I will never understand the appeal of horror movies
Psychologists can explain our horror movie fascination all they like but I will never understand why so many people get a buzz from watching grisly deaths and scaring themselves witless, writes Kerry Parnell.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the cinema, there’s another deluge of horror films filling our screens.
From the Pet Sematary remake — just opened — where a family brings their dead daughter back to life — to the disturbing child-killing The Curse of La Llorona, out Thursday, to another version of Child’s Play with an updated psycho Chucky doll, followed by the kid-slashing clown Pennywise returning in It: Chapter Two; yes, there’s a minor-murdering bonanza in a cinema near you.
I may sound like a total killjoy (although I’ll take that over enjoying watching kids being killed while I munch popcorn), but why is this entertainment? I could never stomach it before, and it’s even worse since I became a mother.
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Admittedly, I have always been a horror-lightweight. I almost fainted watching a screening of Wolf Creek — and not because I was seated behind the lovely David Stratton, which is enough to give any lady palpitations. I had to leave half way through and burst out of the cinema gasping for air.
Even silly old Blair Witch made me sick — I watched it on a flight and the combination of the tension, wobbly camera and turbulence sent me rushing to the toilets to throw up. I pushed past a queue of disgruntled passengers shrieking I was going to be sick on their shoes.
What made it even more embarrassing was the nine-year-old girl who was watching it in the seat next to me, found it — and me — funny.
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And I won’t ever be downloading the sequel Blair Witch, where the brother of one of the original victims heads back into that cursed wood to look for his sister. Because of course that’s what you’d do if your sister got massacred by a maniacal witch, isn’t it.
But why do we want to see so much horror? Why do we enjoy watching people meeting grisly ends and scaring ourselves witless?
Psychologists say we enjoy horror movies because of a combination of excitement at feeling scared and the ensuing euphoria when it is resolved. Our brains know we are not in real danger, so flood with endorphins and the resulting rush makes us come back for more.
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But Professor Ron Tamborini of Michigan State University argues the more empathy one has the less you can tolerate horror movies, particularly graphic ones.
I get that they aren’t real, and I enjoy a good thriller or ghost story, but I can’t physically watch someone being tortured and killed on screen — particularly children.
Where once it used to be taboo, now children are knocked off with abandon on everything from Game of Thrones to just about every detective series on TV. I don’t have much spare time and what I do have, I don’t want to fill with that.
Maybe the answer is to just watch actual kids’ movies. Admittedly this might turn you into a dumbo, but Dumbo at least makes you happy — and the world certainly needs that right now.
Having said that, I went to see Dumbo last week and sobbed like a mother when the elephant flies. The horror.
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