Why do we love scary movies? And why are some just too much?

Real question here.

What is wrong with us?

Look, that’s not an insult. I said, “us.” That includes me.

We go out of our way to avoid terrifying situations.

Yeah, I’ll park way further away because that spot next door is in a shady alley.

This project would be way easier if I grabbed the wrench in the shed, but I’ll keep trying to get this bolt out with my fingernails because there may be some big spiders in there.

You get the point.

We lock our doors at night, look both ways before crossing the street, and occasionally sprint up the basement stairs after turning off the lights because you never know.

Then October rolls around, and we voluntarily pay someone $15 to scare the living daylights out of us.

And most of us absolutely love it.

Humans are weird and fascinating. Why do we enjoy being scared? What is it about sitting in a dark theater, knowing something terrible is about to happen, that makes us want to come back for more?

And here’s something else I’ve noticed. Not everyone who loves scary movies loves the same kind of scary movie.

In fact, I’ve learned that I really enjoy certain kinds of horror movies, while I wouldn’t watch others again even if you paid me back $15. You could probably throw in some free popcorn, and I’d still pass.

Not all scares are created equal

Take supernatural horror, for example.

Movies like “The Conjuring,” “The Exorcist,” and “Insidious” are designed to make us afraid of things we can’t see or explain. There’s something lurking in the shadows. A strange noise comes from the other room. A door slowly opens when nobody is standing near it.

I love a good supernatural horror movie. In fact, my own two cents: “The Conjuring” is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.

There’s an art to building that kind of fear. The best filmmakers know that sometimes what you don’t see is far more frightening than what you do. They let your imagination do the heavy lifting, and if they’re really good at their jobs, you’ll be thinking about that movie long after the credits roll.

Of course, that also means I might spend the next three nights convincing myself that the pile of clothes on the chair in my bedroom isn’t actually a demon.

The price of admission, I suppose.

Then there are movies I like to call “terror movies.” These are the ones that don’t need ghosts or demons because the threat is something that could actually happen.

“The Strangers” and “Vacancy” come to mind.

These movies are terrifying for a completely different reason. There’s no supernatural explanation or ancient curse. Just ordinary people finding themselves in horrible situations with other human beings who want to hurt them.

There’s something about that kind of movie that gets under my skin. Maybe because it’s easier to convince myself that a demon isn’t hiding in my closet than it is to convince myself that there aren’t some genuinely frightening people in the world.

I enjoy those movies, too, although I tend to double-check that the doors are locked afterward. My wife, on the other hand? I know not to even try with those movies.

Then we have slashers.

“Halloween,” “Scream,” “Friday the 13th,” and a long list of movies featuring masked killers who apparently have unlimited stamina and an uncanny ability to appear exactly where they need to be.

These movies can be scary, but they can also be a lot of fun.

“Scream,” in particular, understands that. It plays with the rules of horror movies, makes fun of the genre, and still manages to create some genuinely tense moments.

Most of the characters make suspect or downright terrible decisions, but, of course, if everyone in horror movies made reasonable decisions, most of them would be about 12 minutes long.

When scary becomes unpleasant

But there’s another category of scary movies that I have a much harder time enjoying.

These are the movies that seem less interested in frightening you and more interested in disturbing you.

Now, I realize that’s a blurry line. Some of the best horror movies ever made are disturbing. And a movie can make us uncomfortable while still telling a fascinating story.

But there’s a difference, at least for me, between a movie that uses disturbing material to tell its story and one that seems to exist primarily to see how much ugliness an audience can stomach.

Which brings me to movies like “Hostel” and “Terrifier.”

I know these movies have their fans. You do you. As for me, I hate these movies. No need to beat around the bush here. I genuinely dislike this genre of scary movie.

Watching people endure increasingly gruesome acts of violence doesn’t entertain me. I’m not impressed by how much fake blood a filmmaker can put on screen or how creatively someone can be dismembered.

I understand that practical effects can take an incredible amount of talent and creativity. I can appreciate the work involved without wanting to watch the finished product. But I also can’t help but feel there are better ways to show off that talent. For me, these are not stories that need to be told.

For me, there’s a point where the experience stops being scary and starts being unpleasant. And I am now gingerly stepping off my soapbox.

The fun of being afraid

And that brings me back to my original question.

Why do we enjoy being scared?

I think part of the answer is that we like experiencing fear when we know we’re safe.

It’s like riding a roller coaster. Your stomach drops, your heart races, and for a few seconds your body is convinced something has gone terribly wrong.

Then the ride ends, you step off, and there’s a good chance you want to do it again.

A good scary movie can offer a similar experience.

We’re sitting in a comfortable theater with a giant bucket of popcorn. We know the danger isn’t real, but for a little while we allow ourselves to believe it is.

We get nervous. We jump. Sometimes we scream. And then we laugh at ourselves for getting so worked up over something happening on a screen.

But I also think the best scary movies give us something more than fear.

They give us characters to care about, create mysteries we want solved, and make us curious about what happens next, even when we’re fairly certain we won’t like the answer.

I don’t want a movie to simply show me something horrible. I want it to make me feel something more than disgust. I want to wonder what’s lurking around the corner and hope the characters I’ve come to care about don’t find out the hard way.

And when a movie does all of that well, the fear becomes part of the fun.

Maybe that’s why we can all have such different tastes in scary movies. We’re not necessarily looking for the same experience.

Some people want to jump out of their seats. Others want a mystery that keeps them guessing. Some love the adrenaline of a masked killer chasing someone through a dark house. And apparently some people want to see just how much fake blood can fit inside a human body.

To each their own, I guess.

As for me, I’ll happily take a good ghost story, a tense thriller, or a clever slasher.

I might even watch it with the lights off. But there is a good chance I’ll end up turning them back on.