Frightening fiction provides a safe way to learn how to deal with fear and anxiety.
Anything that is feared, can be tackled with knowledge. Fear during a global crisis generally arises due to lack of knowledge on how to deal with the situation. Helplessness and uncertainty give rise to the feelings of doom and gloom. The way to tackle this is to be completely informed about the situation, and be ‘apocalypse ready’.
The horror movie experience gives us a chance to control our anxiety, as we can always cover our eyes, mute the audio, or turn the lights on. If we want more anxiety, we can do the opposite.
Feeling scary for a fictional story can be less consequential and even therapeutic.
Why do we love to watch scary horror films? Some psychologists claim people go to horror films because they want to be frightened or they wouldn't do it twice. You choose your entertainment because you want it to affect you. But what else does the literature tell us about the psychology of horror movies?
Gore watchers typically have low empathy, high sensation seeking, and a strong identification with the killer.
Thrill watchers typically have both high empathy and sensation seeking;they identify themselves more with the victims and like the suspense of the film.
Independent watchers typically have a high empathy for the victim along with a high positive effect for overcoming fear.
Problem watchers typically have high empathy for the victim but are characterized by negative effect (particularly a sense of helplessness).
Dr. Carl Jung believed horror films “tapped into primordial archetypes buried deep in our collective subconscious – images like shadow and mother play important role in the horror genre”.
Horror films are watched as a way of purging negative emotions and/or as a way to relieve pent-up aggression.
Horror movies are enjoyed because the people on screen getting killed deserve it.
Cultural historian David Skal has argued that horror films simply reflect our societal fears.
Look past the tatters and putrefaction. Scan the bent and broken bodies shuffling toward you. Do you recognize a coworker, a neighbor, maybe even a loved one? It's the zombie apocalypse - and it's an idea that ever more academics are taking seriously.
A lot of symbolism can be interpreted in popular zombie films.
The undead are the ultimate other of any us-and-them division, especially if you consider us to be savvy and them to be brainless. But Zombies were not used as just a frightening enemy, but were used to show the ills of the society: consumerism, capitalism, terrorism, etc.
Zombie economics refers to theories or ideas that are long gone, but still refuse to die.
At this basic metaphorical level, "zombie economics," for example, can describe socialists or free-market thinking, depending on which side you believe holds the monopoly on functioning synapses.