FORMULATED EXPERIENCE AGAINST REASON

A Formulated Experience Against Reason, what on earth could this possibly mean? Is

this an article depicting the evil upper-level-government-Project-MKUltra-type scheme that was

created deep in the hollow earth in order to indoctrinate the entire human public? No, no, this is

not that article, but I got you reading, didn’t I? If this was an iMessage, this would be where I

insert that sly looking winky face emoji you always send to your significant other at 2:19 in the

morning on after a long evening of striking out at the local watering hole. Hmm, watering hole,

which makes me feel like I’ll need a “cold one” after writing this heart-pounding, edge-of-the-

seat thriller that explores the innate emotions and feelings we all have towards fear, but I digress.

For one reason or another, fear is a subject that is often times shied away from. It’s like

talking about death while Grandma Nancy sits in her hospital bed; it’s generally frowned upon,

and moms will scold you for it. However, the sensitivity of fear presented a Grand Canyon-sized

gap for this writer to tackle, and some call me the Ray Lewis. (Get it? The old Ravens middle

linebacker who was much more dominant than everyone else. He won two Super Bowls and was

even labelled as the most valuable player in his first appearance. Really, nothing rings a bell?

Geez, I need you guys to catch up.) Now, let’s all take a college-sized nap and drift off to The

Nightmare before Christmas.

With the recent passing of October and Halloween, the question has to be raised: Why the

hell is our culture so obsessed with violence, death, and fear in the month of October? I mean

honestly, think about it: Picture yourself on February the 14th, showering everyone around you

with love and affection. Now, fast-forward to the summer months with days of sunshine, smiles,

butterflies, and rainbows. Oh yeah, don’t forget about the fireworks and hot dogs and cholesterol

and more fireworks. BOOM. Then life slows down a little more, and we all adjust to the

changing seasons and begin to enjoy color changes, cold weather, fireplaces, those hideous wool

foot-ovens called UGGS, and of course, don’t worry girls, I got you covered, pumpkin spice

lattes. And then, out of nowhere like an RKO in the ring with Randy Orton, October comes

busting through the western-style saloon doors with two seven shooters at his hip. The barkeep

gets a little angry and says, “Oh great, here comes October again with all his violence, ghouls,

and scare-tactics, but why?” That is a great question barkeep; let’s see if some light can be shed

on the subject.

Although it may appear as though fear is an unexplainable emotion that simply occurs in

the human body, Dr. Margee Kerr has some more knowledgeable answers. She is a staff

sociologist at ScareHouse, a haunted house in Pittsburgh, and a teacher at Robert Morris

University and Chatham University where she is referred to as a “scare specialist.” Dr. Kerr is

interviewed in the online article, “Why Do Some Brains Enjoy Fear?” from theatlantic.com by

author Allegra Ringo, a comedian and writer.

One of the first reasons behind those who enjoy the feeling of being scared is the natural

high that comes from the activation of the fight or flight response. Dr. David Zald, a psychology

professor at Vanderbilt University, researched this exact idea and his studies show that dopamine

is released in the brain as a response to the scary situations. In this sense, the actual act of being

scared can be compared to working out or doing drugs. It simply makes us happy. Dr. Zald

described how people differ in their chemical responses to thrilling situations and how some

people lack the “brakes” to stop the flow of dopamine when they are scared. In other words,

some people will find thrilling and risky situations enjoyable and others not so much, like

knocking boots to Joel who’s upstairs catching up on this week’s edition of Superhero Man Boy

Who Got His Powers through Some Aberrant Freak Accident. Thanks, Stan Lee.

Another by-product of fear is the boost of confidence once you’ve survived the high

speed corn maze chase. It seems odd, and yet intriguing, that as humans we are willing to put

ourselves through an extreme amount of discomfort and trepidation just to attain the sense of

confident achievement. If you ask this writer, there isn’t a snowballs chance in hell that you’ll

find me at a haunted house in order to raise my confidence. You can find me over at the local

watering hole taking some of that liquid encouragement. (Again, insert sly winky emoji here.)

Now that we have explored some of the scientific reasoning behind the enjoyment of

fear, freaking weirdoes, let’s dive into why we are so obsessed with horror films and similar

entertainment. Theories behind the human obsession with horror films have been around since

the time of Aristotle and continue to perplex psychologists and scientists alike. Wait a second,

that doesn’t make any sense; how could Aristotle develop a theory on horror movies when they

didn’t know how to even change the channel? Oh just wait and see my fellow minions.

There is something about horror and fear itself that stimulates the instinctively animalistic

traits that are a fundamental part of our DNA. Deep down at the human core, we have an

evolutionary connection to our ancient ancestors of the wild. When necessary, these “forefathers”

could tap into a stream of subconscious primordial anger or evil that often results in extreme

violence; this being no different for the modern-day man.

Professor Nobuo Masataka conducted research on children as young as three and found

that most children could spot a snake on a screen more easily than a flower. The results of this

research further proves that fear is an innate feeling, which is simply a building block of all

human emotions. Christof Koch, a professor and chief scientific officer at the Allen Institute for

Brain Science in Seattle, conducted research that showed the right amygdala, the portion of the

brain associated with fear, responds more dynamically to images of animals that images of

people, landmarks, or objects, regardless of their danger relevancy to the civilized world. This

idea is significant to film producers and directors, because this notion feeds the beast that is the

“horror movie monster.” These inherent fears of animals are what has led to the creation of

blockbuster hit movies, such as “Frankenstein,” “The Wolf Man,” and “Dracula.” Although there

are arguments for the actualization of fear while watching horror films, academics continue to

argue over the origination of fear in the brain.

Brain scan research conducted by Thomas Straube in 2010 at the Friedrich Schiller

University of Jena showed that scary movies don’t actually initiate fear responses in the

amygdala. Instead, several other parts of the brain were firing including the visual cortex, which

is the part of the brain responsible for processing visual information, the insular cortex, which is

associated with self-awareness, the thalamus, which is the relay switch between brain

hemispheres, and the dorsal-medial prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain associated

with planning, attention, and problem solving. So the real question is if we are not being scared,

at least chemically in the brain, then what the heck is going on and why on earth are some people

so obsessive?

Before this Glenn-Close-Michael-Douglas-esque fatal psychological attraction can be

explained, let’s take a look at the allure of horror movies through the eyes of psychologist Glenn

D. Walters. Walters describes three primary reasons behind the natural moth-to-a-flame

magnetism of horror movies. The first is tension, which is created through mystery, suspense,

gore, terror, or shock. This factor is a relatively straightforward element of horror, which can be

observed as the essential foundation of the house of horror.

The second factor is relevance, being that the horror addressed on screen needs to be

relatable to the viewers in their own daily lives. This does not necessarily mean the film utilizes

current events or issues, but rather the relevance is in accord with a universal relevance of fear –

that is capturing the collective fears of death or the unknown. There is also subgroup relevance,

which directly associates with viewers consciously placing themselves in a character’s shoes.

Teenagers are one of the more popular groups that flock to horror films, and this is due in part to

the subgroup relevance that they feel towards the characters. Personal relevance is a third type,

which references a viewer’s feelings of either identifying and sympathizing with the protagonist

or condemning the antagonists or victims to their ultimate demise.

The final factor is unrealism, which can easily be considered the most counterintuitive.

Albeit viewers know that they are in store for a truly graphic and violent experience, we all know

at some level these images on the screen are not real. Research was conducted by Haidt,

McCauley, and Rozin in 1994 on disgust among students. In this experiment, the students were

shown a series of gruesome documentary videos with very few of them making it to the end. Yet

when these same students were put in front of a horror movie on the big screen, often with even

more disturbing images, they handled it with ease. Why? The reasoning behind this may be that

when we walk into a theater with our $14, 36-oz. tub of buttered kernels and $9.50 six-ounce cup

of Pepsi, we know that what we’re seeing is fabricated reality. Although those prices may appear

to be the fabrication of our reality, they’re not. Rather the images on the screen are the

fabrication, and for one reason or another, we find a thrill in being so close to danger, yet so far

away. Thrill seekers are always actively searching for the next big thing that quickens their

pulses and makes their hands clammy: be it swimming with sharks, hunting down Dracula, or

reuniting Frankenstein with his bride. But for those of you out there who prefer to stay alive

while seeking thrills, a trip to the local box office may be the best solution.

Fear is one of those human emotions that continues to be a mystery to both the

psychological and scientific worlds. The debate of the origination of fear dates all the way back

to before the time of Aristotle and continues to reach its’ horrific grasp into the 21st century. On

one hand, we have psychoanalytical minds like Sigmund Freud, who deemed horror came from

our primitive images and thoughts that were being suppressed by the civilized mind. Another

great psychological mind was Carl Jung, who believed movies tapped deep into our primitive

archetypes as a part of our general subconscious. This meaning the dark images of shadows and

mothers play a vital role in the horror genre.

Aristotle developed a theory based on the term known as catharsis, which means our

attraction to violent and scary stories stems from our desire to purge our negative emotions. The

scary stories we were told as children helped us to relieve the pent up emotional distresses we

often felt, according to Aristotle. However, modern science has proved that watching these

violent horror films actually increases aggression.

An interesting theory was developed by film scholar Noël Carroll, known simply as the

curiosity and fascination. Horror is outside of everyday normalities, and so we have an innate

fascination with what would be deemed taboo by others. Many studies have shown that there is a

direct correlation between people who are accepting of violations of the norm and those who

enjoy horror movies.

For those of you that are a little sicker than others and enjoy the doling out of a good

well-deserved whooping, or in these cases death, there is the dispositional alignment theory.

Deep down in the depths of our souls, we have quiet passion for the bad guys getting what they

deserve. When we see someone getting ruthlessly punished for their evil actions, we revert back

to our animalistic natures and a sly smirk may slide across our faces.

The gender socialization theory relates specifically to all college student horn-dogs and is

often referred to as the “snuggle theory.” For obvious reasons, this is my personal favorite, and it

relates to an experiment that took place between teenage boys and their lady friends and gauged

their reactions based off of the other’s gender. The boys were found to enjoy the horror movies

more when their counterparts were visibly scared. The opposite was true for the girls, who

enjoyed the movie less when their “man” was obviously scared and not brave.

Although there are countless theories and notions as to what causes the actual feeling of

fear and why were so obsessed with it as a society, it all boils down to one quote: “Where there is

no imagination- there is no horror,” said Arthur Conan Doyle. Fear has long plagued the human

race and spanned across thousands of years involving countless tales of terror and horror. For

years, people were afraid to leave their domiciles for fear of the unknown. But fear not my

fellow readers, take a bright look at the dark side of things, and make fear your friend and

enemy: your frenemy.