Why Horror Seduces

From vampire apocalypses, shark attacks, witches, and ghosts, to murderous dolls bent on revenge, horror has been part of the American cinematic imagination for almost as long as pictures have moved on screens. But why do they captivate us so? What is the drive to be frightened, and why is it so perennially popular? Why Horror Seduces addresses these questions through evolutionary social sciences. Explaining the functional seduction of horror entertainment, this book draws on cutting-edge findings in the evolutionary social sciences, showing how the horror genre is a product of human nature. Integrating the study of horror with the sciences of human nature, the book claims that horror entertainment works by targeting humans' adaptive tendency to find pleasure in make-believe, allowing a high intensity experience within a safe context. Through analyses of well-known and popular modern American works of horror--Rosemary's Baby; The Shining; I Am Legend; Jaws; and several others--author Mathias Clasen illustrates how these works target evolved cognitive and emotional mechanisms; we are attracted to horrifying entertainment because we have an adaptive tendency to find pleasure in make-believe that allows us to experience negative emotions at high levels of intensity within a safe context. Organized into three parts identifying fictional works by evolutionary mode--the evolution of horror; evolutionary interpretations of horror; the future of horror--Why Horror Seduces succinctly explores the cognitive processes behind spectators' need to scream.

Mathias Clasen is Associate Professor of Literature and Media in the Department of English, Aarhus University.

Acknowledgments Introduction: Horror, Fear, and Evolution Part 1: An Evolutionary Theory of Horror 1. Sizing Up the Beast: What Horror Is, and How It Is Studied 2. How Horror Works, I: The Evolution and Stimulation of Negative Emotion 3. How Horror Works, II: Spooky Monsters, Scary Scenarios, and Terrified Characters 4. Fear for Your Life: The Appeals, Functions, and Effects of Horror Part 2: Evolutionary Perspectives on American Horror 5. Monsters Everywhere: A Very Brief Overview of American Horror 6. Vampire Apocalypse: I Am Legend (1954) 7. Trust No One: Rosemary's Baby (1967) 8. Fight the Dead, Fear the Living: Night of the Living Dead (1968) 9. Never Go Swimming Again: Jaws (1975) 10. Haunted Houses, Haunted Minds: The Shining (1977) 11. Hack n' Slash: Halloween (1978) 12. Lost and Hunted in Bad Woods: The Blair Witch Project (1999) Part 3: Future Evolutions in Horror Entertainment and Horror Research 13. The Future of Horror References Index