麻豆传媒

Nina Nesseth

Tor Nightfire

I HAVE friends who are so afraid of sharks that they won鈥檛 swim in the sea 鈥� no matter how enclosed the harbour, or full the beach. When I went cage diving with great whites last year, they were appalled. Yet at the same time, I noticed, they couldn鈥檛 wait to see the footage.

This illustrates the idiosyncratic and inexplicable nature of fear. While our desires tend to run along consistent lines 鈥� love, happiness, health and wealth 鈥� what frightens us is often intensely personal and even perverse.

So how do film-makers petrify their audiences? And why do we keep watching? Nina Nesseth sets out to find answers in Nightmare Fuel: The science of horror films. The science writer and scary movie buff unites her passions in this book, which is equally a popular science look at the psychology that underpins screen scares and a love letter to the horror genre.

The two, after all, have to be assessed together: as Nesseth points out in her introduction, the mark of a good horror film isn鈥檛 鈥渨as it good?鈥�, but 鈥渨as it scary?鈥�.

Since director Georges M茅li猫s depicted the devil in 1896鈥檚 The Devil鈥檚 Castle, credited as the first horror film, there is very little that hasn鈥檛 been played for scares, from the obviously threatening (serial killers, outer space) to the previously innocuous (clowns).

Given the breadth of the genre, Nesseth defines horror by its promise 鈥渢o make you feel fear鈥�. Through research, interviews and case studies, she explores the ways it delivers on this, from sound design and editing to simulated blood, starting with the impact of horror on the brain and body.

Humans evolved the ability to process and remember fear 鈥� along with responses such as fight, flight, freeze or vomit 鈥� because those who detect danger quickly are more likely to survive. We remain so alert that researchers have found that even subliminal images of snakes can activate a threat response.

Clearly fear mechanisms make good evolutionary sense. What doesn鈥檛 is why we enthusiastically trigger them. The essential paradox of horror films has been explained as 鈥渂enign masochism鈥�, akin to eating hot chillies or skydiving: the pleasure of venturing past our innate fears and cautions in search of new experiences and sensations.

But horror movies play on our psychology, too. As Nesseth writes, the scare is effective 鈥渂ecause you know it鈥檚 coming鈥�, making you complicit in your pleasurable anticipation, in your own terror.

Here, the science of scary movies goes beyond biological responses and cognitive processing to cunning storytelling. Terrifying an audience, whether by designing a compelling monster or channelling societal unease, requires a lot of knowledge about emotions and empathy, say Nesseth鈥檚 interviewees.

Nesseth also explores the perennial question of whether screen violence desensitises or even primes us for it in real life, but she draws no easy conclusions because the research is too patchy. Yet the decade-by-decade change she shows in what scares us is revealing about the concerns of the times.

She points to Roman Polanski鈥檚 1968 film Rosemary鈥檚 Baby, as well as later pregnancy horrors released after the 1973 Roe v Wade decision on abortion. Then there are recent culturally informed films such as Jordan Peele鈥檚 Get Out (see more in Don鈥檛 Miss, right) and Ari Aster鈥檚 Midsommar. At the start of the covid-19 pandemic, there was a spike in streams of medical thriller Contagion. This year, ( skewers toxic masculinity.

Horror films, Nesseth suggests, may be a way of processing reality at a seemingly safe remove. As she writes: 鈥淵ou can repeat to yourself, 鈥業t鈥檚 only a movie鈥�.鈥�