By Piper Rutherford | Staff Writer
Find movies this Halloween season that will get you in the spooky spirit without giving you nightmares.
Not only do horror movies take advantage of their audience’s deepest, darkest fears and phobias, but they can also have negative impacts on their viewers’ mental health.
Watching horror movies releases adrenaline-focused hormones, which immediately prepare the mind and body for fight-or-flight mode. This causes a person to experience an increase in heart rate and blood pressure. After encountering a perceived threat, their muscles tighten to provide them with extra speed or strength, and their pupils dilate to try to let in more light and expand their field of vision.
Similarly, after an individual watches a horror movie, they tend to internalize scary scenes from the movie, which can later trigger nightmares. Nightmares can then have a detrimental impact on their sleeping patterns, such as preventing them from having REM sleep.
Healthline reported that depression is directly linked to the amount of sleep one gets, saying that “90 percent of people with depression experience poor sleep quality” and that “going 3 or more consecutive nights in a row without sleep can result in perceptual distortions, delusions and hallucinations.”
To avoid these negative health effects, take advantage of family-friendly Halloween movies — ones that can be enjoyed without the sensation of fear and panic.
Kenny Ortega’s 1993 film “Hocus Pocus” features comedic quarreling among three sisters who are witches recently brought back from the dead, sparking their mission to restore their youth. This iconic film also features an icon of its own. “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker hangs up her Manolo Blahnik pumps for a pointed hat and cape in the film while playing the role of Sarah Sanderson — the boy-crazy and flirtatious sister who would definitely have a crush on Big.
Those who find laughter in the twisted family dynamics of reality television will also love Barry Sonnenfeld’s 1991 film “The Addams Family,” which features a mute butler by the name of Lurch; Wednesday Addams, a demented sister who finds joy in conducting dangerous experiments on her brother; and plenty of opportunities to cringe at the romance between Mr. and Mrs. Addams, who can’t seem to keep their hands off of each other.
Next on the list is Bill Melendez’s “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” Released in 1966, it reminds viewers of the nostalgia of being a kid during the month of October, with fall childhood activities like carving pumpkins, jumping in piles of leaves and getting dressed up on the night of Oct. 31 to go trick-or-treating with friends.
Lastly, those who are too embarrassed to admit that they put up their Christmas tree before Halloween will surely enjoy the merging of the two holidays in Henry Selick’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” which follows Jack Skellington — the pumpkin king of Halloween Town, who questions his love for Halloween after encountering the holiday cheer and festivities in Christmas Town.
However, if you insist on watching scary movies this October, consider following some tips to protect your peace in the process.
It is important to know which subgenres of horror movies you can handle watching.
For instance, while monster horror movies use science fiction and dark fantasy monsters like werewolves, vampires and aliens — as seen in “Frankenstein” and “Dracula” — other directors take advantage of people’s fear of paranormal activity by including supernatural ghosts, spirits and demons — as seen in “The Exorcist” and “Poltergeist.”
As for real-life monsters, some filmmakers focus on serial killers in slasher horror films like “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th.” In this category, they like to expand upon the vulnerability of the human body by targeting viewers who are squeamish at the sight of blood, playing into the gore genre of horror, as seen in “The Evil Dead” and “Saw.”
The next time you sit down to watch a Halloween movie, do yourself a favor and make sure that it is not too scary. However, if you do choose to submit yourself to the punishment of watching a scary one, make sure you know your boundaries and which subgenres of horror you can stomach — keeping the lights on in the room and closing your eyes when necessary.
