MORBIDLY CURIOUS

The dark side of life—and its allure.

Scrivner is a behavioral scientist and a horror entertainment producer interested in why we’re drawn to scenes of carnage and disaster. His book defines the term “morbid curiosity” as interest in things that are threatening or potentially dangerous. This curiosity is a fine thing, he says, because “when the costs of learning about a threat are low, it’s advantageous to pay attention and gather information.” It’s a way of putting us into situations where we can safely learn about the dangers of the world and how we might respond in times of fear and uncertainty. That’s the concept behind training pilots with flight simulators and conducting fire drills in schools and office buildings; you learn how to manage a threat in a nonthreatening environment. Research suggests that prey animals have evolved to do this information gathering, watching predators from a distance to look for clues that indicate that the animal is hungry or hunting, saving their energy to flee only when warranted. “Responding half a second faster to potential danger won’t determine your fate 99 percent of the time. But that 1 percent of the time that it does can be life or death.” Watching horror movies, reading suspense novels and true-crime stories, and participating in creepy events such as Halloween shows can mentally prepare us to recognize a threatening situation early on, Scrivner says. While most of us will never encounter a masked assassin wielding a chainsaw, the fictional experience can mean quicker recognition and response when and if danger occurs. Viewing scary depictions “gives us the push we sometimes need to play with fear and explore our anxieties. In doing this, we develop confidence that we can overcome the challenges that life throws at us, and we prepare our mind for the bad times that we will inevitably face.”

A science-based romp through horror, terror, gross-outs, and other things that go bump in the night.