Why do we even like horror in the first place?
 

Hi fellow horror nerds!

I'm on a bit of a streaking reading up on the paradoxical appeal of the horror genre, a form of entertainment that paradoxically aims to make its audience feel bad. I think that, whatever explains why people such as myself would want to engage with horrific entertainment is bound to tell us a lot about human psychology. Whatever else you may think of the genre, you have to acknowledge that people's attraction to it is kind of weird.

Are you familiar with the work of horror researcher Mathias Clasen, for instance? He has a new TED video in which he addresses these questions. I find his evolutionary approach fascinating and even compelling. In a nutshell, he argues that horror represents a kind of danger simulator within which people can acquire adaptive experience with the dangerous and the unknown:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6St5R2bYMOY&t=

If you're familiar with his approach, what do you think about it? Are you persuaded? If not, what do you think accounts for the appeal of the genre?

Hoping to get a bit of a discussion going ::danger::

Honestly -- I always thought that's what the main "attraction" to horror was (prepping for future dangerous situations), and discussed that with others long ago. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's certainly not a new concept. In fact, at root, I'd say it predates Origin of Species, to simply saying it's prep work.

Cool stuff, Jenslyl, I look forward to checking it out. In particular, love to see what research may back up the theory.

Horror is weird. It contains weird images and ideas. That's why I like it. That's why I like SCIFI/fantasy.

But I think there is a sicker side to it. I do think I came to like it in my teens because it simply depicted people being killed. Maybe this is a spiritual thing. Seeing the body chopped up is a kind of exorcism of some kind. We are born into a body and are trapped in it. Maybe seeing it taken apart, damaged, releases us from the burden of being human. Killers in films are often less than human. Leatherface etc. But at the same time more than human.

They offer us a kind of transformation to make us more like them by killing us.

Maybe it is also appealing to a part of us that we CAN die. We generally feel immortal. Maybe it is more truthful to realise we are not. Maybe it is nice to know this life is not for ever.

I always thought that horror is like an escape from the real world for a short time---it is like you are in a dreamworld when I watch horror, is like a release for a spell....::devil::

Y'all ever hear that cut Pass the peas by the JB's? ....Well I'm gonna say like Bobby Byrd....

"Because it makes me Haaappy."

The sound of women shrieking in terror is like music to my ears. Shattering my illusion of what is safe, staining my mind and corrupting my thoughts with morbid imagery and prose give me joy. Tragedy, sorrow, death and macabre fill me with and increased lust for life.

As far as preparation and adaptation...seems to me like they paintin' with a pretty broad brush. Desensitized more likely....Media is not a mirror.

Yo Ftusk that's deep.... this skeleton I'm wearin' ain't got me trapped....but yeah, out on the scene and wanna kill the conversation? Just bring up the subject of horror.

I think horror films stir up the genetic hunting instinct. I also think the slasher films portray a ultra conservative desire to punish teenagers. Drinking, smoking dope, having sex and generally being free. Hippies.

They are also sexual. When a pretty woman gets impaled it has obvious overtones. I would say some horror films can attract twisted people.

So you mean the slasher writers are serving the "ultra conservative desire to punish teenagers" that virtually all audience members have? Or are you saying the slasher film producers/writers specifically have this ultra conservative desire?

Simply put: Watching horror scratches an itch.

Both. The writers just get it. We need to be shown. Interestingly it was during my teens that I liked this ethos.

OK, cause I was going to say there's nothing socially ultra conservative about slasher film producers,

fear of death

and youre all horny bastards

Well I know that when it comes to me personally horror has never scared me and yet it's my favorite genre. I think I like it because it's like a fantasy. I just like the idea of a world where things like zombies, ghosts, and demons exists.

I like horror because that is the first emotion to exist. The true us.

But seriously, I'm not afraid of horror movies because I have always known that they were not real even as a kid. I'm more afraid of the real dangers in life like getting robbed or murdered by criminals, coming down with a life-threatening illness, a bad storm destroying my house, nuclear war.... I think you guys understand what I mean.

To me horror movies with evil monsters trying to kill people is just a fantasy. Also I guess I like the survival aspect of horror movies and seeing who is smart enough (or lucky enough) to stay alive at the end of the movie.

Strong identification with the antagonists...er, protagonists...wait...

I have a fondness for both as a lot of GOOD horror movies show us that the humans are actually bigger monsters than the monsters themselves.

Also I have respect for the leading ladies in modern horror movies because they are usually the ones who defeat the monsters and stay alive in the end. Doesn't it feel like modern horror movies actually have tougher female characters than most action movies? 🤔

You should be afraid that you are incapable of suspending your disbelief. And if you are not watching them to be scared then you must be watching them because you like to see folk die.

You misunderstand me, I like watching them because I like monsters and because I like seeing how the survivor or survivors make it to the end (if there are any survivors). But mostly I just like the monsters and I think that the make-up and special effects that they use on them can be like works of art.

Just because I'm smart enough to realize that horror movies aren't real even though I still enjoy them doesn't mean that there is something wrong with me.

Don't you think basically everyone, who gets a scary thrill from a horror movie, knows it's not real? ::wink::

LOL! I got to read more of you posts, you're funny!

I think Fudge is nudging ya, Luv. Although, if you look a little deeper in what he said, any horror fan could dig deep and say, "hmm..."

There's a huge range of types and level of feeling fear... whether horror or suspense... it's not like it's ON or it's OFF.

Thrillers are suspenseful... there's an uneasy feeling about what you don't know, some confusion, some curiosity, some danger for the characters, some embarrassment, some anger. That's what Fudge is talking about... 'suspension of disbelief': you're able to identify with the main character, join them in the story, empathize with them. If you can't do that, if you feel no fear for them whatsoever... hmm... maybe you're missing something. ::wink::

Ah Ok, now I understand. 😊 Yeah I can really feel for the characters in a horror movie and sometimes I like to put myself in their shoes and think about how I would act in that same situation. Also thrillers with a good plot twist are awesome like in Carnival of Souls for example.

Uhhh...I like watchin' people die..I mean the suffering of the characters is one of the highlights of the genre. Is there somethin' wrong with macabre obsessions? Depends on which circle your in....

I don't think anything is wrong with that. I mean people watch action movies because they like to see the hero kill a lot of people and that's pretty much accepted as "normal".

It's wrong in all the right ways...That old tale The Monkey's Paw affected me when I was a child...I ended up takin' a porcupine foot to school to scare girls.

You're preaching to the choir. I was the kind of "weird" kid in school who convinced his classmates that he had evil powers and would put a curse on them if they messed with him. They all believed me too! I even once made a voodoo doll of my mom's friend who I hated and scared him into moving out of our house when he found it. I also like collecting weird stuff like real animal skulls and crystal stones and I have a fascination with the occult and anything dark and morbid.

Of course I don't actually enjoy seeing people get killed but that's just me.

Ok then, maybe I'll start with you. ::devil::

Maybe we are smart enough to know that believing them makes them more fun? Anyone can sit in front of a film saying "this isn't real". I make an effort to become engrossed.

Well of course I do the same thing, otherwise I would find the genre to be boring and uninteresting. I just mean that I don't get scared watching horror movies, and I don't watch them because I enjoy seeing people get slaughtered either. I have my own reasons for liking horror movies.I like seeing all of the cool monsters and I like seeing the main character (who is usually a female character) defeat the monsters in the end.

EDIT: Ah, who am I kidding? Sometimes it IS fun to see people get killed in a horror movie if they are ***holes who pretty much deserve it. Like that school teacher from Child's Play 2 or Trash from The Return of the Living Dead (and she came back in one of the coolest zombie resurrection scenes ever!).

Yeah just keep tellin' yerself it's not real ::big grin::
Corruption of innocence is a big hook fer me...

Of course, it's going to be different for everyone, but I got my love of horror from my dad. He would say, "Ohhh, we got a spooker!" A "spooker" being a scary movie, obviously.
I'll never forget, as a very little kid, telling my dad that I had discovered a new scary show. It was Scooby-Doo.
I think I still see horror movies as cartoons. As Yosemite Sam being shot out of a cannon. Not that they're funny, exactly, but I just like how unreal they are. The dark imagery and ideas appeal to me. Grown-up Scooby-Doo.

While im probably at bit older than you guys i also loved Scooby Doo but then again, Scooby Doo has been around for a long time! I love most horror for the mood it creates. I love 80's horror but i have a harder time with some of the "newer" horror. I hate the term torture porn but i guess along those lines.

I find it ironic how people refer to today's horror movies as "torture porn" when most of them aren't even as violent as the ones from the 70's, 80's, and 90's. In fact most horror movies that get released these days get a PG13 rating when back in the day it seemed like they were all rated R.

But yeah modern horror movies suck.

As i mentioned, i hate the term torture porn mainly because i dont know what one has to do with the other. Im referring to movies like Hostel or Saw etc. I love alot of the newer supernatural films. I cant even explain why Michael Myers slashing apart teenagers is any less real than Hostel but to me...it is.

Not to belabor my point, but the Scooby-Doo analogy is only meant to convey that I'm still entertained by how unreal horror films can be. I still like to be scared, and try to be scared, in the safe comfort of my own home.

Stephen King, in Danse Macabre, seems to think horror is a coping mechanism. The horrors of the real world are genuinely scary, so we watch horror and breathe a sigh of relief, "Well, at least I don't have a burnt-up wienie chasing me in my dreams!"

I never watched the Saw movies (and I have no intention of seeing them because they look stupid) but I thought Hostel was such a retarded movie. It wasn't scary, it was intentionaly offensive towards certain types of people, and I got the feeling that somebody enjoyed torturing animals when I was watching it. I guess those two movies are true examples of "torture porn", but most modern horror movies aren't like that at all. They're all either supernatural rip-offs of The Ring and The Grudge or fake documentaries like The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity. Or they're crappy remakes of great classics.

And yeah I think that fictional horror helps to distract us from the real horrors of the world because reality is much MUCH scarier.

I saw Hostel a few years back. What was intentionally offensive towards certain types of people? I'm not disagreeing with you, I just don't remember anything like that.

DBT, did you like watching the torturing/suffering of the characters in Hostel?

I forget which country it was set in (I think somewhere in Eastern Europe?) but it seemed to me like they were implying that everybody in that country was evil. You had people paying money to torture and murder tourists who came to that country and you had a gang of kids who murdered people over gum. Also just about every woman in the movie except for the two Japanese girls was a whore.

It kind of reminded me of how in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre all of the Texans were shown to be inhumane and evil.

The sound of women shrieking in terror is like music to my ears. Shattering my illusion of what is safe, staining my mind and corrupting my thoughts with morbid imagery and prose give me joy. Tragedy, sorrow, death and macabre fill me with an increased lust for life.

I am a fan of visceral cinema and horror is the only genre that delivers on this regularly. On one side it's good fun, mindless splatter, over the top characters and total escapism. On the other is shows the gritty dark and fucked up side of human nature with realism. It's one of the few genres that pushes boundaries.

Yeah right Bloof....wow..
Mods if you can hear me...for the love of Cthulhu...delete post! Delete post!

Wow, Luv, we think alike. After I posted my question to you, I remembered the Czech and Slovakia officials, likely prompted by their tourist constituents, said they were offended by the portrayal. And they should speak up, great opportunity to shop tourism to the Czech Republic and Slovakia...

If you pointed this out, I would have remarked that it's rather silly because it's not like Texans were offended by the portrayal of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre... cause not only is it fiction, every place has bad places or bad people...

But I forgot about the kids killing for bubblegum... I guess that would make people think the country was desperately depraved.

I like the director, Roth's response...

...throw fellow Americans' ignorance under the bus. Unfortunately, most Americans don't know Czech and Slovakia exist, along with 90% of the other countries of the world.

I guess I missed the car wreck. Let me guess, somebody (who starts with an "E") got tired of us ignoring his inciting posts?