A lot of people enjoy a good scare. Those people love watching horror movies, paranormal television shows that are creepy, and tell stories to each other about monsters, horrific events or things that could actually happen in real life. Why is it that we enjoy being scare out of our pants? It all boils down to the old human mentality and physical programming.
Long ago, before we, as a human species settled down into a more civilized world, we had many things to worry about in the wilds of the world. As the human species began evolving, we became scared of things like the dark. We became scare of being ate alive by wild flesh eating beasts. It became even worse when those two things came together. The world could be a terrifying place to be in for a human. Thus, the fight or flight response was born.
But when we evolved to the point where we were living in cities and had weapons and technology that was more than sufficient for dealing with the dangers of the wilderness, we all calmed down. A lot. We did not worry about hunting or being hunted. Humans did not need to worry about being stalked by things in the dark. We lived in communities that allowed us to live comfortably without fear. The excitement was gone from that feeling of living on the edge.
This is where the idea of scary stories, and often, horror movies were born. We all felt empty inside. We felt bored. There was no more moments of feeling on your toes at all times. Now a days, we all enjoy sitting around campfires, telling stories, reading horror stories to our families, and amassed around the television watching a spooky movie.
The question is why do we feel this way? Why would we want to feel scared like we did back before there was civilization? Well, we enjoy it because we know we can allow ourselves to be petrified without having any real threats to endanger our safety or our lives. We enjoy that adrenaline rush that we get when we listen to that thrilling story and watch the killer jump out at his latest onscreen victim.
To be honest, we can use scary tales as a form of precaution. It reminds us that even with all the advances that our society has bought, there are still things out there that can be truly horrifying. This could include mass murderers. There are threats of new viruses and even threats from beyond our planet in the form of meteorologists.
You can even find some movies and scary tales that are not of this world. There are tales from beyond the grave. Stories that center around horrible monsters and vile demons from Hell are things that can scare us. It's the primal parts of us that even when told about things that probably could never happen, it still scares us. It is that part of our brains that spook us. Think about it. Not only did we have to survive from the creatures of the wilderness and the darkness, we also have some beliefs that made us imagine a whole new set of evil things that could do away with us at anytime.
Ultimately, we enjoy horror because we now have nothing to worry about anymore when it comes to our primal fears. We all enjoy coming back to our roots without actually being in danger.
