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

Psychologists from Concordia University looked at just what's going on in the brain while you're watching a horror movie, and the gorefest on the screen is setting off warning bells in some major parts of the brain, like the amygdala (which assesses threats and fears), the hippocampus (which provides context to stimuli), and the hypothalamus (which kick-starts your fight-or-flight response). We're not talking a tiny reaction, either; Popular Science says it's such a pronounced response that a San Diego neuromarketing firm called MindSign is starting to use the data from MRI scans to tell Hollywood how to build a better horror movie. They're able to compare MRI activity to movie trailers, measuring such a primal response to on-screen imagery there's just no way for a person to lie about it. The amygdala in particular fires when there's a basic fear response, and they're hoping the data they collect will help create movies that will stick with you on a whole new level.