Halloween League, the date of fear par excellence. These days many people dress up as terrifying characters, shop windows are full of pumpkins, and one of the most recurring plans is to review, alone or with others, the best horror movies.
Popular titles like ‘The Exorcist’, ‘It’ or ‘Saw’ they are full of macabre scenes, suspense and panic. However, at the time, they were very successful films. The success of horror films reflects the great paradox which presupposes the fact that fear, a sensation that causes us anguish and from which we tend to flee, attracts us into fiction.
what is fear
First you have to you understand well what fear is. Psychologist Amaya Terrón explains in an interview with EFE that she fears “an alteration of mood that produces anguish in the face of danger or possible damage, be it a product of the imagination or reality”.
“It can be said that fear is unpleasant for those who suffer from it. This emotion, however, it also works as a survival method, as it warns people and animals of a threat. In this way, a zebra that is afraid of lions will flee as soon as it notices the presence of its predator. Something similar will be done by a man who, hearing shots, takes cover for fear of being hurt, “he adds.
types of fears
The specialist clarifies that there are fears innateinherent to the species itself, and fears acquired through contact with the environment and which are established by learning. Examples of innate fears, the ones we are born with, are the fear of loud noises, of certain animals, of the dark or of death, among others.
The acquired fears, on the other hand, “have to do with the perception of the risk with which we interpret certain situations that compromise not only our survival but also our physical and emotional integrity. Mainly they are acquired by learning in interaction with the environment “To explain.
“From the point of view of psychology, fear would be an adaptive response that protects us from certain stimuli that we interpret, in an innate or acquired way, as harmful to our survival and to our physical and psychological well-being ”, he stresses.
Why do we like to be afraid?
The key to enjoying horror movies is that we are aware that what we are seeing is fiction, so it is a controlled fear. The psychologist explains that horror films “confront us with stimuli that cause us fear and even terror, but as mere spectatorsso we can experience the sensation without the obvious risk involved. We like to control and test even our most disruptive or unpredictable emotions “exposes.
The psychologist underlines this we are the only species that can feel fear without something in front of us which is caused by “nothing but the imagination of our mind, memory, identification or projection”.
In this sense, he comments that, in a certain way, we anticipate events, we project ourselves into certain situationswe are able to put ourselves in the shoes of others and we have the ability to feel even if we are not in the specific situation of dying-death fear
Terrón states that, due to these processes, we can get to feel what the character is feeling of the film even if we are in the comfort of our living room safe from any risk.
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“Indeed, it is these feelings of uncertainty and fear that we look for when we watch horror movies. A controlled fear in complex scenarios but unaware of the consequences that being inside them would entail ”, he concludes.
