By Ashling McKeever

From a very young age I’ve had an insatiable thirst for the macabre. Stephen King was, and still is, one of my heroes. The first horror movie I remember watching was The Children Of The Corn. Watching it now though, I don’t think it’s very good. I vividly remember the cover the tape came in, the black menacing sickle on the red background. Terror-inducing stuff for a 5-year-old.

I never experienced any emotional trauma from watching horror movies as a kid. Sure I’d sleep with the door slightly ajar, or ask my big sister if I could stay in with her for the night. But the fear went away quite quickly, and then I was on to the next one.

Watching horror movies has been a tradition in my family for as long as I can remember. It may seem strange that my parents would allow me to watch scary movies at such a young age. However they were horror fans and they didn’t think it was such a big deal, especially because none of us were really affected by it all.

A Nightmare on Elm Street was another memorable experience. I remember being transfixed by the sheer gore of it. Looking through my fingers curled up on the couch with the rest of my family. We really enjoyed those horror nights. It was a form of bonding, hugging our parents tightly. Who knows? Maybe on some deep level they took pride in the fact that they would protect us. We always felt safe watching these movies with our parents. My brother and sister would tease me for days afterwards and sing that stupid song ‘1, 2 Freddie’s coming for you’. He never did though. No nightmares, no trauma.

As I grew older the desire for a good scare grew stronger. Trying to recapture those terror-filled moments. Watching a horror movie is a lot like being on a roller coaster, only instead of your body being flung about all helter skelter, it’s your emotions. Empathy, remorse, contempt, and bravery for having endured the whole experience.

Then at the tender age of about 12, I saw a movie that would forever change me, and how I viewed horror movies. That movie was The Exorcist. Watching Linda Blair’s head rotate 360 degrees was, and still is, the most horrifying thing I have ever seen, and the “Unknown Entity” swearing in ferocious Latin, the most spine-chilling thing I’ve ever heard. After that experience, horror movies for me changed into just thrillers. Nothing scared me after that.

So why do I enjoy horror movies so much? Morbid fascination? Curiosity? Horror stories drag us in kicking and screaming and then keep us there. We feel compelled to watch, to find out what happens next. As most horrors have a bad guy, we want to find out what becomes of them. The Saw franchise is a perfect example. There are seven Saw movies at present and each one keeps us fans coming back for more. There are so many plot twists and cleverly executed “games” that it’s hard not to watch and become hooked.

If I had to pin point one specific reason why I enjoy horror movies so much it would probably be how they make me feel afterwards. There have been many studies into the reasons why people watch scary movies and their effects on a person. When we watch horror movies our breathing gets heavier, our blood pressure rises and our hearts pound out of our chests. These effects stay with us when the movie is over, so if we’ve had fun with our friends and family while watching a movie these are the things our bodies remember most. And we long for that feeling again, and again.

My editor and I had a conversation on this subject of fears recently. She had just heard an interview with the author Richard Russo, whose mother had OCD and was so afraid of the world that she couldn’t function normally. Apparently the treatment for this disorder is immersion therapy. To be near the things you are afraid of until you are afraid no more. Maybe something like this happened to me with horror movies, because the more I watched, the less frightened I seemed to be.

On the other hand, I was doing a little research myself on the topic for this piece and there just happened to be an article with a picture of the now infamous 360-degree head spin with it. My heart started to race, my palms got sweaty, and fear took over. I had to actually close the article because I couldn’t read it with that picture there. Funny that.