In a conversation with a friend the other day, we found that
the reason he hates horror movies and the reason I love them is the same. He
questioned why I enjoy that rush of fear and paranoia that he categorizes as
almost physical pain.
This darkness-- this mystery-- this unknown is the
quintessential basis of modern horror. The scariness of an unknown and
therefore hard to defeat attacker along with a habit of reckless but unbearable
curiosity pokes an instinctual and almost universal terror for the human mind. For example: we all say we shout at the
scantily-clad college girl who peeks in the closet only to find sudden and
gruesome death, but it scares us nonetheless. Curiosity kills the cat. We recognize that overwhelming urge to
peek—to know for sure what lurks on the other side of that ominous closet door.
It scares us because we know inside that we would look in it too.
Anyways, my answer to my friend is simple. I call to
attention the wisdom of Queen Victoria in the Doctor Who episode Tooth and Claw:
“And that’s the charm of a ghost story,
isn’t it? Not the scares and chills, that’s just for children, but the hope of
some contact with the great beyond. We all want some message from that place.
It’s the Creator’s greatest mystery that we’re allowed no such consolation. The
dead stay silent. And we must wait.” (2006).
Humans have never been comfortable with the idea of unknown.
Throughout history we have created our own theories however irrelevant to fill
the gaps in our knowledge. We don’t like not knowing something. Outer space
scares us because we don’t know what we could encounter. Death scares us
because we don’t know what lies beyond life. The simplest of all, in which I will
use as examples to basic principles of fear, is: Darkness. One of the most
common but underestimated feared ideas. We can't see in the dark and that is
scary. I am scared of the dark. I can admit it. That’s the point though.
Have you ever been reading a book or even watched a movie
that after, you have this abstract sensation of ‘becoming aware of the darkness
around you’? Suddenly realizing how dark it is and you can't help but remember
every scary thing you’ve encountered in your life? We are so afraid of the
unknown that we create crazy ideas and justifications to freeze and cower.
I used to do just that. Slept with a nightlight and a
flashlight under my pillow, wouldn’t watch TV with the lights off, etc. I
absolutely hated horror movies too. But one day I sort of became aware of the
darkness around me again. I am afraid of the things in these horror movies so
why hide? Embrace it. It sounds ridiculous but I really love those low-budget
shriek-fest films now. I didn’t resent the darkness and unknown in scary
movies, instead I used that to delve into myself and understand it more. I don’t
really need to say how great of an idea it is to learn more about something in
order to become less afraid. I assure you though, I have plenty examples.
To continue that idea of human fears of unknown, I like this
quote from Professor Brian Cox: “Yes, in a sense. I'm comfortable with the
unknown, that’s the point of science. There are places out there, billions of
places out there that we know nothing about. And the fact that we know nothing
about them excites me, and I want to go out and find out about them. And that’s
what science is. So I think if you're not comfortable with the unknown then it’s
difficult to be a scientist. So I don’t need an answer; I don’t need answers to
everything. I want to have answers to find.”
This is just some food for thought. A little something to
think about when you go to sleep. This is why I uncannily love horror movies.
They encourage a possibility of deep unknown. They explain plain and simple the
true and ideal fears of human beings. They make life seem more real and more
mysterious and so much more interesting.
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