The Excitement of Fear
Why does fear or, better yet, the thought of death excite the body? The thought of "I'm about to die" is strong enough to stimulate a person. I believe the answer is similar to why people do things like rock climbing or sky diving. Having a near-death experience is what drives people to chase after it. But then again there could be a difference between a thrill-seeker and someone who gives in to their curiosity at a bad time. I wonder if the aforementioned question is why people investigate things in a horror film. Trying to investigate something that is out of the ordinary. In horror films, people investigate things like an abandoned cabin or mansion that is rumored to be haunted. As someone who watches these types of film with logical reasoning, it always confuses me why people investigate these things. So you check out this place and you find that it is haunted, and now you got a curse on you or now you're trying to escape death. This could've been avoided if you minded your own business and stayed away from the mansion or cabin. It's these things that always confuse me and keep me saying "if it were me..." statements.
I wonder if part of the pleasure of horror has to do with the fact that it lets us do things that we otherwise wouldnt and do them safely. So if I come across an abandoned cabin in the woods in real life, I'm going to just jog on by. But in a movie, I can experience what I would have experienced if I let myself go into a space of terror and near death experiences. Normally, we dont go full force into Freud's idea of the uncanny even though it fascinates us. Horror film allows us to explore that fascination with death very closely.
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