The prospect of being scared is something people love to hate. There are those thrill seekers that go in search of scary entertainment like films and haunted house attractions. Some even go to reportedly haunted locations where violence occurred in the past. Some people think it is a real howl to visit a cemetery in the dead of night. 

The horror genre is well established in the global society with myths, legends and scary stories galore in every culture. Horror films, television shows and books have been wildly popular for decades. The question is, why? There seems to be no real explanation for society’s love of the macabre. Many interesting theories exist for this morbid love affair with all things bloody and unnatural. 

Terror without terror

Books, movies and stories all can leave audiences scared to pieces. This fear is only temporary and is therefore safe. For example a typical horror flick lasts about two hours. At the end of those two terrifying hours, movie goers leave the theater without incident. Life resumes as normal because that fear factor is gone and never truly existed beyond the screen.

People seem to be able to take horror in these preset doses because they know it will end. They know if they put the books down, the horror is gone, turn off the TV and the monsters are no more. Real life situations do not always have such a nice built in safety feature.

Answers to morbid curiosities

Since the dawn of time, man has questioned life and the world he lives in. Questions like, what happens to a person’s soul when the body dies? Does a person really die? Human beings are naturally curious and horror is a way of answering some of the questions.

Some people believe that each person has a dark side. Horror answers to that dark side of human nature. One has to surmise that some humans indeed have a dark side or horror in any form simply would not exist!

Escape from the mundane

Some horror fans simply enjoy a good scare every now and then. Not because they have morbid curiosity or need a safe adrenaline rush. They enjoy it because it is an escape from the real life terror on the nightly news or the hum drum of daily life. These fans can sit on the edge of their seats for a couple of hours and not worry about real life.

It has been said that real life is stranger than fiction. It can also be a lot scarier. When you watch a slasher flick, you know it is not real. When you watch the news and hear about a murder in an apartment complex two blocks from your house, you know that is real. With horror movies, shows and books no one is hurt in real life. The actors went home after filming and the characters in a book came from the author’s imagination.

Since ancient times, people have had a love/hate relationship with being scared. Some may be addicted to the adrenaline rush and some may just love the feeling of not knowing what is going to happen next. Some people hate not knowing, yet they can’t make themselves stop reading or turn away from the movie screen during the scary scenes. 

Horror movies and attractions offer thrills and chills for a set amount of time and then it is over. This allows enthusiasts to be scared silly but feel completely safe at the same time. Horror stories offer explanations to some of man’s most troubling questions. One such question is about life after death. If all else fails, horror offers an escape from the day to day grind. Whatever the reasons, society has made it clear that horror, in all of its gory glory, is here to stay.