'The paradox of horror': How scary films can soothe your anxiety

Jump scares and gore might not seem like the most soothing watching, but scary films can actually be the ideal therapy during anxious times.

When I was about 16, I thought it'd be fun to have movie night. As it turns out, I was wrong. One of my friends brought their DVD of The Exorcist. I spent the next two hours with my hands over my eyes. Every time I jumped in my seat, I found myself wondering how other people could find something so horrifying to be so entertaining. 

Philosophers and psychologists have pondered much the same question. Logic dictates that the emotion of fear evolved to warn us away from things that threaten our safety. It helps us avoid anything that might harm us or those we care about. It is why fear triggers the fight-or-flight response. 

As we approach Halloween, however, many of us will actively seek out ways to frighten ourselves by devouring films specifically designed to send our hearts racing into our mouths. From zombie apocalypses to slasher bloodbaths, we love sending chills down our spines – making horror movies Hollywood's most profitable genre. (Read about the 10 most terrifying moments in film in this article by BBC Culture.)

"The paradox of horror is a very old puzzle," says Mark Miller, a research fellow at Monash University in Australia and the University of Toronto. "Even Aristotle spoke about how weird it is that we're set up to evade and to avoid dangerous, disgusting, harmful, horrible things. Yet we feel magnetised to be in spaces where we're in touch with disgusting, horrible, noxious or horrifying things."

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Over the past 10 years, psychologists have finally begun to resolve this enigma. Some evidence indicates that horror stories tap into key processes of the brain that help us deal with uncertainty. The latest results suggest these fictional tales of terror may even bring some serious psychological benefits – including reducing the anxiety we feel about events out in the real world. They are a salve for our worries.

Paradoxical preferences

Coltan Scrivner, a psychologist at Arizona State University, and author of a new book Morbidly Curious: A Scientist Explains Why We Can't Look Away, has pioneered much of this research. As a child, he had always enjoyed the thrill of scary stories. It was only once he had reached graduate school, however, that he started puzzling about the ubiquity of scary stories across human cultures.

"The first evidence we have of writing includes horrible demons and monstrous beasts," Scrivner says, describing the 4,000-year-old Babylonian tablets engraved with the Epic of Gilgamesh. "I would say features of horror stories are as old as language."

One explanation is that horror stories serve as a kind of play that allows us to understand the world around us and prepare us for threats we might face. "It is adaptive for any animal, including humans, to understand and learn about the dangers around them," he says. (Find out more about why scary play is beneficial in this article by Sophie Hardach.)

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We can see the roots of this in other species: gazelles, for instance, tend to observe predators at a distance before running away from them. "And the reasons that humans appear to be the most morbidly curious creatures of all is that we have this incredible ability to create, transmit and consume stories," Scrivner says.

He has now amassed considerable support for these adaptive benefits. In one study, he recruited around 400 online participants for an online questionnaire, in which they had to rate their agreement with a series of statements about their consumption of horror films. They answered questions such as:

• I like the sensations that watching horror movies give me

• I've gotten so scared during a horror movie that I was afraid to go home or walk in my house afterwards.

• I like to watch "torture films" because I am curious what torture would really be like 

Analysing the results, he found that the participants could be divided into three main groups. The first, "Adrenaline Junkies", were driven by the physical feelings of suspense – they reported feeling "more alive" due to their fear. 

The second, "White Knucklers", tend to dislike the stress that horror films provoke. "They don't necessarily enjoy the feeling of fear, but they do enjoy the feeling of conquering their fear," explains Scrivner. They feel the process has helped them to learn something important about themselves, for instance.

The third, "Dark Copers", saw it as a way of dealing with real life. They reported watching horror films to explore how violent the world is, for instance, and to remind themselves of how safe their own lives were in comparison to the gore on screen. Some even saw the onscreen action as a way of managing their anxiety or depression. It was a way of testing their bravery.

Each of these motives provide a way to resolve the paradox of our fascination with the macabre. "You can have multiple paths to morbid curiosity," Scrivner says.

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To test whether the same results would hold in a completely different context, he teamed up with Danish researchers, who questioned the visitors to the Dystopia Haunted House, an interactive experience in Vejle, Denmark, built around a labyrinth with special effects and actors trained to terrify visitors. Exactly the same patterns emerged – an important validation of the theory. "Those three 'types' replicated beautifully in a different language, in a different culture, in a different setting," says Scrivner.

As further evidence of morbid curiosity's adaptive value, he found that fans of horror films showed greater resilience at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. They were more likely to agree with the statement "I have been taking the news about the pandemic in my stride", for instance, and "I believe in my ability to get through these difficult times". 

Refined simulations

Such effects may also reflect a fundamental principle in the brain's functioning.

Over the past few decades, philosophers, neuroscientists and psychologists have been converging on the idea that the brain is constantly building simulations of the world around us. "It is an anticipatory engine," Miller. 

As I describe in my own book The Expectation Effect, our brain uses "predictive processing" to help us to interpret new events as they are occurring and plan our responses appropriately – and the more accurately we can do this, the better. It is key to how we deal flexibly with our uncertain world.

More like this: 

• The video game 'ghost' that haunted people's dreams
• How Psycho's terrifying music changed film forever
• Final Destination: The horror film that traumatised millennials

Horror stories, Miller suggests, provide just enough uncertainty to keep the "anticipatory engine" engaged, allowing it to refine its simulations to make better predictions of threat in the future. "Hanging out in this sweet spot means you're always growing in your predictive capabilities, so that you are increasingly better set up to manage uncertainty over the long run," Miller says. 

Like Scrivner, he believes that this can be useful for reducing anxiety by moderating the stress response to unsettling events. "Horror is an opportunity to play with being scared, play with being disgusted, play with being under duress," says Miller. The advantage, of course, is that we remain within the safety and comfort of our sofa throughout this learning process, and we can control just how scared we feel by pausing the movie, leaving the room, or hiding behind our bucket of popcorn. 

Therapeutic fear

Scrivner suggests that horror stories could even be incorporated into psychological therapy as a way of teaching people to confront difficult situations. Given the right book or film, we may learn to downplay our fear into a sweet spot of pleasant titillation – emotional regulation skills that would help us to cope better with the stresses of everyday life.

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He points out that researchers in the Netherlands have used a similar principle to treat children with anxiety using a video game called MindLight. The game is set in a haunted house with shrieking monsters that stalk the player's avatar. The child, however, wears an EEG headset measuring their brain activity, and this directly controls a light on their avatar's head. The calmer they become, the brighter the light shines – reinforcing their relaxation.

If the child can maintain this relaxed state during an attack, the monster turns into a cute kitten that follows them around the house. If, on the other hand, the child becomes too scared, a message appears that offers advice for ways to calm their mind before proceeding.

In several clinical trials, children who regularly play the game show reduced anxiety in their everyday life – with similar overall benefits to classic cognitive behavioural therapy. "That's incredible, because it's the gold standard for treating anxiety in kids," says Scrivner. And he strongly suspects that regular horror stories – in novels or films – could serve a similar purpose.

As he writes in a review paper on the topic: "Horror entertainment content allows people to experience fear in a safe, controlled environment, providing an opportunity to practice cognitive reappraisal, tolerating uncomfortable somatic experiences, and challenge emotional reasoning."

Clearly, I've been missing a trick in my avoidance of all things macabre, since that home screening of The Exorcist. If you're in the same position, he recommends looking for something that lies just outside your normal tolerance. "Books are often a good way to start, because you can kind of control the imagination a little better," he says. And try to find stories that appeal to your other interests. "Horror is one of the broadest genres around, so you can find themes that you really enjoy."

You may be surprised where your morbid curiosity takes you – and the calm that it brings to the rest of your life.

* David Robson is an award-winning science writer and author. His latest book, The Laws of Connection: 13 Social Strategies That Will Transform Your Life, was published by Canongate (UK) and Pegasus Books (USA & Canada) in June 2024. He is @davidarobson onInstagram and Threads and writes the 60-Second Psychology newsletter on Substack.

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