The importance of horror : how horror films reduce anxiety toward societal fears

Includes bibliographical references (p. 34).It has been said that fear is one of the most powerful and ancient emotions in the human race. It should come as no surprise then that horror as an art form has existed for centuries. Throughout history horror has let humans externalize their fears. It is my conjecture that the artists who make horror films and literature have, unintentionally, found a way to let people expose themselves to their very real fears by means of sophisticated metaphors. The aim of this study was twofold. First, I sought to demonstrate that horror is a reflection of the fears of the society and culture in which it was created. Secondly, I intend to show that it acts as a sort of subconscious, prolonged exposure that helps people deal with their societal fears. This study contained two main elements to test this hypothesis. The first is that participants monitored their fear levels in vivo while watching scenes from six different horror films. This was to test to see, first, if there was indeed an increase in fear from the start to the end and, second, if the end of each clip would result in a decrease in fear. This would indicate that the participants experienced some type of relief from their fear. The second element is that the participants were asked to retrospectively explain what made each scene scary. This was left vague to prevent influencing the answers, but the goal was to see if participants were relating these horror scenes with the real life fears that are represented in each of the films. The participants not only experienced a sense of relief at the end of each scene, but there was also some indication in the case of The Crazies that this may be because people are associating the film with real life fears. This study has shown that those who watch horror experience a type of relief after each scene, even if that scene does not bring about relief on its own. This is because horror is not an emotion that can be sustained during prolonged exposure. If viewers experienced a decline in horror after only 10 minutes in each scene, it is logical to assume that the decline would be even greater after the entire film was over. If audiences are experiencing this relief in the theater, it is also logical that they are experiencing this relief in their everyday lives