Have you ever found yourself stuck watching a scary movie with your friends, clutching a bucket of popcorn, and peeking out to watch through the cracks between your fingers of the hand covering your eyes? If you have, do you ever wonder why you put yourself through watching these movies?

Many people all around the U.S. enjoy watching scary movies, and numerous of those people are teenagers in high school. So the question that has come up lately is why? Why do so many of these high school teenagers watch scary movies? And if they watch them, why do they enjoy watching something that makes them afraid?

One teen, IJ Wilson, explains that “horror films are used to test your boundaries of fear; work out what you are afraid of, and how much you can handle.” This displays how students try to test their limitations of fear and see how long they can withhold covering their eyes or walking away from the movie.

Another teen, Adam Berger, says that “Horror movies are especially fun if you see them with a group of friends and even more so in a packed theater on a Friday or Saturday night. It’s a perfect destination for groups of teens who want to get out of the house but maybe don’t have a party to go to.” This presents some of the social aspect of teens watching horror movies and how normally groups of teenagers will go together because individuals do not want to go alone. This also shows how sometimes teens will go just to get out of the house and hang out with their friends.

According to Mathias Clasen, on sciencenordic.com, “humans evolved to find pleasure in situations that allow us to experience negative emotions in a safe context.” This basically means that people have grown to like horror movies because when they are watching the movie they still get the emotions from it without actually being in that dangerous situation. The people who watch them gradually get younger and younger as humans evolve. They watch these movies through the comfort of their home or the movie theaters where they feel like there is no threat of getting put in a real-life horror movie situation. Some people also watch horror movies with friends to again, feel safer and lower the risk of getting stuck alone in a dangerous horror situation.

Mathias Clasen also states that “horror provides us with insights into ourselves and into the dark corners of the world, and it lets us develop and refine coping skills that may be critical in life.” This explains that some people enjoy watching these movies because they help cope with scary and stressful situations that could potentially happen. People learn what to do and what not to do in these situations based on the mistakes or choices characters make in horror movies. They can also show people how dark the world really is, even if some of the horrors in the movie is made up. Scary movies also help us look into ourselves to see the kind of person we are or what kind of things we like based on our reactions, thoughts, and feelings towards the movie, which can be very intriguing.

Now when you are huddled under a blanket on your couch or sneaking glances through your fingers at the movies, you will have an idea of why you decided to watch that movie.