Three main factors are credited for making horror an alluring genre: Tension: providing a sense of suspense or mystery, terror, shock, or fear. Relevance: creating a cultural or personal connection, tapping into an inbuilt fear such as death. Unrealism: having a distinct element that separates the viewer from what they are watching and reality, allowing for distance from the events seen. The mixture of relevance (creating a personal connection, a reason for us to feel invested in the survival of the protagonist or the events unfolding) and unrealism (the separation from what we are seeing) can be used to explain what allows us to watch graphic, gore-filled films like, while turning away from similar real-life imagery in documentaries or news reports.
