Way back in 1981, the extremely prolific horror writer Stephen King wrote an essay speculating about why Americans crave horror movies. He should know: he’s successfully terrified us with his books (many made into movies) for decades.
Here’s King’s original essay (I warn you, even native English speakers have a hard time trying to follow his points.) It seems to be a sarcastic ramble, with lots of slang and pop cultural references, but he does answer the question his title raises in interesting ways.
https://faculty.uml.edu/bmarshall/lowell/whywecravehorrormovies.pdf
Why People Crave Horror Movies
1. King says we watch scary movies to “dare the nightmare.” Horror films let us face the things we fear, things really too horrible to contemplate actually happening to us. King says it’s a weird kind of courage (or bravado): Can we face what we fear the most and not flinch?
Of course, I would like to point out that we’re doing this in a safe space. There’s the screen between you and real action. But scary films let us face the thought of bad things happening.
2. King argues that we watch them to feel “normal” again.
No matter how awful your life seems, it’s better than being pursued by an axe murderer, tortured by a psychopath, or attacked by zombies. Or, as King says, becoming the “horrible melting woman.”
3. King says we watch horror films because they let us “allow our emotions free rein…or no rein at all.”
Watching these extreme situations, we let ourselves feel intense emotions without censoring ourselves or trying to be civilized. Evil is evil; you scream; you run; you try to kill it. Or maybe (as King argues) you see it in yourself.
4. Something King doesn’t mention, but my students often do, is that scaring ourselves also lets us try out different strategies to escape. We are in training! If the worst of the worst thing happens, we’ll know what to do.
If you are babysitting, never, ever go down into a dark basement. Just don’t.
If a guy with a knife is chasing you, run out of the house (not up the stairs).
The eerie, taunting phone call is always coming from within the house.