I’ve never liked horror, and if I’m honest, I never understood those who do.
The gore and screaming are way too much for me; much to my partner’s amusement, I once had to stop watching the teen movie Divergent because I was too scared by a fleet of grey-suited guards.
But there must be a reason why people love it, right?
Well according to behavioural scientist Dr. Coltan Scrivner, there’s one common psychological reason people not only love horror but even find it reassuring ― and it makes more sense than I’d thought.
What is it?
Speaking to the American Psychological Association (APA), he said, “The traditional answer from psychology about why people have enjoyed watching horror films has been that it’s simply because they’re adrenaline junkies.”
And while that’s sometimes true ― as with people who climb mountains or do extreme sports for fun ― the doctor says his research suggests thrill-seekers only make up a small percentage of horror fans.
I guess that makes sense ― after all, not every horror fan also likes to enter dark caves or hang around sketchy abandoned buildings.
What was more common among lovers of the genre, Scrivner explained, was a kind of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” phenomenon.
“What we found was that a lot of people feel as if they learned something about themselves and sort of develop as a person through these experiences,” he told APA.
“You hear about this in real tragedies a lot, this kind of post-traumatic growth or ‘I’m glad I went through this or that, because I learned something and I grew as a person.’”
That can apply to everything from watching scary movies to playing terrifying games as a child, he says.
“These can help you feel out the limits of your fear and what you’re able to handle. And they in many cases can give you sort of self-confidence that you can overcome things that feel scary.”
Huh!
Yup! A 2004 paper published in the Journal of Media Psychology whittled horror movies’ appeal down to three reasons, too; tension, relevance, and unrealism.
Tension comes from the presence of psychological or physical danger in the movies, combined with a sense of mystery; relevance refers to cultural or personal experiences, or common fears (like death and violence), that hook a viewer.
Unrealism, meanwhile, seems to be the thing I’m lacking.
“Most people who view horror movies understand that the filmed events are unreal, which furnishes them with psychological distance from the horror portrayed in the film” and gives them a sense of control, the paper reads.
If someone could teach me to do that, maybe I’d be able to sit through a non-romcom movie without nearly fainting from fear...