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

And that's a hugely powerful feeling. (It's also pretty depressing, if you think about it.) She also said (via The Atlantic) that fear delivered via horror movie is a little different than real-life fears. The stimuli triggering your fight-or-flight response (and, in turn, small doses of dopamine) often happen at a lightning pace. That means our bodies react, but our brains process the fact there's no real danger just as fast. Turns out that fear is best when it's followed by nervous laughter and jokes about pants-wetting.