Why we ride the Terror Train!!

                                                                                                                                                     ''Don't you laugh when the hearse goes by
Or you will be the next to die
wrap you up in bloody sheets
And then they bury you six feet deep.......
-a childhood rhyme

Why we ride the Terror Train!!

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The scratching noise under the bed, the shuffling heard in the attic, the unknown, the dark, the chase, a face peering in at you through the window on a dark autumn night-these images can conjure up a sensation of icy fingers running up and down our spine! We can feel our hair standing on end and we tense up and forget to breathe. How much more exciting can it get?

As a horror writer I am always fascinated why some of us can not get enough of this genre, be it through books, film, games or any other medium. Why do we have an attraction to the things we fear most?!

We pack the movie theaters, can't wait to get our hands on the newest Stephen King or Dean Koontz book, and literally scare ourselves to the point we cant sleep. And we love it!

Take a look at 'Paranormal Activity'for example, which recently made over $100 million in box office receipts, and all we have to do is look at horror author Stephen King's 340 million book sales to realize this genre is far from dead.

Horror is all around us. One of my favorite Christmas movies, 'A Christmas Carol' contains horror elements. It has ghosts, clanking chains being hauled up a staircase by a spirit, and a man weeping upon seeing his own grave.

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Our cereal boxes carry names like 'Count Chocula' and 'Frankenberry.'
What would a campfire be without sharing a good ghost story or two.

Horror has endured since the beginning of time, in fact, longer than any other genre. Think back to the ancient Egyptians who created tales of spiritual revenge, in fact, all known societies have spoken about strange beasts, angry gods and other worlds.

I believe one of the reasons we enjoy this genre, which gives us the raw emotions of terror and horror is because it is far easier to face the fiction, than to face the real horrors of our world. We know that someone created this for us.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that dramatic portrayals gave the audience an opportunity to purge itself of certain negative emotions, a process he called, catharsis. If reading and especially watching horror lets us purge certain pent up negative emotions and aggression, it will reduce the probability of a person acting on these emotions.

Our blood pounds in our veins, our heat races, we are aroused-we are alive!!! This hormonal reaction we get by responding to a threatening situation motivates us to enjoy being afraid, no different than the Fight or Flight Response that is needed to guarantee our survival-as in primitive times.

Fear is an incredibly complex and universal emotion-and one of the strongest. Life is filled with too many horrific events-some unimaginable! We know real horror exists, but in real life-we wont find hideously looking beings hiding under our beds, flesh-eaters lurking in our bedroom closet, or our loved ones slithering out of their graves to gnaw on our bones.

I think we get a thrill from horror and knowing we are safe, our fears can be evoked without danger!

Only through fiction do we seek, and benefit from this wonderful genre called horror!

For those of you who like to take a ride on the terror train, I bid you sweet scream-mares!!!!

Written by Kim Corbett 2011, all rights reserved. No part of this story may be used without permission. ghost-space.com