Halloween is almost here which means haunted houses, Halloween TV specials, and horror movie marathons! I’m usually all about watching comedies but at this time of year you can catch me under a blanket watching a good scary movie. I love being scared. When you ask anyone who enjoys watching horror movies why they like watching them and being scared most people really don’t know.
Fear is mostly learned and what scares one person won’t necessarily scare another. The way our brains process fear is through the portion of our brain called the amygdala. We have two amygdalae in our brains but the right one is associated with fear learning.
So this where fear is processed but when watching a scary movie it was actually revealed that scary movies don’t activate our fear responses in the amygdala. This study was done using a brain scan in 2010 by Thomas Straube, and he found out that the parts of the brain that lit up during this scan were the visual cortex (responsible for processing visual information), the insular cortex(responsible for self-awareness), and the dorsal-medial prefrontal cortex(the part of the brain associated with planning and problem solving). These portions of the brain that lit up tell us that there are some other things going on in your mind when you watch a scary movie.
Now, the three main elements of horror films that make it alluring to watch, are the use of tension, their relevance, and unrealism. Tension is created through mystery, terror, suspense, gore and shock. These are the fundamentals of many horror movies. Relevance refers to the relevance the movie has on the viewers. This can be a universal relevance that captures the general fear of certain things like death and the unknown. Another form of relevance can be cultural relevance in terms of cultural or societal issues, and personal relevance, which is usually found in the form of a protagonist that can easily be related to. The third element that makes horror movies so appealing to their audiences is the element of unrealism. Despite how graphic some scenes can be, we ultimately understand that these movies aren’t real. The fictional nature of horror films allows viewers to gain a sense of control by placing psychological distance between them and the violent acts they are witnessing. Most people who view horror movies understand that the filmed events are not real, which gives them the assurance and the psychological distance from the horror portrayed in the film. In fact, that is why younger viewers will be more scared when watching a horror film because they will have a harder time separating the real from the unreal.
Of course, we can’t fully understand why all horror film fans love the genre because reasons can vary from personal experiences, preference, and even personality type.
The main idea here is that people like the feeling of being scared in a controlled environment where they are safe and unable to actually experience any
harm.
Personally, I think that being a student today is far more terrifying than anything we can encounter in a scary movie. It’s definitely fun to forget about school and real life for a bit and dive into a classic horror film. So grab a friend, a good movie, and unlimited candy, and enjoy this halloweekend!
Image Source(s):
http://geektyrant.com/news/heres-the-new-non-ghostface-mask-from-mtvs-scream-tv-show
http://themetapicture.com/a-terrifying-halloween/