How Horror Films Help Anxiety

Today I’m talking about how horror films can help your anxiety.

Halloween is upon us again and there are spooky decorations on houses on every street. Skeletons, ghosts, witches and the like have been put up by many people in anticipation of the children trick or treating. Cinemas and TV channels are again running horror movie seasons. And it reminded me about an article I wrote a few years ago that explored research looking into how horror films could help make you more psychologically resilient.

Now, that particular research looked at resilience in the context of the covid pandemic. The research found that fans of horror films exhibited greater resilience during the pandemic, a time of uncertainty, distress and anxiety. In addition, fans of films that contain imagined worlds of chaos, such as zombie and post-apocalyptic genres, also exhibited greater resilience and preparedness. It seems that exposure to frightening fictional scenarios allows you to practice effective coping strategies that can be beneficial in real world situations. This then helps with experiencing less anxiety and distress when something happens in the real world.

You go to be entertained and you end up learning useful coping strategies. That’s a good result.

Now, I don’t claim to be the biggest fan of horror movies, although I’ve seen quite a few recently at my local cinema (some better than others!). There was The Long Walk that covered a kind of dystopian future. And there was The Conjuring: Last Rites which I think jump scared me a couple of times. There have been others but they seem to have blended into a sort of mediocre sameness inside my mind.

Yet it seems that in this Halloween season (and the rest of the year too!), horror movies can help you to manage your anxiety and develop effective coping skills.

Horror Films And Anxious Emotional Regulation

The research suggests that horror films can help you to learn how to navigate and cope with real life strategies. What about anxiety? Well, watching horror films can give you the opportunity to safely deal with feelings of anxiety and fear. You learn how to manage and regulate your anxious emotions.

Watching horror films can help you to learn how to effectively and safely manage your fearful emotions, which is a skill that can then be applied when coping with real world events and situations, and which can contribute to less distress and increased resilience.

You can read my previous article, which includes research citations, here: Could Horror Films Make You More Psychologically Resilient To The Covid-19 Pandemic? As mentioned above, although this was associated with the pandemic, the principle of horror films helping anxiety applies more broadly.

As well as looking into how horror films can help with emotional regulation of fear, anxiety and distress, the research author, Coltan Scrivner, has also looked into morbid curiosity as a common psychological trait. Morbid curiosity is described as an interest in or curiosity about unpleasant things and threatening phenomena, especially death, so it’s where horror films and true crime things sit.

If you want to know where you sit on the scale of morbid curiosity compared to other people then do go and do his online test: Morbid Curiosity Test (opens external link). I scored lower than the population average, except when it comes to the psychology side of things, which I guess fits with what I do for a living!

It’s a fascinating area of human psychology to explore our relationship with these things and the seeming pleasure and interest that some people (some more than others) seem to take in scaring themselves through horror films. It’s such an interesting area of human psychology that I’ve just ordered Scrivner’s book and I can’t wait to read more about it all.

Help For Anxiety

My youngest daughter seems to love horror movies. If it’s on Netflix (and not an 18) then she’s probably seen it. When we watch movies together she often shouts out about how the person facing danger on screen should take alternative action to what they are doing in the movie, so that they keep themselves safe (but hey it wouldn’t be much of a thriller if everyone made good decisions and escaped the threat). Maybe this is a glimpse into how these sorts of movies can help with learning and developing real life coping strategies should a situation arise (which in the case of my daughter I hope it never does!).

It’s not a home work task I’ve ever set a client with anxiety yet in one of his papers (Scrivner, 2022), the author suggests that horror movies could be used as ‘practice’ material for clients who want to learn how to regulate anxious emotions and negative thoughts. The films evoke emotions and you learn how to tolerate and manage anxiety. These skills can then be taken into real life to help you cope with actual situations. It’s an interesting idea and something that many horror fans may be learning without even realising as they watch their favourite genre of movies.

I do think that the use of horror movies for learning how to regulate anxiety feelings and thoughts, as well as developing coping skills for handling threat, is a fascinating topic. You can learn how to manage stress and anxiety so that when something challenging crops up in life you feel more equipped to handle it.

Having said that, I’ve seen the trailer for Black Phone 2, which is on at my local cinema, and I think I’ll maybe leave my emotional regulation training for another time! I think I’d be safer with the animation film, Pets on a Train!

If you are struggling with anxious thoughts and feelings and could use some help then please do get in touch. Take the first step and book your free consultation. We’ll work together to help you overcome your anxiety and find more calm in your life.

To your health and happiness, 

Dan Regan

Anxiety Therapist in Ely & Newmarket

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References:

Scrivner, C., 2021. The psychology of morbid curiosity: Development and initial validation of the morbid curiosity scale. Personality and individual differences, 183, p.111139.

Scrivner, C.W., 2022. The psychology of morbid curiosity (Doctoral dissertation, The University of Chicago).