Page 23 - Corette-October-2021

The Psychology Behind:

Horror Movies

By Ingrid Donahue ‘25

“...spellbound by the horrendous things onscreen.”

Imagine this; it’s fall, vaguely pummpkin-scented candles are lit, and most of the leaves are already in
leafpiles. You and your friends are watching the latest installment of a horror series, and the crazy villian of
the story is about to reach the last character of the story. You are completely spellbound by the horrendous
things onscreen. Or, you count the seconds until it’s over and wish you were watching anything else. While
sitting in silence, you probably wonder; why am I doing this to myself? And why would I do this again?

FOR: AGAINST:

So why do people like them? Well, nobody While many people like horror movies of
knows for sure. Some researchers, like Dr. Deirdre all styles and ages, there are some people who
Johnston in a 1995 paper, think their personality can’t stand them. One piece of evidence that
traits influence theri reasons for watching, which explains their stance is that they might be highly
she calls “gore watching, thrill watching, indepen- sensitive to their environment, causing “a more
dent watching, and problem watching.” If you were intense physiological reaction to violent or scary
in the first two groups, you typically were very movies”, says Elaine Aron, Ph. D. In other words,
sensation-seeking, and if you were in the latter you your fear response is heightened compared to
were highly empathetic for the victim. The third-to- the average person. Also, relating too much to
last in particular, independent watching, felt happy a scary movie can keep you from watching them
about overcoming their fear while watching it; again. People might “suffer...emotional fallout if
pretty cool! Another theory , according to Malcolm something in the environment reminds them of a
Turvey, a Film & Media studies professor at Tufts scene;” says Glenn Sparks, a professor at Purdue
University, is that “the process where people find University. Undestandably, most people try to
out the nature of the monster- it’s powers, it’s avoid that.
weaknesses, where it came from...” is what com-
pels us to keep watching. There are many more,
but I can’t list them all here, since I only have one However, no matter what you choose to
page!
watch this fall, I bet we can all agree on one thing;
horror movies are terrifying!

page designed by Ingrid Donahue ‘22 and Maura Peters ‘23 Issue 4 OCTOBER 2021 23