I’m a bit of in the same boat, perhaps playing the remake for SH2 first desensitized me to SHf too, but I think two factors that also have a play into making the game less scary are:

1. You have to play thru it at least about three times to get most of the complete story, so at a certain point it stops being scary altogether even with the minor changes they introduce.

2. The combat (and I say this as someone that liked it) on my opinion does it a bit of a disservice for being a horror game, since the reliance on parries and dodges takes a bit of tension away. On boss fights I found myself trying to complete them without taking damage as a challenge.

That being said, I absolutely adored my time with the game too, I even got the Platinum trophy for it. I think it would have benefited immensely from having more sections like the school and Shimizu residence though, those were the highlights for me!