Why do I Love Horror?

     I love horror films, I have since I was a little kid. And not only do I love them but I love every aspect of the genre, I love bad horror movies, great ones, how they're made and what goes into the psychology of creating a truly scary movie.

     The question was proposed: why? Why do I love seeing all that gore or suspense or why do I enjoy seeing a character that harms people? The question why is an interesting one and I want to explore that in me and in society. Let's get into it.

     Starting with me, I saw my first horror...well suspense movie when I was 2 years old. It was the first movie I ever watched, I watched a scene on a beach when a woman was swimming and something grabbed her. Jaws made a huge impact on me at that young age and my first reaction (as I've been told by relatives many many times) was how I saw the movie from the shark's point of view. At 2 years old, I cried when they killed the shark because my innocence didn't understand the shark was endangering people. 

But here's something that ALSO happened subconsciously: that movie put my fears into a box. At the time I'm sure I had simple fears; things that a 2-4 year old are scared of can be considered simple to us at 20-30 or older, right? A few years later when I was dealing with family abuse and being bullied and not fitting in, things that teenagers deal with, and I realized that those horror movies became an escape and it taught my mind how to put fear in a box.

     Here's the societal part of this: more often than not, we find ways to cope with terrible things by putting our fears in a certain box. If we contain our fear, whether it's by running away from it or putting a face on it or running at it head on, just about everyone puts their personal fear in a box.

George Romero explained Night of the Living Dead as his depiction of aids, racism and anything that we face that cannot be stopped no matter how far away it is and how slowly it comes at us. That movie gave death (something we can try but never outrun) a face and a mental idea of how to look at it, we put death in a box with zombie movies. These fears or concepts are hard to fathom and can be destructive to our conscious minds, so gaining some control over how we understand these can be really helpful in truly grasping what they can be or do. 

     Another thing I personally use on a regular basis that came from horror films is sensitivity to situations, to people and to real life potential dangers. Probably the most relatable example of this is from a 2003 movie that shows a traffic scene where a truck holding logs is in front of the protagonist. It definitely created some over thinking of that particular scenario but the positive thing it DID do was give many of us a sensitivity to our own surroundings. 

We watch movies where a masked villain is following  the main character and we, as a society, look around when we're in situations where there could be someone following us later in life. And again, though we'll have many times where we're overanalyzing moments, there are times when wedevelope more sensitivity to actual dangerous times and have caught ourselves before entering actual danger.

     So in answering this question, it's been eye opening to dissect and figure out why I love horror movies on both a conscious and subconscious level. I think those of us who are able to see these films and hear these stories with our subconscious open to what the underlying lesson is can actually help in ways. All of that is said with the knowledge that there is a 'too much' of literally everything, so limiting even favorite things is always smart. And not liking horrors only means you are in a different phase or you aren't in need of quarantining some aspects of life, it's very interesting to be in every phase of your subconscious life.

     If this helped you in any way, please let me know. We can learn a lot from why we enjoy things we enjoy and how we react to things. Thank you for reading this far and I hope you have a legendary day!