Boo!

With the month of Halloween in full swing fear seems to be on the menu. Having no end to the scary movies to choose from we ask what makes us so scared. The unknown is a popular fear probably the only one that all of humanity shares. We have claustrophobia, arachnophobia, acrophobia, agoraphobia, coulrophobia, just to name a few. (Fear of small spaces, fear of spiders, fear of heights, fear of open spaces or crowds, fear of clowns respectively) When we watch a scary movie we always are bombarded by surprise sudden attacks of loud noises and faces or hands where we don’t expect them but after seeing so many horror movies we know the trick and gimmicks, the slow zoom out, the quick corner turn, the sudden lunge grab, the drop from above, the grab from below. Over time the mainstream society has redefined what is most scary/exciting to it from the creature features of swamp thing to the horrors of invading aliens to the mutated human body, to the animatronic creatures of space, to psychological thrillers, to a crazed person with a knife and creativity, to the attack of technology, to the blood and gore of today. (Creature from the Black Lagoon, War of the Worlds, The Hills have Eyes, Alien, Silence of the Lambs, Urban Legends, Virus, and Saw references respectively) Personally, I find the movies that involve some sort of unknown creature or thing the most able to keep my interest because I want to see something that I haven’t seen before that is what draws me to horror movies. What has caused these changes in the populace’s favorites? If everyone has seen everything already why do they still see each new one that comes out? If people fear the unknown more than anything why do they watch the known over and over hoping for the unknown?