As children, we're told to avoid staying home alone,talking to strangers, and putting ourselves in dangerous situations. Why is it then, as we age, we seek out movies completely contradictory to what our parents/grandparents/adults told us? What is it about horror movies that keep us coming back for more? Even children seek the thrill of being scared. I can recall being around six years old and asking my parents to "tell me a scary story!" People pay good money to sit in a theater for two hours and be frightened--on purpose. Bear with me in the next few paragraphs as I try to answer the question, "Why do we pay to be scared?"
To figure out why we like to experience fear, we need to have a good, working definition of fear itself. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines fear as "an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger" (Merriam-Webster, 2007). It's the idea that some hidden, dreadful harm might befall us if we, say, go up to the "haunted" attic, look under the bed, or peek in the closet. Movies are a way for us to explore that danger without actually putting ourselves in harms way. By watching horror movies, we can explore primal human emotions without(pardon the pun) fear of being looked down upon by our peers. We can face our internal fears without worrying about physical or social harm.
Most of the time, we attend movies to escape reality for a bit. Few would deny that it's nice to sit in a dark theater for a brief period and immerse oneself in an imaginary world, away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. When it comes to horror movies, however, we ironically put ourselves in a place we would never want to be in real life. This may be due to the safety offered by the situation. The difference between horror in the movies and horror in real life is we can choose to press the "pause" button or leave the theater when things become too scary. We maintain a sense of control; yet we're still able to get that momentary rush. All of this is well and good...but it still doesn't answer the question of why we want that rush, and why we choose to get it through such movies as The Exorcist, Carrie, or the Nightmare on Elm Street series.
As I mentioned before, movies as a medium allow us to explore aspects of humanity and society without engaging in the practices or ending up in the situations ourselves. We can look at the situation from the point of view of an outsider, make our judgments, and leave the theater without any lasting consequences (other than a possible nightmare). Another point is, with many horror movies, we know that danger is imminent before the characters even have a clue. Directors and writers utilize suspenseful music, shady lighting, and off-beat camera techniques to "clue us in."
Horror movies give us the opportunity to be "smarter" than the characters onscreen and thus give ourselves a mental "pat on the back" for having the ability to navigate sticky situations. In other words, for some, horror movies can be an ego trip. We're smarter than the "dumb" character who just had to go running up the stairs to where we know the big, bad monster is hiding, waiting to kill the innocent (yet gullible) victim. In this aspect, we are able to retain control of an otherwise unnerving situation and thus not be paralyzed with fear in the same way as the characters.
When it comes down to it, one hundred people can watch the same horror movie and each of them can come away with a different idea of the movies internal meaning. Still, at the end of the day, there is one common factor of us all: the investigation of that primal human emotion, fear, is something that will continue to intrigue us for many years to come.
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