Watching frightening films can give you much more than a good scare, they can also help relieve stress and anxiety. “In the 30s, there was a lot of anxiety about what people consumed and whether it transformed them—especially children,” said Andrew Scahill, Assistant Professor in English and the author of The Revolting Child in Horror Cinema. “There was a worry over what people get titillated by in the horror genre,” Scahill said. “Early criticism on film came from this place where horror cinema was seen as enabling sadism, essentially — that it gave flesh and body to fantasies that should not be reinforced.”
Scream Therapy: The Mental Health Benefits of Horror Movies
Health Line, October 13