By Ng Dawin (25A01D) and Jane Ng (25S03D)

For most of us, our very first horror experience would have manifested in the form of one of the Mr Midnight books, a Youtube play-through of Five Nights at Freddy’s, or if you were really unlucky, a copy of the “Ring” you found in your brother’s wardrobe.

Many of us will remember, albeit not with much fondness, the terror-induced paralysis that came with it—when we’d be too scared to get up for water in the middle of the night, or when we didn’t dare to sleep without the lights on.

However, as we grow older, things change. What was once a scarring film may now be a harmless watch, something you laugh at with your friends on a weekend night. And comparing yourself now to yourself getting all worked up about a Mr Midnight book, it seems that horror might have lost much of its lustre.

Why horror movies get less scary

Now, what really breaks a horror movie, at least in terms of its fear factor, is the concept of believability. Audiences won’t get scared over nothing. Audiences only get scared when they are convinced that what they see on screen is real, because only then do they feel the danger of being haunted by a ghost or chased by a zombie in an abandoned warehouse.

But that’s easier said than done, though.

The main reason why, to put it plainly (and for the lack of a better term), is because we’ve grown up. Our matured prefrontal cortex has granted us improved cognitive abilities and a keener eye for discernment, which helps us process and rationalise the things we see better.

For example, supernatural movies like Carrie (1976) or the Conjuring series may not be as much of an ordeal anymore. The idea of Ouija boards may now seem absurd. Ghosts and zombies may look grotesque, yes, but at the end of the day, they’re just actors in costumes.

We’re better able to differentiate fiction and reality, and watching such movies now comes with the understanding that they’re nothing more than moving pictures on a screen. Even if you’re superstitious, the glaringly obvious special effects and CGI in movies like The Exorcist: Believer (2023) (ironic, given the film’s name) tend to override the fear factor, whereas children are more likely to take whatever they see at face value. At some point in your childhood, you probably genuinely believed that monsters were real. Without a more comprehensive worldview and fully-formed critical thinking skills, it’s harder to thaw these lingering fears.

Above all, our accumulation of experiences also leads to our desensitisation to horror. If you’re a horror junkie, or generally have had more experience with the genre, you may find recurring themes, motifs and tropes across different films. Cursed artefacts, an abandoned house, mysterious neighbours… the list goes on.

Subconsciously, you start to recognise patterns when it comes to pacing and cinematography. You know which sequences will result in a jumpscare, and which won’t. Techniques like close-up shots and creeping camera movements are less likely to instil fear when you know they’re nothing more than cheap tricks.

Besides, supernatural horror tends to rely on the unknown—specifically something beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature. When the tension builds and eventually culminates in a grand reveal or a final jumpscare, it comes down to two outcomes. The first, of course, is that you’d be terrified. The gruesome monster appears on the screen in all its gory glory, and you enter fight or flight mode, survival instincts kicking in. 

However, you may find yourself experiencing the second outcome more often: you recognise that that same gruesome monster is ultimately just a person in a (somewhat unrealistic) suit, and the pit of dread evaporates. The unknown becomes the known, and it isn’t even that scary anyway. Instead of suppressing feelings of terror, you find yourself suppressing disappointment instead. After all, there’s no worse ending than an anticlimactic one.

Another plausible explanation would be that sociological factors have allowed us to form positive associations with fear, and in turn, horror movies too. If you’ve watched various films like Saw (2004) and A Quiet Place (2018) at sleepovers with friends or during family movie nights over the years, they’ll gradually transform into a source of fun rather than dread.

Besides, age does well to scratch the sheen off of the rosy lens we view media through. It’s easy to feel jaded towards watching horror films, especially ones with supernatural themes, seeing how detached they may seem from our lives. 

It feels as if the characters’ plights are completely irrelevant to us—the horrors of modern life manifest in botched academics and having three dollars left in your Paynow wallet, not so much running from an eldritch beast. (Let’s be real: you’ve probably had more nightmares about results day than a zombie apocalypse.)

Why horror movies get scarier

All that being said, getting older does not mean that you become immune to horror movies. You’ve undoubtedly matured, yes – but so have the filmmakers who make a living off scaring you.

Directors aren’t so stupid to think that the same tricks which worked on you as a child will still work a decade later. They know that you eventually get used to jumpscares. They know that you can shrug off zombies and vampires as Hollywood creations. They know that, however violent they try to make Leatherface or Freddie Krueger, you’ll always find a way to see the actor behind the costume.

Which is why, instead of solely relying on techniques like jumpscares or gross-out violence—external threats adults can readily discern as falsehoods, some horror movies target our minds. They fill the screen with likeable enough characters in everyday scenarios, and then have something happen that’s off. The swimmer is floundering in the water. The light bulb is flickering. The party-goers won’t stop smiling. Then they add some eerie music or camera close ups, and your mind starts to wander. Is the girl drowning? Why is the light bulb flickering? What do the cultists want? 

And as you keep thinking and thinking about the endless possibilities of all the bad things that could happen, suspense builds up: you think you see something in your head, but what exactly is it?

This vagueness you experience when watching horror movies is a classic case of ambiguity, or more specifically, the fear of the unknown. In any given scenario, our brains are hardwired to provide either a “fight” or “flight” response to perceived threats; but horror movies remove the most explicit and conclusive details about these threats, and leave us only with questions. We’re unable to answer the “fight” or “flight” question because there’s just too little information to work with, and as we try desperately to rationalise on what to do, we turn to the only way we know how to fill up these gaps in knowledge – by seeing things that weren’t even there in the first place.

The fear of the unknown hits adults much harder than children. For one, our adult brains process things much faster than our younger counterparts. When a child watches Jaws, he only sees the girl floundering in the water, but it is very difficult for him to imagine the shark dragging her underneath. He simply does not have the brainpower or the life experience to picture it.

An adult, on the other hand, sees more than the girl struggling in the water. His first instinct is that she’s drowning, which he readily dismisses as a common risk for swimmers. However, when the girl is dragged violently into the water within mere seconds, the adult is stunned. He doesn’t know what happened. This was no common occurrence. Was it a shark? But sharks aren’t that ferocious. They just bite and leave. What if it was a very big shark? No, that’s not possible, sharks are only 4-5 metres large… 

The shadow of the adult mind

Morality is one of those things adults understand that children do not quite get. A child who hears about a fatal stabbing on the radio will no doubt feel infuriated, yes—but it is only towards the action of killing itself. She knows that taking the life of someone else is bad, but it ends there. There are no levels to evil. In her eyes, an abused wife fighting back is as deplorable as a serial killer, because does not yet understand the moral greyness of the former.

And, in a similar vein, psychological horror does not hit children as hard. Films in this genre expose audiences to the worst and most deplorable parts of the human psyche – such as psychotic episodes of trauma or savage, beast-like tendencies – but a child doesn’t understand how truly terrifying these moral transgressions are.

But for adults watching psychological horror movies, they piss their pants. Jack Torrance and Anton Chirgurh terrify us because we understand the full extent of their remorselessness. And it only gets worse as we are made to believe that their moral blackness isn’t some out-of-the-ordinary occurrence. It’s an instinctive tendency, hidden in everyone beneath our weak facade of civility.

The psychoanalyst Carl Jung calls these primitive impulses the “shadow”. These are the aspects of our personality we seek to repress, because we don’t think society will be accepting of these traits. And because of this, it’s not surprising that the “shadow” often encompasses many taboo and morally reprehensible desires, such as lust, envy, wrath and pride. 

However, instead of tackling these impulses head-on, we leave them in the realm of the unconscious, distancing ourselves as much from these undesirable emotions as possible. For example, a lawyer who feels jealous towards his high-flying coworker may repress his envy in the form of passive-aggressive tendencies towards other coworkers, or by putting in less effort in his work because he actively tells himself it’s not worth it.

A horror movie, on the other hand, will fully expose these “shadow” characteristics. They indulge in them. They let them completely overwhelm their characters’ sense of reason, forcing you to watch as characters succumb to primordial instincts of savagery: completely breaking personal codes of justice (Se7en), paranoia and mistrust to their own crewmates (The Thing), attacking their own families (The Shining) or even cold, remorseless psychopathy (No Country for Old Men). These movies may not have prominent supernatural elements, but the bleak picture of humanity they paint as a feeble, shadowy state of being creeps up on you in the most uncomfortable manner possible, because you start doubting your entire being.

If human rationality is so weak, when will your mind give up on you? What are the depths that you can sink to? Will you end up like one of the patients in Arkham Asylum? Is there any way to prevent this regression? 

You have no idea, and it terrifies you.