Nightmare Fuel: The Science of Horror Films

Nesseth (The Science of Orphan Black), a senior scientist at Science North in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, digs into “the hows and whys of all of the bits and pieces that make horror work” in this thoughtful survey. To examine how “horror taps into its audiences’ psychology and biology,” Nesseth first breaks down the components of scary movies and links them to the human brain. The amygdala, for example, is responsible for putting a person on alert (and has been shown through brain scans to become activated when spooky music is played), while the insula processes disgust. Nesseth covers the workings of body horror (“The human body is an ideal site for horror: the body is personal, and even on a good day it’s kinda gross”), and what makes a movie monster memorable (“While it definitely helps if the monster clearly looks like an obvious threat, this isn’t a hard and fast rule”). Beyond the science, Nesseth is a skilled historian of the subject, too, describing how horror “[holds] up a mirror to the anxieties gripping society at the time when their film is being made.” This is an enlightening—and fun—look at what goes on when one’s blood runs cold. (July)