Watch: The Psychology of Scary Movies (With the Lights On)

By  · Published on October 24th, 2013

We’ve been doing our own scientific investigations into horror this month, but Filmmaker IQ has a humdinger of a video exploring why we flock to fear-based flicks and what makes them so effective.

There are some surprising findings discussed here (particularly our brain activity while watching a horror film), and per usual, host John Hess is both thorough and thoroughly entertaining.

Watch out for that lion:

Beyond all the brain scanning, I’m curious to know what movies are effective for you personally and why you think they’re so good at making you wet yourself.

Please sound off in the comments section below. Descriptions of your seat-wetting are unnecessary.

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Movie stuff at VanityFair, Thrillist, IndieWire, Film School Rejects, and The Broken Projector Podcast@brokenprojector | Writing short stories at Adventitious.