FEAR FACTOR

I was just watching the brilliantly made movie THE GRUDGE (all alone, and in the night with a thundering sound system), and I wondered what causes fear. Horror movies have come a long way. From the sickle weilding PSYCHO to the latest Japanese-inspired horror flicks (like THE RING), horror movies have experimented with the gruesome and grotesque, the palest faces, blood/gore and snuff kind of movies, zombies, audio effects, chilling story line, the supernatural, aliens, religious- good and evil, and what not.

What are the chances that you would get frightened with those themes? I mean, people say THE GRUDGE is very scary. Some 30 years back, people were giving away "rewards" for watching movies like EXORCIST alone in the night in a movie theater. Movies like BEETLEJUICE, THE FLY were "horrifying" when it was released. But times have changed since then and today some movies only make us flinch from all the blood and gore- but are we REALLY SCARED? Possibly. Possibly not. People have different acceptance levels of fear- or in other words, different people are scared of different things.

Here's a list of things of what actually gives us fear!

1. Horrifying faces

2. Blood and gore

3. Eerie sounds

4. Mystery, magic and supernatural occurances

5. Devil/ghost and related fear

6. Surprise element combined with (1-5) above

In many cases, fear is instilled by a surprise element- that is not to say that other things don't scare you. But since fear is subjective, it is difficult to exactly comprehend what scares us. Some people will be shitting bricks when they are "caught" doing something they are not supposed to do... some people will lose a year's growth when they are confronted by horrifying elements (like 1-6 above); while some other will not sleep if it is completely dark. So, being subjective horror and fear is difficult to judge, but general consensus is that 1-6 are good reasons for fear.

Fear could be just with regards to something- like the number 13, for instance. Some people are fearful of rollercoasters- fear of heights? or drops? Fear of the sky falling on your head tomorrow? Just google for "phobias" and you will find a list of them- some of them utterly incredible.

So, the reason for fear could never be objectively quantified- so in a sense, we could say fear is the only thing we should be afraid of!