Welcome back to another blog post! Recently, we’ve been spending a lot of our time in PLP scared. Not in the usual exhibition-is-coming way, but in a purposeful and mindful state. We’re studying horror as a commentary on society while also creating a horror movie to share our learning. You’ll hear much more about that in the coming weeks. For now, we’ve been offered an opportunity to do some research into a question we find intriguing. My question for the world is, “ Why are we afraid of horror movies but not stories of true crime?”.
The first thing that came to mind when thinking about this is topic, as an enjoyer of both horror and true crime, is the atmosphere that both genres produce. Dateline and other TV shows that explore the true crime genre cultivate a calm and curious feeling. With a soothing voice and well produced show, true crime shows offer up information without trying to cause fear. When we compare this to horror, we find that horror aims to do the opposite.
Some other things to consider:
– We also get brought out of the true crime world with ads on TV. Horror is streamed or consumed in a theatre in order to keep you in the moment.
– Horror shocks the masses. True crime becomes predictable.
In exploring this question, I transformed into a mad scientist and preformed a test. It looks something like this:
I created a survey and asked myself while filling it out to be honest about how each example made me feel. The results proved to me that I am much more empathetic with the victims in fiction than I am with those in real life. I found that I was disappointed with myself for empathizing with the “wrong one”. I want to feel bad for my fellow humans but the design of horror means the characters and their emotions are much more striking.
Another thing we’ve been exploring is how viewers connect with characters. We follow along with the movie actors and get to see the whole story. The main characters are extensions of ourselves. Another problem is that people in real life are harder to empathize with because of their perceived flaws. This means we are already detached by the time we get deep into our true crime story. It’s frustrating in some regards. Real people in real danger deserve your sympathy much more than those in horror movies. Human beings have people who care about them. They have to live with the consequences of their loss much longer than those on a movie set. And yet, I still have never felt as bad for someone on dateline as I have for Sally Hardesty. Clearly different circumstances but Sally is fictional! And clearly she’s been designed to scare me, but are real world horrors not as terrifying, if not more so?
As afore mentioned, horror is designed to make you feel fear. That’s the appeal of the genre. I find that in fiction, when we empathize with the character and they get slaughtered, it’s more scary than when an individual in the real world does. Another reason I’ve been exploring for this phenomenon is that fiction is pre-written. In the real world we’d all like to believe that if we were in a dateline episode, we’d be sitting with the host, discussing the events rather than being talked about. We all think we could survive, that we’d be the lucky one. In Texas chainsaw massacre for example, the playing field isn’t even. The cannibals clearly have the upper hand because of their design. In the real world things often are much more even.
If you would like to do the test for yourself, pick out a favourite horror movie and take a listen to one of my recommended podcast episodes and see where you fall. You might be surprised. Even if you don’t, I still thank you for reading my post and I hope I’ve sparked a new though in your brain.
– Zo