When Michael Myers creeps around Haddonfield late on Halloween night, the fear is paralyzing.
When Freddy Krueger takes away the necessity of sleep, desperation creates extreme irritation nearing insanity.
When Pennywise returns to Derry every 27 years to take the life of another random innocent child, suspense destroys the joy of the mundane; evil could strike from any corner.
The endless gruesome associations with the horror genre don’t exactly bring to mind the word empathy.
And yet, many fans of the genre are often individuals who have experienced trauma in their own lives. They understand the horrors on a deeper, personal level.
As a horror fan myself, I can attest to finding comfort in the scares. The suspense, the unknown, the jumps; being on edge becomes an unexpected form of soothing. It’s a way to control your fear. If you’ve ever experienced a situation in your life that was consuming—if it haunted you both while awake and asleep—then you recognize the importance of grasping something, anything, to keep in your control.
When you’re watching stalkers in masks and elevators filling with blood, you get to decide if you’re scared. You make the choice to enter a world of gore because sometimes it seems better off than your own. After all, at least a horror movie always has a resolution.
You start feeling for the characters. You praise Laurie Strode and Sidney Prescott for their never-ending resiliency. You even start recognizing parts of yourself in the villains. Anyone with a mother like Mrs. Voorhees might look at Jason and think, “Been there”.
The Babadook could be a comfort film for those working through depression. It can provide assurance to lonely kids that it’s possible for them to find a like-minded support group. The Boogeyman (2023) shows that grieving doesn’t need to be graceful. Every final girl ever is proof of women’s strength.
All this being said, the empathy we start to feel when consuming horror is not to be mistaken with tolerance. To find friends in horror characters does not mean tolerating their acts of violence, or similar acts by people resembling them outside of fictional worlds.
Horror can provide an environment to experience your extreme emotions in a controlled manner, but individual responsibility must be taken for the messages one absorbs from the movies because horror can be deceiving. It challenges our thinking.
In some ways, Stu Macher is more likeable than Billy Loomis. The look in his eyes when Billy explains the rationale behind his kills makes it seem like Stu had no idea, that he simply got caught up in his leader’s persuasion. But isn’t such nonsensical violence true evil?
One of my personal favourite characters that toys with (pun intended) this trickery is Chucky. He’s adorable, isn’t he? The television series Chucky even commented on the confusion Chucky creates through the conflict of his appearance versus actions— they introduced Good Chucky in the second season.
While we’re on the topic of the evil doll, another underrated element of horror is that the genre often intelligently uses its extreme images and unbelievable characters to comment on the world’s broken systems. This can make people feel seen.
Consider episode two, season one of Chucky, for example. “I’m not a monster”, the red-headed killer tells protagonist Jake when the latter asks if it bothers Chucky that his kid is gender fluid.
The genre is hyperaware of its affinity for the bad. When done right, it provokes independent thought by commenting on social issues. As a result, it provides an environment for some people to feel understood perhaps for the first time.
So, you can scorn horror for its visceral images. But, in my opinion, it’s similar to how violent video games and heavy music are portrayed as negative influences. They’re made to take the blame for people’s awful actions.
Sure, some people might get sick ideas from the media they consume. But it’s worth considering that you are probably sick in the first place for such ideas to bloom in your mind—most of us don’t play Grand Theft Auto then log off thinking, “I should go out now and do that”.
On the note of heavy music, multiple studies have been conducted over the past decades on how metal can be beneficial to health.
One notable study, originally published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience is Leah Sharman and Genevieve A. Dingle’s “Extreme metal music and anger processing”. Working with 39 participants, they generated a stress interview, asking each participant to describe events in their lives that caused anger. This lasted for 16 minutes to reach a stressed state of mind to be followed by either 10 minutes of heavy music or 10 minutes of silence.
Sharman and Dingle found that heavy music did not increase any of the participants’ anger. Their listening experiences either matched what they were feeling during the stress interview, or they actually reported positive feelings after listening to the music. This study shows that heavy music can be a tool for processing negative emotions.
At Don’t Listen Tomorrow, music is integral. Favourites include Black Sabbath, Movements, Nirvana, Rage Against The Machine, YUNGBLUD, Judas Priest, and so many more.
All of these artists invite discussion around truths that can be hard to accept, even if we know they’re true. On Black Sabbath’s “Killing Yourself to Live”, Ozzy sings, “Believe in me / Nobody else will tell you / Open your eyes / And see the lies”.
Artists who express their most difficult emotions are able to find listeners around the world who share them. There’s a sense of understanding and being understood. But just like horror movies, people are quick to dismiss metal, punk, emo, grunge, and every subgenre in between as dangerous without realizing that sometimes the only place that will take in broken misfits is the so-called dark side.
Of course, there are artists in these genres who don’t want to and don’t owe anyone to make public their personal values and rawest wounds. Still, you have to admit, artists who create in these genres tend to display great bravery.
What is always true is that there is extreme saving power in the collective belief of messages. When a crowd belts lyrics that represent their shared experiences—whether it be under the roof of a local neighbourhood stage or a world renowned stadium—those experiences become real.
When a crowd sings “Daylily” by Movements, for example, conflicting feelings of both hope and hopelessness become valid in that moment, even if they feel otherwise on most days.
If someone can find community through avenues that appear aggressive on the surface but are actually allowing them to exercise both empathy and a healthy environment to experience their emotions without hurting anyone, then more power to them.
So, don’t be the asshole who dismisses horror and heavy music as blasphemy—there might be a person healing on the other side.
“I think it’s time you had a pink cloud summer / ‘Cause you’ve gone too long without a smile / I think it’s time you found another reason to stay for a while / You should stay for a while”.