah, those freaked me out. Granted, the drawings in those books were pretty gruesome, but the stories themselves were pretty scary. Totally forgot about that.
No movie ever scared me as much as stories. Because you can always close your eyes. But horrible story gets straight into your brain before you even know it's scary and stay there invoking horrors.
When I was a kid, I read a lot of horror. Mostly Stephen King, and Clive Barker, which were far more than my 8-year-old self should have been reading, but for the most part, I could handle it, just fine. (Stephen King's It was really the only book that scared me beyond the moments I was reading). On the other hand, the violent films I saw (Aliens, Robocop, etc) proved much harder to shake off. Remember the end of Robocop where they guy gets toxic waste dumped all over him, and his flesh starts dripping off? I spent weeks trying to get that image out of my head. Hell, even the end of Raiders, or the Ceti Eels from Wrath of Khan disturbed me far more than anything I read.
As an adult, I watched Devils Rejects - a truly great film that I cannot recommend to anyone because of how disturbing I found some of the imagery in that.
Or, to take a real life example - plenty of us are fine with reading accounts of terrorist beheadings but purposefully avoid watching the videos of the events.