On my recent sabbatical I had time to watch a “slasher movie” titled “Heart Eyes.” The antagonist is a serial killer who wears an ugly mask with heart-shaped cuts around the eyes. Had some humor in it, whether unintentional or not.
It is theorized that people watch this stuff because the vicarious fear for the helpless victim chased by the armed monster safely gives them a little bit of an adrenaline dump. The murderer is always chasing said helpless victim, one step behind.
For people like me, and probably you, it generates the thought: “If that helpless victim only had a gun and knew how to use it…”
That “knew how to use it” part is critical. “Heart Eyes” has a scene where the female protagonist picks up a Glock dropped by a cop the killer has murdered, and just about empties it without hitting the perpetrator.
I can’t blame Hollywood. If they’d had a heroine who could have just blown the murderer’s brains out, the audience would only get the small dopamine hit of seeing the bad guy receive his just desserts, the movie would have been over after only a few minutes, and the audience would be storming the ticket counter asking for their money back.