Horror can make us more resilient.
When Dr. Scrivner and his colleagues interviewed people for a study in the spring of 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, they found that horror fans reported experiencing less pandemic-related psychological distress than non-fans. Why? Nobody knows for sure, but one possibility is that if you’re used to feeling unease and uncertainty in movies, maybe you handle them better in other situations, too, said Marc Andersen, a psychologist who works with Dr. Scrivner at Aarhus University but was not involved in the study.
Watching horror movies can also help people think through how they would respond to threats. In Dr. Scrivner’s 2020 study, people who watched scary films involving depictions of mass chaos, such as alien invasions and apocalypses, said they felt more mentally prepared for the pandemic than people who didn’t watch those films. In March 2020, the movie “Contagion” — a 2011 thriller about a pandemic — became one of the most downloaded movies on iTunes, possibly because viewers could watch it and “in a sense begin to draft their own worst-case scenario manual,” Dr. Andersen said.
The desire to self-educate could also explain a love for true crime. After listening to a podcast about, say, a serial killer, I gain insight into what makes people commit such atrocities, and I’d like to believe I’d be more likely to spot a serial killer if I saw one. Research suggests that a majority of true crime fans are women, perhaps because they fear becoming crime victims more than men do and consider what they learn from the genre a means of protecting themselves. It provides a “behind-the-curtain view that presumably could help you avoid getting kidnapped,” Dr. Scrivner said.
Horror can help us understand ourselves, too.
People also engage with scary media to gain insight into themselves, the experts said. In a 2022 study, Dr. Scrivner, Dr. Andersen and their colleagues interviewed horror fans, including people attending a haunted house, about why they enjoyed scary experiences. Some participants said they appreciated learning about their reactions to fear. “You can kind of reflect on ‘Wow, I was really more scared than I thought I would be,’ or ‘Wow, I really reacted in a way that I didn’t think I would react,’” Dr. Scrivner explained.
After learning about all the reasons people engage with horror, I couldn’t help but wonder about my own rationale. I’m not much of a sensation seeker — I loathe roller coasters and will never, ever skydive — but I do deal with potential threats by learning as much as I can about them (one reason I love reporting this newsletter). Perhaps horror movies help me feel more in control of my emotions and better able to manage the terrifying situations I could one day encounter.
There’s one other reason I love horror movies, too: They remind me how fortunate I am. After watching “Halloween” every year, I feel grateful that I have never been chased by a psychopath with a knife.
Happy Halloween!
