Horror movies often work better when we have a stake in the game. The more we care about the characters, the more human they are to us, the more appealing they are to us and the more effective the horror tends to be.
Stephen KingPeople think first love is sweet, and never sweeter than when that first bond snaps. You've heard a thousand pop and country songs that prove the point; some fool got his heart broke. Yet that first broken heart is always the most painful, the slowest to mend, and leaves the most visible scar. What's so sweet about that?
Stephen KingAlthough emotionally delicate and eminently bruisable, teenagers are short on empathy. That comes later in life, if it comes at all.
Stephen KingWhen it comes to horror there's a strange need to analyze. When "evil children" fad happened, there was The Exorcist and The Other and The Omen. People would say, "What this really means is that Americans don't want to have kids anymore. They feel hostility towards their own children. They feel they're being tied down and dragged down." In fact, in most cases, what those books are about is nice children who are beset by forces beyond their control.
Stephen King