Icy goosebumps glazed over the skin. Palms heavy with sweat. Body shivering at an uncontrollable rate. All due to fear. But what is fear, what makes us scared? This thought came to mind today while looking over a short film from my suggested list on FreeTheWork. I have no idea why this was even a suggestion, considering that I'm not a big fan of the scary movie genre, but I suppose it helped me write this...so here we are. When consuming film of this manner I typically hit the pause button at least twenty times throughout the viewing. I told you this wasn't my genre. However while watching this piece it dawned upon me, "why am I scared?" I can predict what's going to happen for the most part. Perhaps that is the key here, horror filmmakers lean into this insight that viewers will try and solve the film themselves, as its a human trait for our brains to do so. In doing that we anticipate what's going to happen next; the pop ups, the high pitched music, the dark colors. All cues for that dun, dun, dun moment. Our heightened sense of awareness as viewers is opposed with the characters within the film who are oblivious to everything. We are essentially watching someone reach their demise (dark, I know).
So in basic terms, us having a heightened sense of awareness causes us to have fear...at least for movies.