Primary factors that make horror films alluring

1. Thoughts like "what if there actually are ghosts" create excitement.  Seeking this kind of experiences may be a kind of logical reality-check.

2. Such experiences may evoke different types of repressed complexes or ideas that we may wish to process.

3. Freud claims that most people are never completely freed from the fear of darkness, loneliness and silence. 

... it has to have a monster, which has to be threatening in some way. The monster is often otherworldly or violates the laws of nature, as in Alien or Jaws—but some argue that a human character can be a monster, as in Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, and Halloween.

The monster generally is otherworldly or violates the laws of nature and is designed to elicit disgust as an emotion.

This is the most popular theory explaining the genre’s popularity and it argues that an unconscious, repressed part of every human is actually savage; that the veneer of civility is very thin, and beneath that is essentially a monster.

Although we consciously disapprove of what the monster is doing, deep down part of us enjoys seeing the murder and mayhem the monster unleashes—because if we could, we would do that.

Some derive enjoyment from negative emotional states, as when enjoying a "good cry", for instance.

A study found that people who liked sad films enjoyed a scene relative to how much sadness it elicited. The stronger the sadness, the higher the enjoyment.

Halloween seems to bring out excesses in costumed children and adults.

Several studies revealed that costumed children who were anonymous — by wearing masks for instance — were more likely to take extra candies. In adults, costumed Halloween celebrators tend to have higher blood alcohol readings than people in plain clothes.

Everybody loves a good story. When watching anime, you actually give your consent to enter a world where topics such as death, acceptance, morality or war are being presented in a quite realistic manner. Besides, even though they are just drawn characters, you will find yourself in love with the creations of the anime author: they are portraits of each of us.

Besides great stories and amazing artwork, you are bound to find in anime beautiful music too. Music for every feeling that can be or is lived by the different characters: from the biggest joy to the deepest sorrow. You just cannot avoid falling in love with anime, as it has all it takes to keep you stuck in front of your computer.

Spicy foods have antifungal and antibacterial properties. In this light, humans have culturally and genetically evolved a preference for spicy foods because they protect us from microscopic assailants. When our taste buds encounter pungency, it's a signal to our brains that the food is cleaner.

Preference for spicy foods, like all foods, is the result of a complex interplay of genes, culture, memory, and personality,  a complex design that scientists are only now beginning to understand

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 more information that is available to us, the more we are unable to retain it. Memory means association and most information we consume may be simply buried inside, lurking deep in, and surfacing when the right cue pops up.

Binge-watching or binge-reading serves no useful purpose as we are only holding the content in our working memories. That's why schools space out the chapters and review them, helping us retain the material.

The art and culture we engage our brains in turn into memories which can be unpredictable and fickle.

The books we read, the songs we hear and the movies we watch become interwoven and entangled with everything else in our lives.