Scary Movies 5

[Katrine Freggiaro]

Inmy 20s, I loved scary movies. I would pour a strong drink (something I don't do anymore) and curl up on my couch, with a pillow to cover my eyes. This was in the era of the delivered Netflix envelope; I could have scary clowns or poltergeists or vengeful demons show up in my postal box every Friday.

It became a sort of addiction. I am a total wimp in real life, terrified of thunderstorms, confrontation, and election season. The movies were an outlet, a release, against a tightly controlled world I had orchestrated for years. The movies raised my heart rate, taking me right into fight or flight mode, which in some way helped work out the kinks of my stressful life. Also, they were kind of fun.

But, I only watched them with a full drink in my hand, of course. As a woman in recovery, there is a lot to say about the pattern I had established. A strong drink, paired with Isolating at home, wrapped up with a spooky denouement. My scary movie cycle was far from healthy.

There are some obvious issues with watching the type of movie that keeps us up at night. First of all? They literally keep us up at night. Good sleep is key for my mental state, and heightened nervousness brought on by a horror movie only shows up the next day by making me a zombie mom. A scary sight.

But more troubling was the increased feelings of dread paired with, strangely, apathy, these movies seemed to create in me. I came to the realization that my own anxiety and depression did not need to be dosed with dread on steroids that are offered up in a grim movie plot. I am now 50 years old, and something happened this year under the subheading of "Life's Too Short for This" that scary movies now fall under. Life's too short to feel extreme revulsion or fear for an hour and 45 minutes on a Friday night. Life's too short to view a protagonist in a horrifying situation and yet become numbed and disaffected by her fate. Life's too short for all of that.

One, watching them is like hearing an old song from my high school days; they take me back. And me, sitting on a couch with a very large drink and a very small soul, doesn't need to replay in my head. I know that revisiting the horror of my addiction once in a while is acceptable, if only to remind me who I was and what happened and who I am now. But movies are long. I don't need to hunker down in those icky feelings. They are to be acknowledged and valued, but not binged-watched.

And, now that I have some years of recovery under my belt, I realize my addictions are not just to alcohol. I crave feelings. The big kind. I am addicted to distraction, because any sort of boredom or discomfort sends all the alarms blazing in my head, telling me to do something fast. This gets me flustered, and addiction doesn't do flustered very well. A scary movie takes flustered and quickly trades it out for fear or squeamishness or any other sort of interesting spooky diversion. But I know enough now that this sort of flipping the switch ultimately leaves me more anxious, more tired, more lacking in peace.

One of my earliest childhood memories involves the horror section of a video store and what might have been my very first experience with anxiety. As I stood in front of hundreds of ghoulish-looking horror titles, I felt sick to my stomach, slick with cold sweat and trembling with fear. Suddenly, I was irrationally certain I was about to die.

To this day, I remain a huge horror fan. A part of me believes that my enjoyment of the genre helps me to deal with my anxiety. But I recently began to wonder if this coping mechanism was particular to me, or if it was more universal than that, and I began to ask the big question: Can watching horror movies really help to alleviate symptoms of GAD?

During this time I continued to meditate daily, monitor my anxiety symptoms, and studied my heart rate before, during, and after watching the films. To ensure the experiment was as effective as possible I chose five films that have genuinely terrified me in recent years. I chose a few movies that feature specific triggers for my anxiety, such as social violence, claustrophobic environments, and individuals experiencing fatal allergic reactions. Here's how it went.

As an asthmatic with a nut allergy, the film features an especially challenging scene that triggers some major anxiety and causes me some mental and physical discomfort. While viewing this scene (and for several minutes following it), I actually experience some shortness of breath and feel physically restless.

I experienced intense nausea during several scenes as well as other physical symptoms of GAD, such as pins and needles and heart palpitations. As a result, the film left me feeling distinctly unsettled and even heightened my anxiety symptoms after I shut off the television, to the point where I experienced trouble sleeping.

The movie neither heightened nor alleviated my anxiety, but it did give me a strange sense of confidence and achievement afterward. I managed to make it through a movie that primarily revolves around one of my main anxiety triggers without experiencing a single symptom.

By signing up you agree to our User Agreement (including the class action waiver and arbitration provisions), our Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement and to receive marketing and account-related emails from Allure. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

I was less than ten years old, but pretty close to it. My aunt, a single mother, had recently uprooted her family to live near my parents during a difficult period in her life. My cousin spent many an hour and more than a few nights at my house.

This scene repeated itself many times over the year she lived down the street. In short, we tormented her by repeatedly exposing her to movies she could barely sit through and which likely gave her nightmares, during a year already full of stress and murky adult problems hovering overhead.

But we're here not to address my childhood guilt. Rather, we're here to answer a related question: What makes some of us binge-watch frightening TV shows like Penny Dreadful and mainline Stephen King while others of us can't walk the Halloween aisle at Target?

The question of why people like horror has been well-discussed, and tend to hinge on the idea that some people enjoy the rush of adrenaline in a protected atmosphere or the sharp contrast between terror and then relief.

But for every person with a season pass to ScareHouse, there are probably five who couldn't be dragged, even kicking and screaming, into a horror movie. The more interesting question is, then: what predicts which camp you find yourself in?

The bin we're most interested in, of course, is the one they labeled simply "Dark." These people like punk and heavy metal, horror, cult entertainment, and the erotic; entertainment that is "characterized by intensity, edginess, and hedonism."

So what are these Dark people like, personality wise? In contrast to those high on the Communal group, who tended to be warm, pleasant, and friendly (though not terribly creative), Dark cluster people tended to score low on measures of duty, cautiousness, and cooperation, but high on ingenuity, provocativeness, and self-disclosure. They also tended to be young, male, and educated. The authors summed up people who like horror as "defiant, reckless, and immodest."

While certainly many "dark" fans enjoy both, I myself can't get enough of the former but have been known to literally lose consciousness at the latter. Moreover, the personality measures used in this study are interesting but just one approach to how people differ. There are countless others that might contribute to predicting entertainment choices. For instance, if your life has had its share of real terrors, perhaps you're less likely to seek them out in entertainment form. Or if dark and/or otherworldly themes clash with your religious beliefs, you may similarly find dark entertainment aversive.

Remember my cousin? Another way that we happen to differ is in our views of the universe. Hers assumes interconnectedness and a higher purpose; mine a callous capriciousness. Perhaps her view allows her to enjoy pleasant entertainment, whereas mine requires repeated skittering over the precipice and back to reassure myself of the stability of reality.

As Victor LaValle, author of the novel The Devil In Silver, says of people's enjoyment of the morbid, "I think it's because we understand, on various levels, that existence can be tremendously difficult and downright horrifying. Literature and film and art that acknowledges this fact confirms the feeling and that confirmation alone can be a gift."

One night last month, I found myself crouched on the floor in my room, peeking nervously underneath my bed. I wasn't searching for a mouse, or a cockroach, or any other kind of apartment vermin. I was trying to reassure myself that a killer wasn't lurking down there, waiting for the opportune moment to grab me by the ankle.

Obviously, I'm embarrassed that I stooped so low to give myself some peace of mind, but I had a bit of an excuse: I had just watched an episode of NBC's Hannibal featuring an especially chilling bedroom scene. As an avowed hater of horror movies, gore, and even action films with too much bloodshed, this episode was pretty much everything I've spent most of my life avoiding. And yet... for the last several weeks, in every free moment, I keep finding myself back on the couch, clutching a pillow in fear while tearing through another episode of Hannibal's first season.

Samantha Rollins is TheWeek.com's news editor. She has previously worked for The New York Times and TIME and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism."}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Samantha RollinsSocial Links NavigationSamantha Rollins is TheWeek.com's news editor. She has previously worked for The New York Times and TIME and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.

3a8082e126