Hopelessness and Scary Movies

I'll be completely honest. Scary movies scare the crap out of me. This past weekend I saw The Strangers and What Lies Beneath. As I watched them, I couldn't help but wonder: "why didn't they just give up?" It makes sense, you're trapped in some horror story and you know there's no way out. The thing that made the movies actually "scary" was that the audience (me) accepted the hopelessness of the characters. Feeling (empathizing with) that hopelessness made the movie so much worse. Its times like this when I'm thankful that there is a higher cause out there... there is hope... for real.