THE horror movie they have long been one of the most followed and debated forms of entertainment. From classics like Dracula to modern successes like The Conjuring, this type of film (without forgetting other art forms such as books, video games…) invite the audience to immerse themselves in emotions that touch deep chords: fear, tension and suspense. But what drives us to deliberately seek these sensations? Why do many of us experience attraction and cognitive pleasure for big-screen terror? At first glance, this might seem like a paradox, given that, as human beings, we are led to flee from threatening or distressing situations. However, the pleasure that comes from watching a horror film has its roots in a combination of cultural factors, personal experiences and ancient evolutionary mechanisms. We understand on a psychological level what happens.
The cathartic function of horror
According to the theory of catharsisthe horror genre allows viewers to release repressed emotions such as fear, anger and anguish in a safe and controlled environment. In other words, watching scary scenes on the screen would allow us to live intense emotional experiences without the real consequences that these would entail in daily life.
Through horror it is possible to give vent to collective and social anxieties. In films like Night of the Living Dead or The Purgefor example, we find fears related to social unresteconomic inequalities or political crises. Horror films, in this sense, function asmirrors of society” or their accentuated character, exposing collective fears which, thanks to fiction, can be recognised, faced and processed (Clover, 1992).
The search for strong emotions
From a psychological point of view, Marvin Zuckerman links the attraction to horror films to a form of thrill-seeking or sensation seeking. This theory describes the human impulse to search new, intense and exciting experienceseven at the “risk” of experiencing sensations such as fear.
According to the “emotional control theory“, on the other hand, watching horror films helps viewers to improve their ability to manage emotions perceived as negative. The fear induced by the film is, in fact, a controlled fear: we know that it is caused by fictitious scenes and that we can interrupt their viewing at any moment. This mechanism offers the opportunity to experience real fears (such as death or the unknown) in a safe context, allowing us to face them and, in some way, to “practice” managing them.
The origin evolvedit’s about fear
There fear it developed as species conservation tool. Experiencing and overcoming fear in a safe context, such as that offered by cinema, allows us to face fears that are part of our human history, such as the dark, predators and the unknown. As Paul Ekman’s theory of emotional evolution (1992) highlights, fear it’s not just a defensive responsebut also a precious opportunity for learn and adapt.
Another significant contribution to the analysis of fear comes from Ernest Becker, who, in his book The Denial of Death (1973), explores how the awareness of our mortality is a major source of human anxiety. Horror films represent an explicit way to confront death, offering viewers a symbolic form to process this fear and to face the cultural taboos that surround it. Becker argues that societies create rituals and narratives to manage anxiety related to mortality, and the horror genre could be interpreted as a modern version of these rituals.
Finally, the anthropologist Mary Douglas, in her book Purity and Danger (1966), highlighted how human societies tend to separate what is considered pure from what is considered impurebuilding social taboos and fears. Horror films often play on these distinctions, staging monsterssupernatural creatures, or shocking moral violations the symbolic order of the company. The appeal of horror could derive precisely from the pleasure of symbolically breaking these barriers, exploring the boundaries between chaos and order, life and death, natural and supernatural.