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

Why do we enjoy all this?
Sociologist Margee Kerr also helps figure out how to scare people senseless in haunted houses, because some people just have all the luck. She's also looked at why we like being scared, and told The Hairpin it has something to do with the convergence of the biological reactions scary movies get, coupled with the fact we're feeling these frights in a safe environment where there's no real danger. "Every night we turn on the news and hear all these depressing, scary things, and they just sort of sit there — there's no closure and little we can do about them," she said. "But when we go into a haunted house or watch a scary movie, we have that 'I did it' moment at the end, the big payoff. We feel like we faced something and beat it and came out on top."