I will say, from people I know how grew up in more rural areas, they definitely have their share of scary urban legends and ghost stories. Even in my town (which isn't so much rural since we're 9 miles away from st. louis, but on the edges of rural southern Illinois) has a lot of urban legends around the area.

Just from my experience, kids at that age love to scare themselves and go out to urban legend spots, etc. I can see adults being like "ugh, those kids obsessed with horror" but I don't really see her getting a lot of backlash in regards to her interest in horror, at least from her peer group, even a few decades ago. I could be wrong. But essentially what I'm saying is that I agree with you on her portrayal.