What’s Going On in Your Body When You Watch a Horror Movie

Your senses are heightened
Part of that fight-or-flight response involves triggering heightened senses. When researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison studied volunteers' reactions to horror movies, they found movie-watching subjects demonstrated increased eye movements along with an elevated heart rate and breathing. Georgia Tech researchers found volunteers who were watching suspenseful horror (specifically, Alfred Hitchcock's creeptastic films), tended to focus all their senses on the story during the most terrifying parts.