ERIN_LoJ
10-29-2003, 09:42 PM
Source: horror-web
By Meredith Moss
mmoss@DaytonDailyNews.com
Yikes! It's almost Halloween, the scariest time of year.
Time for terrifying tales and eerie sounds, haunting visions and disgusting blood and guts.
So, who needs it?
Apparently, lots of us.
"People feel the profound and subconscious need to deal with things that frighten us," explains Charles Derry, who teaches courses on horror and suspense films at Wright State University. His most recent book, The Suspense Thriller (McFarland, $20), deals with both movies and books.
Whether we choose to confront those fears head-on — by entering a haunted house or watching Halloween — depends a lot on our personality.
It's the risk-takers among us who tend to seek out the chilling experiences, believes James Farrelly, a University of Dayton English prof who teaches courses on the occult and has been dubbed the school's "Halloween Person."
"People who like these things are looking for thrills and adventure," he explains. Others who are more concerned with safety and personal control avoid putting themselves in jeopardy.
The risk-takers, Farrelly says, know they can vicariously experience scary things but always have a way out — they can stop watching or disassociate themselves.
Our age also has a lot to do with our attitude about being shocked and gripped with fear.
It's no surprise that adolescents, the traditional risk-takers, are the ideal audience for scary experiences.
"It's a generational thing — adolescents worship the horror film," says Derry, adding that the genre tends to present adult civilization in chaos and attack traditional values and order.
For teens, he says, those attacks relate to a general rejection of their parents.
"The horror films also give teenagers a titillating glimpse into the forbidden contents of their id, particularly their sexual and violent secrets," Derry says.
In contrast, many adults don't cotton to the scary stuff.
"Sometimes it's because they don't want to admit they're not in complete control," says Derry. "They don't want to admit they're frightened of anything. Fears are something we're supposed to grow out of."
And we're all more vulnerable in the dark.
"That's when adults worry about their upcoming doctor's exam and whether they can pay their mortgage," Derry says.
Children, we all know, may be the most fearful of all.
"Fear is very common and normal in children," says child psychologist Mary Beth DeWitt.
Little kids, she says, are most afraid of the dark, of monsters, of weird noises. Older kids tend to be fearful of social evaluation — being teased, for example. Teens tend to be afraid of rejection, of failing.
But within those general developmental guidelines, there's still plenty of room for individual differences.
"We all have so many differences in the amounts of risks we're willing to take," says DeWitt.
Her own children are a case in point.
She describes her 4-year-old son as "cautious,"and "more anxious." Even at age 7, she can't envision taking him to scary films or placing him in scary situations.
Her daughter, 2, is something else entirely.
"When she's 7, she'll love that stuff," says DeWitt. "She's bold and assertive and could handle it."
Derry says even movies made for children — in which a child or animal is often separated from its parents or has a parent die — are really horror films for kids.
"Those films are dealing with their fears," he adds. "So are the fairy tales and the nursery thymes with the horrific themes."
A bolder child, he adds, may love those frightening films even if they're traumatic.
"Children know there are monsters in the closet that will kill them if the night light goes out," he says. "They have not yet learned to repress those fears."
DeWitt says fear is a natural human response. Our bodies are designed to become fearful at any age.
"Adults may like it because of that rush," she says, "but kids don't understand where that rush is coming from and what it means."
At 60, Farrelly can still relate. He has vivid memories of going to scary films as a child.
"Classic films from the past did scare us to death," he recalls. "I've grown to like them over time, but in my youth I would be under my seat — even for things we find campy today like Vincent Price and The House of Wax.
"At age 9, I thought I was going to end up in one of those vats of wax and be a victim," he recalls. "I couldn't separate the reality from the fantasy world of the film. It had a profound effect on me and made me fearful."
Over time, he says, we learn to create that distance and realize we can be a witness to other people's suffering without suffering ourselves.
"We can control how much we watch or don't watch,"Farrelly says.
But children aren't able to exercise that control.
Farrelly says he's watched parents subject their children to fear-based activity against the child's will.
"If you're a real man, you'll go on this roller coaster!" they may say.
"But the child knows he gets sick to his stomach when he's around a motion-sensitive ride," Farrelly says.
He says today's haunted houses are also not for everyone. In the early days, everything was obviously fake.
But that's not true today when many have become "more and more gruesome."
"I've gone to haunted houses where they were chopping up meat with cleavers and had blood from butcher shops," he says, "and you're supposed to feel that it's organs of human people. And with the technical ability to create real images, it's getting grosser and grosser."
This may thrill the teenagers, he says, but it frightens younger kids, who may feel pressure to go so they can go to school and say they went to the haunted house. In such cases, he says, parents have abdicated their responsibility.
DeWitt cautions parents never to force children into scary situations and suggests they wait until youngsters are school age to begin to expose them to scarier Halloween experiences.
When that's done, she adds, it should always be with the supervision and support of a parent.
"At some point in their lives they will experience fear, and as long as it's in a healthy, supportive environment, that's OK."
Still, for many folks, today's world is scary enough, without conjuring up ghosts and goblins.
"For the last 10-15 years," says Derry, "horror films have been remarkably uninteresting because real horror in the world has outpaced the filmmakers' ability to imagine horror.
"My grandfather used to tell us one of the most horrifying moments of his life was when Lon Cheney took off his mask in the Phantom of the Opera.
"You look at 9/11 and it was horror film images that all of us will carry with us the rest of our lives. Chaney's mask was nothing in comparison to images of towers collapsing and human beings jumping from the top of buildings."
TIPS ON EXPOSING CHILDREN TO FEARFUL FILMS OR EXPERIENCES:
• Know your child. Some children are more cautious and anxious than others.
• Never force a child into a fear-producing situation.
• Be there to help them through a frightening event or film. Talk with them along the way, explain and discuss.
• It's best to wait until children are school-age to expose them to scary films or haunted houses.
SOURCE: Mary Beth DeWitt, child psychologist, Children's Medical Center
Contact Meredith Moss at 225-2440 or mmoss@DaytonDailyNews.com
[From the Dayton Daily News: 10.25.2003]
By Meredith Moss
mmoss@DaytonDailyNews.com
Yikes! It's almost Halloween, the scariest time of year.
Time for terrifying tales and eerie sounds, haunting visions and disgusting blood and guts.
So, who needs it?
Apparently, lots of us.
"People feel the profound and subconscious need to deal with things that frighten us," explains Charles Derry, who teaches courses on horror and suspense films at Wright State University. His most recent book, The Suspense Thriller (McFarland, $20), deals with both movies and books.
Whether we choose to confront those fears head-on — by entering a haunted house or watching Halloween — depends a lot on our personality.
It's the risk-takers among us who tend to seek out the chilling experiences, believes James Farrelly, a University of Dayton English prof who teaches courses on the occult and has been dubbed the school's "Halloween Person."
"People who like these things are looking for thrills and adventure," he explains. Others who are more concerned with safety and personal control avoid putting themselves in jeopardy.
The risk-takers, Farrelly says, know they can vicariously experience scary things but always have a way out — they can stop watching or disassociate themselves.
Our age also has a lot to do with our attitude about being shocked and gripped with fear.
It's no surprise that adolescents, the traditional risk-takers, are the ideal audience for scary experiences.
"It's a generational thing — adolescents worship the horror film," says Derry, adding that the genre tends to present adult civilization in chaos and attack traditional values and order.
For teens, he says, those attacks relate to a general rejection of their parents.
"The horror films also give teenagers a titillating glimpse into the forbidden contents of their id, particularly their sexual and violent secrets," Derry says.
In contrast, many adults don't cotton to the scary stuff.
"Sometimes it's because they don't want to admit they're not in complete control," says Derry. "They don't want to admit they're frightened of anything. Fears are something we're supposed to grow out of."
And we're all more vulnerable in the dark.
"That's when adults worry about their upcoming doctor's exam and whether they can pay their mortgage," Derry says.
Children, we all know, may be the most fearful of all.
"Fear is very common and normal in children," says child psychologist Mary Beth DeWitt.
Little kids, she says, are most afraid of the dark, of monsters, of weird noises. Older kids tend to be fearful of social evaluation — being teased, for example. Teens tend to be afraid of rejection, of failing.
But within those general developmental guidelines, there's still plenty of room for individual differences.
"We all have so many differences in the amounts of risks we're willing to take," says DeWitt.
Her own children are a case in point.
She describes her 4-year-old son as "cautious,"and "more anxious." Even at age 7, she can't envision taking him to scary films or placing him in scary situations.
Her daughter, 2, is something else entirely.
"When she's 7, she'll love that stuff," says DeWitt. "She's bold and assertive and could handle it."
Derry says even movies made for children — in which a child or animal is often separated from its parents or has a parent die — are really horror films for kids.
"Those films are dealing with their fears," he adds. "So are the fairy tales and the nursery thymes with the horrific themes."
A bolder child, he adds, may love those frightening films even if they're traumatic.
"Children know there are monsters in the closet that will kill them if the night light goes out," he says. "They have not yet learned to repress those fears."
DeWitt says fear is a natural human response. Our bodies are designed to become fearful at any age.
"Adults may like it because of that rush," she says, "but kids don't understand where that rush is coming from and what it means."
At 60, Farrelly can still relate. He has vivid memories of going to scary films as a child.
"Classic films from the past did scare us to death," he recalls. "I've grown to like them over time, but in my youth I would be under my seat — even for things we find campy today like Vincent Price and The House of Wax.
"At age 9, I thought I was going to end up in one of those vats of wax and be a victim," he recalls. "I couldn't separate the reality from the fantasy world of the film. It had a profound effect on me and made me fearful."
Over time, he says, we learn to create that distance and realize we can be a witness to other people's suffering without suffering ourselves.
"We can control how much we watch or don't watch,"Farrelly says.
But children aren't able to exercise that control.
Farrelly says he's watched parents subject their children to fear-based activity against the child's will.
"If you're a real man, you'll go on this roller coaster!" they may say.
"But the child knows he gets sick to his stomach when he's around a motion-sensitive ride," Farrelly says.
He says today's haunted houses are also not for everyone. In the early days, everything was obviously fake.
But that's not true today when many have become "more and more gruesome."
"I've gone to haunted houses where they were chopping up meat with cleavers and had blood from butcher shops," he says, "and you're supposed to feel that it's organs of human people. And with the technical ability to create real images, it's getting grosser and grosser."
This may thrill the teenagers, he says, but it frightens younger kids, who may feel pressure to go so they can go to school and say they went to the haunted house. In such cases, he says, parents have abdicated their responsibility.
DeWitt cautions parents never to force children into scary situations and suggests they wait until youngsters are school age to begin to expose them to scarier Halloween experiences.
When that's done, she adds, it should always be with the supervision and support of a parent.
"At some point in their lives they will experience fear, and as long as it's in a healthy, supportive environment, that's OK."
Still, for many folks, today's world is scary enough, without conjuring up ghosts and goblins.
"For the last 10-15 years," says Derry, "horror films have been remarkably uninteresting because real horror in the world has outpaced the filmmakers' ability to imagine horror.
"My grandfather used to tell us one of the most horrifying moments of his life was when Lon Cheney took off his mask in the Phantom of the Opera.
"You look at 9/11 and it was horror film images that all of us will carry with us the rest of our lives. Chaney's mask was nothing in comparison to images of towers collapsing and human beings jumping from the top of buildings."
TIPS ON EXPOSING CHILDREN TO FEARFUL FILMS OR EXPERIENCES:
• Know your child. Some children are more cautious and anxious than others.
• Never force a child into a fear-producing situation.
• Be there to help them through a frightening event or film. Talk with them along the way, explain and discuss.
• It's best to wait until children are school-age to expose them to scary films or haunted houses.
SOURCE: Mary Beth DeWitt, child psychologist, Children's Medical Center
Contact Meredith Moss at 225-2440 or mmoss@DaytonDailyNews.com
[From the Dayton Daily News: 10.25.2003]