Why Fear Can Be Fun

"I delight in what I fear." — Shirley Jackson

 

I love scary movies, haunted houses, horror novels—the macabre and the morbid. I revel in that moment immediately after I'm startled and spooked. You know the feeling I'm talking about: the gush of air leaving your lungs when you realize you're safe, the nervous laughter at having been faked out in fright. I even enjoy roller coasters—the anticipation as the car ratchets up the hill and that breathless moment of powerlessness as I crest the top and plunge downward.

From the popularity of Halloween and amusement parks, I suspect I'm not alone in my love of fear. (The fear I choose, anyway...real-life fear is a whole different story.)

 

Though I don't seek out "slasher flicks" such as Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street (can't stand the insipid-helpless-heroine stereotype), give me a good psychological thriller like Silence of the Lambs or Psycho and you'll find me clutching the edge of my seat, knuckles white, heart racing—a smile on my face.

 

I'm also a sucker for almost everything Stephen King has written. I count Misery as the scariest book I've ever read. I had to read it in the mornings because if I waited until night, I'd be visited by nightmares.

 

My love for all things horror-ific began when I was quite young. I remember my parents going to a drive-in movie to see The Sting when I was maybe eight. They thought I was asleep in the back seat and didn't realize I was actually peering out the back window watching The Exorcist on an adjacent screen. I couldn't hear the dialogue, but boy those visuals...

 

 

When I was a teenager, my mother introduced me to books such as Carrie and The Shining and The Stand. I remember wondering how King could use words to draw such deep and real characters. I was hooked. Next came Dean Koontz's The Key to Midnight, The Eyes of Darkness, and The Door to December—such beautiful prose devoted to such dark and spine-chilling themes.

 

But here's the question my love of horror elicits: Why am I, and so many others, drawn to those moments of primal fear? Why do we revel in that momentary experience of terror?

 

According to Robi Ludwig, PsyD, there's a "science behind the scream," and it's both physiological and psychological. https://www.today.com/health/why-do-we-be-scared-science-behind-scream-t166133

 

Physically, the fright we experience from the screen or images in a book triggers our fight-or-flight instinct, giving us a rush of adrenaline and subsequent endorphins and dopamine. It's a super-sized combo of hormones that our not-quite-evolved bodies still crave. Most of us no longer have to face down saber-toothed tigers or cave bears, but our brains retain remnants of hard-wiring that leave us searching for stimulation.

 

That makes perfect sense to me. Still, it is the psychological aspect that intrigues me most. It seems as if humans would want to avoid fear, yet we so often seek it out. 

Ludwig answers that by making the case that stage-managed fear helps us prove to ourselves we can handle more anxiety than we might have thought possible. Additionally, fictional fear allows us to vent pent-up emotional darkness. "Identifying with the dark side of human nature can be quite cathartic for us," Ludwig says.

 

I write fairly tame cozy mysteries—except for the murders, of course. Even so, I can relate to the concept of venting my pent-up emotional darkness. I always feel a bit lighter, a bit more tolerant, when I've killed off a bad guy or gal who exhibits traits I find annoying in real life. This pillow lives in my office:

 

 

Don't tell anyone, but I've definitely done that. And when I have the power to deal with those annoying people fictionally, I do find I handle them better in day-to-day life. When I read, watch, or create fictional monsters, I reduce the effect of the world's stressors, making me a kinder, more relaxed person.

 

At least, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

 

"We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones." — Stephen King

 

How about you? Do you love a good scare? If so, what's your favorite horror book/movie?