It’s officially October! Halloween is lurking around the corner. Let’s talk about scary movies and TV shows. Horror is my favorite genre, both when writing and when consuming. My interest in horror goes back to when I was a kid. My parents would let us watch scary movies under the condition that we cover our eyes any time a scary scene came on. This will probably shock you all, but little 6-year-old me peeked. Some of the more impactful (read: traumatizing) movies were: The Ring and The Grudge (gave me a panic attack every time I saw the screen turn to static – also, I had constant nightmares about pale girls with long black hair in a white dress looking like they finished being drowned in a well/bathtub), War of the Worlds and Signs (every branch scraping against my window became the first wave of an alien attack), and Darkness Falls (the tooth fairy could keep her change; I refused to risk accidentally seeing her and being condemned to a dark, terrible death). I also suffered from sleep paralysis which may or may not have been related. My childhood house was haunted as well. But that’s a story for another time.

With Halloween coming up, here are some of my recommendations:

The scariest movie, in my opinion, is Sinister. No contest. That ending… Those found-footage home videos…

My two favorite sub-genres are body horror and cosmic horror. As a trans woman, I can relate to the entire premise of body horror – that there are fates worse than death, see: Tusk, The Brood, The Fly, Alien, Under the Skin. I love writing stories about terrible things happening to terrible people. I read a lot of H.P. Lovecraft as a kid. The whole gist of cosmic horror is the utter insignificance of humanity in the face of unfathomably massive and terrible (but not necessarily evil, just incomprehensible) forces, focusing on existential dread in the face of the unknown. It deals with madness, the danger of technological innovation (pushing the boundaries too far), and otherworldly entities exerting influence upon humanity. Examples include The Ritual, Event Horizon, The Endless, The Cabin in the Woods, The Evil Dead, The Thing, Annihilation. As someone who regularly has existential crises, it’s comforting to know that I’m not alone in that. Plus, it’s a fun exercise to write a description of an entity that is “indescribable.”

I enjoy older horror movies because I feel like a lot of modern movies are over reliant on special effects at the expense of story. There are the many Stephen King novels that have been turned into movies – Pet Cemetery, Graveyard Shift, Creepshow, Children of the Corn (a series in which each sequel somehow gets worse than the last), The Shining, Misery, Carrie… I could go on! The you have Cronenberg’s body horror (The Brood and The Fly being my two favorites); The Thing, Evil Dead, Candyman (original, though the remake is really good too!). That isn’t to say there are not a ton of great new horror movies! In terms of new(er) movies, anything by Jordan Peele (Us being my favorite); there are the big series — reliable, if not always the best (Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, Final Destination, Saw, Alien); The Hills Have Eyes, CHUDs, and Wrong Turn with their cannibalistic mutants; found footage (Paranormal Activity, Blaire Witch Project), a subgenre built around mediocracy that thankfully seems to be going out of style. A lot of modern horror has become fairly self-referential, acknowledging the heavy reliance on conventions by the genre, such as Fear Street: Part One through Three; The Babysitter and its sequel.

Recently, I’ve felt that TV horror is starting to come into its own. I don’t usually like slashers, but Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin was wonderful. Of course, American Horror Story (Asylum, Freakshow, and Hotel being my top three seasons) must be mentioned. Then there is The Walking Dead, probably the best take on zombies and a great exploration of how humans would react to a catastrophic breakdown in society. Some other shows worth watching: Archive 81, Midnight Mass, Lovecraft Country, Them. Though not particularly scary, there are also shows like The Chilling Tale of Sabrina, Black Mirror, and Penny Dreadful which often takes on the genre that make for compelling TV.

I’m sure there are a lot of movies that I missed on this list. Now that that’s out of the way, I would like to talk about why people like horror movies.

I love horror. But why? Am I just some sick weirdo who enjoys watching people suffer? Perhaps. Still, that doesn’t explain the extensive success of the genre. It seems counterintuitive – how can something designed to elicit negative emotions be pleasurable?

Let’s go to Freud, who, in a 1919 essay, claims that horror comes from the ‘uncanny’ activating the Id’s primitive, unconscious fears, desires, and urges. The manifestation of the uncanny triggers reoccurring thoughts lying in our consciousness but repressed by the Ego to the point of unfamiliarity. Like most of Freud’s work, I’m not totally sure what that means, so let’s just move on.

Meanwhile, Jung theorized that horror activates deep, primeval archetypes buried in our collective subconscious. There are universal fears such as death or the unknown; haunted house/possession stories are particularly relevant to the uncertainty of what happens after death. Zombie movies and post-apocalyptic settings speak to a prevalent concern on what would happen if there were a breakdown in society. Much horror serves as commentary on current societal, cultural issues.

Some other theories for why we like fright are catharsis; the releasing of some negative emotions in an imagined setting can also burn off our real-life worries and negative feelings. Additionally, movies allow us to adventure risk-free, as one can always opt to leave a movie at any point. Novel experiences can contribute to a sense of accomplishment (you made it all the way through that scary movie! Good job!) and makes us feel more adventurous and daring. Cool.

Humans are fundamentally curious beings. Horror gives us a pass to imagine the darkest sides of humanity. We get insight into what humans are capable of when placed in the most extreme, dangerous, and challenging situations. Personally, I’m fascinated by serial killers. I’ve been watching the new series on Jeffery Dahmer on Netflix. I would recommend it. There is a difference here between fictional horror and documentary style horror. With most horror, we are aware that these are only actors on a screen. But with documentaries, we must confront the harsh reality that this happened, that real people experienced these events. There are three protective frames that are important predictors to if one will enjoy fear. The first is physical safety, the knowledge that there is a distance between us and the scare. If we believe that the monster might actually come out of the TV screen (I’m looking at you, The Ring), that makes fear no longer fun. The second is detachment; we know they are just actors. Seeing a clip of a real death is a totally different (and potentially traumatizing) experience compared with seeing a movie death. The third is confidence in one’s ability to control and manage danger – sitting safely in a movie theatre versus being in a dark alley with a murderer. The absence of any of these three conditions significantly reduces one’s preference for horror. This explains how we are able to enjoy things in movies that would be awful to actually experience.

Unlike other genres, Horror movies uniquely tap into our physiology by stimulating our fear system. This fear system is the product of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution that allows us to respond quickly to ancestrally relevant threats – the things that kept our distant predecessors up at night, particularly fears of predation and contagion. As science writer David Quammen puts it, “among the earliest forms of human self-awareness was the awareness of being meat;” being captured by a predatory animal is an innate fear exploited by many horror movies such as Cujo, Graveyard Shift, and all zombie (a contagious predator) movies.

Evolution has wired our brains to be extremely aware of threats, so we know when to remove ourselves to safety. A study where people of all ages were timed while finding either a flower or a snake in a picture found that children as young as three are capable of discerning possible threats (snakes) from their environment significantly quicker than finding a neutral stimulus (the flower). These 3-year-olds were even significantly faster at detecting snakes posed to strike than snakes in general. We are also hardwired to fear the dark, where our poor night-vision places us at a disadvantage to the various predators that stalked prehistoric humans. Putting us on edge encourages self-defense and situational awareness. This instinct still protects us from dangerous situations to this day. Who hasn’t felt creeped out while walking home alone late at night? There is a reason that one should always trust their gut if a situation feels wrong, even if you can’t consciously think of the reason why. That gut feeling is the voice of thousands of generations of your ancestors screaming GET OUT OF THERE! Speaking of screams, screams function to alert others to danger and scare off attackers. We dislike abandoned places because it means that some other humans had good reason to abandon all the hard work of constructing a community and we should not stick around to find out why! Any good horror movie makes use of these instinctual threat responses to ratchet up the tension on screen.

The impulse to immerse oneself in threat scenarios is adaptive. Think about many games played by children such as tag (what to do when something is chasing you) or hide-and-seek (how to disguise yourself from potential threats) involve skills that would have kept prehistoric humans safe. We have evolved to find pleasure in these simulations because of the inherent learning opportunities. By playing with fear, we become familiar with the dangers of the world and figure out how we respond to these threats. These games offer a risk-free chance to practice and hone fear regulating strategies in a way that increases our resilience. Similarly, horror movies provide a context in which we inadvertently practice emotional regulation; recreational fear makes us better at managing our real-life fears and anxieties. A recent study revealed that horror fans experience less psychological distress due to COVID lockdowns than those who don’t enjoy horror.

More than any other genre, horror relies on tropes. This is because they work by bypassing our conscious processes and hitting us right in our primal instincts. Let’s take jump-scares for example. There is a special circuit linking our ears to spinal neurons that is triggered by a sudden, loud, unexpected noise. Within 50 milliseconds from hearing the noise, this pathway triggers our body to jump/flinch and release adrenaline – with no conscious involvement. Then there are the soundtracks – horror movies often involve ‘nonlinear chaotic noise’ that triggers a biologically ingrained response. For example, a baby’s cry triggers something in us that causes us to worry that the baby is in danger. We have a similar response to cries of animals in distress – many successful movies rely on animal cries, real or simulated, to convey the feeling that something is wrong. In Psycho’s shower-murder scene, the music imitates a bird’s cry electronically to punctuate each stab.

In terms of music, minor chords evoke a feeling of sadness. Rapidly rising notes and increasing tempo trigger a physical response that increases bodily activity. The best example of this would be Jaws, with its dundun, dundun, dun-dun-dun-dun… you know what I mean. The tempo increases, the pitch rises as the shark gets closer and closer. Then, silence, the peak of the suspense, followed by the sudden sound as the shark attacks.

The body responds to the events on screen physiologically – the tension actually increases our blood pressure, respiration rate, heart rate (one study finding that horror movies increase the heart rate by 14 beats per minute!) – also, interestingly, white blood cell counts increase, as if the body is preparing to fight off an intruder. The muscles tense up and cortisol (a stress hormone) is released. Once our conscious mind can assess the situation and conclude that we are not in danger, we feel a wave of relief. After the tension has achieved its activating effect, it is released, causing the brain to release a flood of feelgood chemicals such as dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin, and adrenaline.

Horror movies rely on this buildup and release. Our instincts are manipulated in a way that causes the brain to respond chemically. It is this activation and deactivation of automatic processes that causes us to enjoy the fear prompted by horror movies. One such process is fight-or-flight – first, it triggers all those tense physiological symptoms. Since we are in a safe place while watching a movie, fight-or-flight is resolved as soon as the brain realizes there is no real threat – at which point, it rewards us with a flood of feelgood chemicals. The release of chemicals is an adaptive evolutionary trait that encourages successfully resolving a threatening situation.

Dopamine causes us to feel pleasure. Endorphins (which are essentially opioids made by the body) manage pain and decrease stress by making us feel relaxed and refreshed. Fright triggers adrenaline, which heightens sensations and fills us with energy. Stressful conditions release oxytocin, which leads to bonding by facilitating closeness and affinity for others in our group; it is an evolutionary benefit for difficult situations to bring people together. We are social creatures, after all. Horror movies invoke a highly stimulating experience followed by a sense of intense relief after the positive conclusion of the experience.

So, basically, horror movie hack into some of the oldest, most primal parts of our brains for fun. It’s just something to keep in mind as Halloween creeps ever closer. While there is an emerging field of neurocinema, that is a very recent development. I find it fascinating that horror movies have evolved over the history of cinema to naturally select for these instinct-priming features. It’s natural selection at work: the more in sync with our brains, the more successful the movie. Art imitates life.