Update 2: Or “How I learned to Heal From Horror Movies.”

Horror movies are a passion. They have been for decades for me. If I had a bad day at school, my dad would take me and my brother to Blockbuster, Premiere Video, or Family Video to rent the newest batch of B-Horror movies that no one ever saw. If I’m sick, horror movie. If I’m sad, horror movie. If a loved one is in the hospital…. horror movie.

I know that the conventional thing is “Hey, I’m sad, let’s watch a comedy so I can laugh.”

That makes sense, right?

Horror fanatics know that’s not how we are built.

There are groups of parents or politicians that will try to crucify movies or video games for being too violent and “hurting our children!”. But do they? Sure, anyone can use it as an excuse that it wasn’t them, it was the game or the movie that made them do it. They’re innocent, the clearly fake thing made them do it. Ban it all, they’ll say.

We understand that we find catharsis in being scared. We find healing our trauma can come at the expense of the torture or survival of the final girl and her friends.

We understand that it’s our therapy.

Scared of spiders? Arachnophobia.

Feeling depressed and want to laugh? Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil.

Scared of clowns? It

Scared of clowns and mimes? Terrifier 1 or 2.

Worried about what’s going to happen to someone you care about in a hospital? Have the hope that horror movies give you in there being something after you leave this self-destructing world. That they can be happy in what comes next.

I’m not naïve enough to believe that any of this can take the place of actual therapy. However, what I can be is hopeful. Hopeful that the good guys, or more often, the final girl can win. They can beat the bad guy, beat the evil, beat death even. I can hope that no matter how terrifying this world is, sometimes it can be fair. Sometimes the world stays fucked up, but it makes the bad guy lose. The good guy escapes the traps, the haunted house, or the hospital. No matter how down and out, cut up, beaten down, or sick, good lives.

The good guy lives. That’s my therapy.