Why I Love Horror Movies, Part 1
There is something about the adrenaline rush of watching a horror film. When I was a kid my cousin told me he was an adrenaline junkie and that’s why he did rock climbing. That’s how I always think of it now. Horror movies are like sedentary rock climbing. A psychological thrill, a psychological trip.
Sam Raimi said, quote, “The construction of a suspense sequence is very similar to the construction of a joke. And in a horror film, that suspense sequence is capped with a scare, and in a joke, it’s capped with an unexpected punchline, and I find the two can be interchangeable.”
So a punchline, or a scare, is the release of an escalation. This structure could be said to be the structure of another type of human activity.
I watched a horror movie with a friend—Dead Snow, about resurrected Nazi zombies in the fjords of Norway. It was an incredible, exhilarating experience. As the end credits rolled, my friend turned to me and said, quote, “Your face! You look like you just got a new boyfriend or something.”
I don’t think he meant I looked in love. I think he meant I looked postcoital. I felt postcoital. I was flirted with, teased, the movie bringing me on a ride, right up to its climax, my back arching as I tried to look away with eyes wide open and glued to the screen, and then I was sweetly released. I dreamily sat in the afterglow of the end credits, and elicited an appropriate response from my friend, who now seemed vaguely uncomfortable with what he realized he’d just witnessed.