From Un-Me To Real Me: What I Learned From Horror Movies

Part 3
The things that disturb me the most make me think the deepest.

I was 15 years old when I saw the movie Se7en, with Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Spacey playing a sadistic serial killer who technically didn't kill anyone.

The weird thing about Se7en is that it didn't scare me. It disturbed me. For weeks after seeing it I couldn't get it out of my mind. It was disgusting, but it was brilliant. It was horrifying, but it was beautiful. It was directed with perfection, but it looked utterly sickening.

Other horror movies that had a similar impact on me included The Silence of the Lambs, Misery, Stir of Echoes, and In The Mouth of Madness.

Let me be clear on this one point—these movies didn't scare me. Very little scared me, in fact. At night I slept just fine, and movies rarely gave me nightmares, but I couldn't get them out of my mind. I couldn't figure out why I was so captivated by these stories and yet sickened at the same time.

It hit me in two parts.

First, I realized that these horror films were rising above the once popular slasher genre (the golden days of which were long gone) by delving into something deeper—the human psyche. To me, demons like Chucky and Freddy, monsters like Dracula, the Mummy, and the Wolfman, were nothing compared to the evil inclinations that lived inside people.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, I found that the movies that disturbed me the deepest taught me the most. Because after being so unsettled by something I felt compelled to figure it out. For example, after being traumatized by Se7en I dove into my Bible to learn about the Seven Deadly Sins (which are not the same ones used in the movie, by the way). But I learned something and I gained a deeper understanding of life at the same time.



Disturbing movies were the movies that got me thinking, got me learning, got me reading, got my creative juices flowing.

Was my fascination with horror movies the best source of inspiration? No, probably not.

I believe there's a lot of truth in some of those scientific studies linking horror movies to depression, anger, and temperament. (What's Going On In Your Body When You Watch A Horror Movie, 5 Scientific Ways Watching Movies Effects You). Horror movies don't have the same impact on everyone, so take that with a grain of salt, but I don't think my binge watching horror movies was all that healthy to me at the time. There was other life stuff that was weighing me down and making me depressed.

And then the Un-me started to UNravel.

To be continued...