Can horror movies treat anxiety?
The cultural impact of the horror genre is unmistakable. Dracula, Frankenstein, and casual exorcisms have made it into our everyday vernacular. In fact, we could say the same thing for any movie genre. Jaws gave us a new respect for skinny dipping in the ocean, and Alien taught us that alien species floating around in the cosmos who even think about coming to Earth or implanting eggs inside our stomachs should think twice when we have badass women ready to set fire to them in a heartbeat. But it is when movies make us feel afraid that something sort of strange happens.
There is something rather peculiar about our relationship with fear. Of course, fear is a bad thing; it’s unpleasant and makes us feel vulnerable. But if fear is so bad, we wouldn’t have built rollercoasters, filmed horror movies, or created life-like porcelain dolls with eyes that follow you no matter how much you try to bury them at the bottom of a lake and move cities. In fact, when we watch horror movies, one in six of us declares that we want them to be “extremely” frightening1. Why do we even watch horror movies at all when most people feel anxious during the movie and nearly half of us experience sleep disturbances later that night2? The numbers just don’t make sense. We feel afraid or anxious during and after a frightening experience, and yet we still enjoy it. This paradox is what makes the horrors so intriguing because the genre is absolutely thriving, and with doubling revenue and a six-fold increase in new releases since the 1980s, we must be signing up for more doses of fear.
Let’s unravel this paradox and investigate what happens inside the brain when we are watching scary movies and why they might actually reduce our fear. Naturally, I can’t immediately give you all the juicy details; I don’t want to scare you away! First, let’s take a look at why we have a fear response in the first place.
The fearful brain
Fearful experiences range from the mildly uncomfortable to the utterly terrifying, but these experiences contribute a beneficial survival instinct designed to keep us safe. Fear is an essential mechanism to teach us that the grizzly bear in the forest offering “free hugs” with a hastily written sign, would be almost certainly deadly to us, so we shouldn’t do it. It’s the same reason we fear, to varying amounts, high places, because a fall could result in injury or death. Fear serves as a strong signal of potential threats and dangers that will be remembered the next time we encounter them, teaching us to be more alert in the future and to stay safe.
Because fear is such a vital and complex emotion, it requires a lot of brain real estate. Fear is typically a learned behaviour (although there is some debate over whether fears can ever be innate), so brain regions involved in memory are recruited, along with our emotional centres, stress and anti-stress processes, and logical and critical thinking areas, as shown in the diagram below.
[Reedsy won't let me upload the images for some reason]
Another region, the amygdala, is also heavily involved in fear learning and fear extinction, which is the process of reducing the strength of fearful memories over time. Many research studies focus only on the amygdala, but other brain regions are also involved in fear. The amygdala is often called the fear centre of the brain, but it’s more like a coordinator of fear and other emotions.
It’s a good thing there is coordination because there can be multiple processes occurring in the brain when watching horror movies. A 2020 study, in which participants watched either The Conjuring 2 or Insidious while laying inside an MRI machine, reported that the brain was in a continuous anticipatory state of fear, with increased communication between the frontal cortex, visual cortex, and limbic system (where many of the brains emotional regions are)3. Essentially, the brain was in threat-assessment mode, staying vigilant for dangers. The brain would then determine whether or not the threat posed any valid risk, resolving ambiguity in those instances by applying reasoning and rational oversight, particularly from the frontal cortex.
However, this wasn’t the case for every type of fright. Jump scares, where loud noises or immediate action are frightening, instantly activate areas all over the brain, including the brainstem, amygdala, cerebellum, and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). These areas are involved in emotional experiences, attention, movement, and determining the immediate risk in a given situation. Basically, the brain is saying, “Holy moly, that was scary, but was it scary enough to do something?”
What was particularly intriguing is that when the participants were asked about their horror movie habits, they stated that horror movies made them feel nauseated, nervous, scared, and believe it or not, excited. And they weren’t the only ones who thought that.
Horror movies make us feel good now?
When 1,000 film lovers were asked about their horror movie habits, we gained new insights into the reasons we make the frightful choices we do. Participants ranged from hardcore horror fans who used some form of horror media for entertainment several times per week to those who barely dipped a toe into the ghost-filled lakes once per year.
People with strong beliefs about paranormal events seemed to gravitate towards movies with supernatural events, like ghosts and demons, in contrast to those who preferred more natural events, such as sharks and tornados, or sharknados, the most terrifying of all tornados1.
Here is the fascinating thing about watching horror movies: people also experienced a significant increase in positive feelings such as joy, trust, and surprise, along with a decrease in sadness and anger. Interestingly, the most common emotion, besides fear, was relief. Feeling relief after the horror movie ends provides us with reassurances that the fear was only temporary and we are safe. These positive emotions are main reasons we keep coming back for more scares.
The feeling of relief described in this study is consistent with other research, but it is a strange observation. At first glance, it seems a little odd, doesn’t it? Horror films cause nervous feelings, they don’t help them! I mean, if we want to lose weight, we don't eat more pizza, we eat less. Why, then, would consuming more horror movies help to reduce fears and anxieties?
The positive feelings we experience during horror movies occur due to a sudden drop in the fear response. When put into a position of fear, our body turns up the dial. Often called the fight or flight response, a strong activation in the brain we described earlier also coincides with the activation of the sympathetic nervous system. Our breathing, heart rate, and sweating increase. Even our digestive system slows down as it diverts blood toward our muscles so we can respond to threats. But here is the critical detail: once the scary scene in the movie is over and we make it through unharmed, a feeling of relief from the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in.[1] This type of activation is the opposite of the fight or flight response and is sometimes referred to as the rest and digest response. The parasympathetic nervous system slows our heart rate, breathing, and other responses throughout the body. The calming effect from the brain and parasympathetic response, in quick succession to the scary parts in the movie, tells us that we are no longer in danger. We feel relief and experience a downregulation of the arousal state we were just in. We can look back at the scary scenes as entertainment rather than a genuine risk to our safety and we get to enjoy and experience our more extreme emotions without putting ourselves in danger. That’s because, in real-life environments when we experience fear, it’s probably not a safe and exciting time, and there will likely be genuine exposure to danger. Naturally, we don’t want that danger, but that doesn’t mean we never want to experience our full range of emotions, even the fearful ones–we just want them without the impending doom. Horror movies can give us that outlet.
Although we may experience fear during the movie, our brain also sends messages telling us that the bad thing can't really happen to us because no matter how frightening that Sharknado is, deep down, we understand it is only a movie. This context and logic are primarily thanks to the PFC, which helps to coordinate information from our past experiences to decide whether or not we should be afraid of something.[2] This override button in the brain can't immediately compete with the rush of fear and panic explicitly crafted by the movie director and questionable acting, but once the scary scene or loud sound effects have ended, our brain exerts more reasoning and logical control, and we feel relieved and entertained. We get the adrenaline rush, but it’s considered a “safe scare”.
There are also systems within the brain that reduce our experience of fear, and it is entirely plausible that these are activated when we are relieved by watching horror movies and coming away from them unscathed.
Exposure
Watching horror movies causes us to fluctuate between feeling afraid and relieved and may give us a sense of mastery over our fears or anxiety in those moments. Psychologists relate this experience to exposure therapy, a well-documented technique whereby we are exposed to small amounts of something, with gradual increases over time to desensitise us to that specific stimulus.
In theory, this exposure might suggest that the brain can learn that fearful experiences are temporary and don’t require a strong or exaggerated response for the next time. This has led to the idea that horror movies may represent a method to possibly rewire some aspects of fear or anxiety. The original fear may always be there, but a new and more adequate response might be favoured and incorporated through neuroplasticity changes in the brain, and possible fear extinction memories, which we will get to in following question.
Although horror movies will probably never actually treat anxiety disorders, the concept of exposure therapy is a powerful one and has helped treat anxiety disorders, PTSD, and phobias. It should be noted, however, that exposure therapy for horror movies has not been explicitly studied in large-scale trials, and so the concepts haven’t really been put to the test. However, virtual reality headsets have been examined to look for additional benefits within exposure therapy protocols, specifically for social anxiety disorder and PTSD5, although they have yet to prove beneficial.
It’s not just horror movies that can downsize our fears. One riveting study revealed a surprising method for reducing fear of our eight-legged friends. Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, caught the attention of researchers who described how watching superhero movies like Spider-Man reduced arachnophobia6. It is particularly astonishing that participants only needed seven seconds of viewing time to reduce their fear by around 30 percent, although it is likely that the effects only last momentarily. It does, however, open up the idea of using different media for therapeutic use, and if combined with traditional treatments, there may be options to explore combinations in the future, particularly in phobias.
Or perhaps it’s just fun to watch movies. These are intriguing ideas, and future studies are needed to understand any potential clinical benefits, but people with fear or anxiety conditions should stick with trained professionals before hitting the cinema in search for a treatment.
And, in case you are wondering. Horror books, computer games, or scary stories should also produce similar effects as movies, just as long as the experience is genuinely frightening, and you come through it unscathed and feel ready for the next one.
Better yet, why have any fear in the first place? What happens when people live their entire lives ignoring their fear responses, or better yet, when they have no amygdala in their brain? Let’s find out next, unless you’re too afraid!
[1]Both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are branches of our autonomic nervous system which automatically controls our bodily functions, including blood pressure, breathing rate, and heart rate.
[2] Specifically, the communication between the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and the amygdala is critical in our threat evaluation4.
