Veronica Fil explores our psychological and cultural attraction to horror films.
For weeks after I watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I found myself in the early stages of panic attack every time a neighbour revved his lawnmower. After The Blair Witch Project, I couldn’t go camping, and I’ve got no chance of ever enjoying a weekend away in a desolate wood-side cabin with my virginal, nymph-like bestie and jock boyfriend ever again, that’s for sure.
Yet the Saw limited edition box-set sits proudly on my shelf, and every time a new horror flick is released, I’m right there queuing for a preview ticket. I’m a fan of fear.
I wouldn’t be the only one either; between 1996 and 2012 the horror movie genre took a 4.77 per cent share of the total film industry, making it more successful than popular genres like black comedy and documentary (which attributed 0.41 per cent and 1.08 per cent respectively). Clearly, plenty of people love their slasher flicks. But why do some people get a kick out of watching movie characters experience bloody, unfortunate deaths, while others cover their eyes and hide?
A scientific explanation
Our bodies react to intense emotion and frightening situations with the “fight or flight” response; causing our systems to surge with adrenaline and either flee or pull out our guns and defend ourselves. For some, the prospect of watching a horror flick and enduring that mounting sense of dread elicits a flight response. For others, the adrenaline rush feels so good that we actively seek it out. Whether it’s by riding roller coasters, going bungee jumping or watching terrifying films, we stick around to fight — or at least confront what frightens us. Horror films allow us to voyeuristically enter the battle arena, face off with our demons, and emerge triumphant and satisfied —replicating the rush from the comfort of our homes or cinemas.
According to Danish academic Mathias Clasen, however, the attraction to horror is as much a cultural response as a chemical one. Adolescent males are more likely to appreciate horror; females are generally more sensitive to it (Clasen suggests this is due to a biological defence mechanism hard wired into the reproductive system). Research shows that we enjoy watching horror more if it’s with a member of the opposite sex, who responds in a gender-stereotypical way (meaning guys enjoy the movie more if the girls are shrieking in terror).
The gory truth
It’s one thing to love Hollywood-made horror films. But for some people, the attraction to death and darkness goes much further. A sizeable subculture of gore-hungry, reality-horror enthusiasts live among us, sharing video footage of horrific car crashes, executions, suicides and murders via the web. Like porn, the growing accessibility of the internet and social media has made the mass, rapid distribution of such content easier than ever.
Sites like Rotten.com began hosting sick images of autopsies and decapitated heads in 1996, catering to the curiosity of thousands of teenagers all over the world (I can still remember my friends and I squealing in disgust as we crouched around the library computer screen when our teacher wasn’t looking). Years later, sites like GoreGrish.com, BestGore.com and TheYNC.com went to the next level; creating a hub where users could safely circulate abhorrent, real-life videos of tragedies and violent crime from around the world. Most gore sites are hosted in Canada and the US, but their content is frequently sourced from the less developed world (such as Latin America Eastern Europe) — cultures where life is often considered cheap.
It’s not illegal to share the videos, but many believe it should be, arguing that without an audience these acts would never be filmed, distributed, and encouraged. Best Gore disagrees: “[We are] a reality website. If you wish to live in a lie, then go somewhere else,” say the site’s administrators. It’s a divisive issue, and for most of us, these websites cross the line of what we consider entertainment or a good scare. But with four million page views a month and thousands of registered members across the globe, they’ve got no shortage of fans.
What motivates people to watch his form of horror? Maybe it’s morbid curiosity; that biological need to chase excitement and confront what scares us; the same innocent thrill that compelled us to watch movies like Friday the 13th as kids. Or perhaps, more sinisterly, there are people out there who genuinely enjoy it.
Take Canadian gay-porn actor Luke Magnotta — a known contributor to the online gore community – who, on May 2012, uploaded the video 1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick to BestGore.com. It allegedly showed him using an icepick to stab a masked, naked man tied to the bed, then dismembering him and using the amputated body parts for acts of “sexual indecency”. He later mailed several of the body parts to a political party and an elementary school. Best Gore’s administrators had the good sense to alert authorities, and Magnotta was arrested a few weeks later at an internet cafe in Berlin (where he was reportedly reading an article about himself… And probably checking out the comments forum for his video).
It wasn’t the first time authorities tracked a killer down through their involvement in the gore community. In 2009, two teens labelled the “Dnepropetrovsk maniacs” went on a 21-victim killing spree in Ukraine, recording the events on their mobile phones along the way. Soon after, one of the videos emerged on a gore site; 3 Guys 1 Hammer requires no further descriptive detail. The video was eventually used to convict the murderers at their own trial, and despite being regarded as some of the most horrific reality gore footage of all time, it’s still readily available online. In fact, it’s been shared and duplicated so many times that it’s impossible to delete from the net.
Is it possible that watching horror and gore correlates to some kind of predisposition for violence, or increases the likelihood that you’ll turn into a serial killer? Considering the popularity of these films — both real and fake — I’m guessing not; the fascination with fatality seems to be a peculiar, but natural, characteristic of the human psyche. It might have given us a heads up about someone like Mark Twitchell though; acknowledging he was inspired by television series Dexter, the budding filmmaker wrote developed his own script — SKConfessions — to chronicle his path to becoming a killer.
After creating a profile of a pretty female on a dating website, Twitchell lured unsuspecting men to his ready-made murdering lair under the pretence that they were meeting to go out for dinner. One man escaped, but on another occasion, the man was not so lucky. All of it was detailed in Twitchell’s diary on his computer.
The script was later used as evidence to convict him of first-degree murder, and his future dreams were thwarted.
After reading this article, some will feel compelled to look for these links. Hell, maybe you didn’t even make it this far and are already Googling. Be warned: if you choose to track them down and press play, you can’t take it back. This is not the movies; there is no director to yell ‘cut’ and splash more fake blood on the scene.
The adrenaline you feel is as real as the carnage itself.
Whether you are a seriously disturbed human for watching it at all, I cannot say.
