It was a dark and stormy night; perfect for a scary movie. Horror films or shows can be exciting and entertaining, but they can also be disturbing and unethical. It really depends on the person, as everyone has slightly different levels of tolerance when it comes to the most chilling genre.
According to retired Psychology teacher Greg Goddard, although he personally doesn’t like horror movies, he can understand where horror enthusiasts see the appeal.
“It lets them [viewers] live out something they know may not happen in reality, but they wonder what it might be like. It also explores, especially when it deals with humans, the extreme in human behavior,” Goddard said. “People are somewhat attracted to what is very extreme in human behavior, whether it be good, or in some cases evil.”
Junior Faye Miller said her current favorite movie is Thanksgiving, but she also dislikes parts of it due to the gore, as it can be hard to watch.
“My favorite scary movie right now is Thanksgiving, because it’s one of the most recent movies I have watched and it was really good,” Miller said. “It’s also a little disturbing though, and you might throw up a little bit while watching.”
Junior Sarah Tirado said she likes horror movies for the spine-tingling storylines, but especially enjoys the experience when she watches them with friends.
“I like horror movies because the plot is really interesting in some of them, and it’s fun to watch them with people and get scared together,” Tirado said.
According to Goddard, watching horror movies has been proven to have physical effects on the audience.
“Physically, there’s research to support the fact that chemicals in your body get emitted from either the anticipation of something that will be fearful, or actual experience of fear. The fight or flight response in your body is activated and adrenaline is released,” Goddard said.
According to Tirado, she doesn’t have any lasting effects after watching horror movies, but finds the thrill exciting.
“They scare me in the moment, but then afterward it’s not that scary,” Tirado said. “I think people like to be scared because it’s fun.”
Miller said she’s found some negative effects of horror movies that include lasting fear and paranoia.
“Some of them can be very psychologically disturbing, and can make people act differently, get scared and paranoid,” Miller said. “Sometimes I get scared to walk around my house at night and to be home alone, or sometimes it’s hard to sleep after seeing a movie that scary.”
Goddard said horror movies can bring up triggering, unpleasant and uncomfortable feelings for some viewers, especially those with high levels of empathy.
“Those who have high empathy have a hard time watching [horror movies], because they don’t like to see people in harm, afraid or even threatened,” Goddard said. “If you have experienced trauma, that might be correlated with anything you see that’s related to the horror that’s going on, and it could be a trigger.”
