Image courtesy of Andertoons.

I rarely watch scary movies. They really aren’t my style. I don’t like the feeling of fear and prefer to sleep at night rather than stay up watching my closet door while holding a baseball bat. But, around this time of year, that changes. All I want is to be scared.

I don’t know what it is about fear that is so attractive. Obviously, the time of year comes into play a little. If anything, I’m a bit desensitized to things popping out at me because there is a werewolf behind practically every corner during the Halloween season. Fear becomes my natural state, so maybe I’m able to embrace it and learn to love it –— for a little while at least.

I’m not talking about real, deep down terror. If you’ve ever been near death or in the middle of some disaster, you know the feeling I’m talking about. There is nothing fun about that sort of fear. The fear I like is the fear felt when you know you’re safe, similar to that fluttery feeling you get on roller coasters. Just as comedy is only funny when no one gets seriously hurt, fear is only fun when experienced in safe situations.

Yet, with this knowledge, I only turn to scary movies in very specific circumstances. Halloween is on the list because fear is expected, almost wanted. But, during other seasons, occasionally I’ll get the hankering for a slasher flick or a ghost story. I never really knew why until recently. Something about being scared witless in a controlled environment is cathartic.

The first time I willingly watched a scary movie — meaning the first time my friends didn’t trick me into it by lying about which DVD was being popped into the player — was the day I found out a friend had been suddenly diagnosed with terminal cancer. I was in shock. I couldn’t feel anything, but my mind wouldn’t shut up about it either. Since I lived in the dorms at the time, I marched myself down to another friend’s room, told her what happened, and then ordered her to show me the scariest movies she had. I don’t know why I did this, but I wasn’t really aware of much at that point anyway. All I knew was that I had to stop thinking about my other friend’s impending death.

That night, we watched “Paranormal Activity” and “The Exorcism of Emily Rose”. I didn’t feel better, but I felt again. The fear brought on by those movies not only jolted me out of my state of shock, it eased me into dealing with the deep terror that impending death inspires. Though it was a quick fix, it really helped me cope. Sure enough, when the same friend passed away about a year later, I found myself turning to scary movies on Netflix — I don’t recall which ones — to help me deal with my grief.

I see the same pattern emerging in my daily life as well. My tastes in movies are much happier when I am happier. When I’m down, I watch movies like Titanic. When I’m confronting real, unthinkable fear, I watch horror movies. It isn’t because I’m a glutton for punishment; it’s because these movies help me sort through the barrage of nameless feelings I may have.

Sometimes talking about what scares us most helps. Often, for whatever reason, we don’t have that luxury.

Sometimes we can’t identify what scares us. I may be able to say I’m scared of spiders — eight legged beasts, if you ask me — but they aren’t my biggest fear.

My biggest fear is something I cannot adequately name. It is a combination of feelings I’ve experienced in different times of my life but cannot put into words. It is a horrible event I cannot fathom. In a way, my biggest fear is the fear of the unknown. This is something that can’t be just talked away, as much as I’d like to be that that simple. It is something primal, deeper than emotion.

But, just as the Thanksgiving season starts today, life goes on. It cannot be hindered by a fear I can’t even name. I would rather face this terror head on than run from it as I would a spider.

If horror movies can help me prepare for the day when I come face to face with my unnamed fear, then pass the popcorn ‘cause I’m in for a marathon.

Kjerstine Trooien is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at kjerstine.trooien@my.und.edu.