horror is my dopamine
an obsession with horror from someone who is afraid of everything + a list of films and books to get you started
“Can a girl ever hope to be safe from threat, when the world’s cruelty is embedded in her organs like microplastics?”- AK Blakemore
Horror lures me in. It has nestled itself into the marrow of my bones. It soothes me and excites me. I cruise on its dopamine effect.
It may come as a surprise then when I say I used to be terrified of anything even remotely scary. To give you some background; I grew up in a townhouse at the end of a road next to farmlands; imagine a better horror setting, I’ll wait. I lived in fear of the dark because it meant bedtime was near and that’s when the nightmares came. Every night for years, my imagination would distill fear and paranoia in me. When I was fourteen, I had visions of Freddy Krueger walking to my window for months upon seeing the 2010 Nightmare on Elm Street trailer (yes, the trailer). I would be the one missing out on sleepovers so I could arrive after the film screening because the chances were anything popular at the time scared me. I’m the idiot who believed the end of the world was upon us in 2012 when the Mayan calendar ended and I tried avoiding any mention of the film until it was 2013. I was even scared of ironic films like Scary Movie. My imagination was simply too vivid and I would imagine every detail happening to me like a superimposition of movie to brain.
There was a distinct turning moment when the fear of horror lost its grip on me. At the prim age of seventeen, I moved into my first ever shared apartment. I was living with others in a big city and the knowledge of people who could hear me scream in case things went awry comforted me. I watched my first horror movies with friends and didn’t blink an eye. It was a proud moment for me. This was the seedling that much later transformed into a fascination for the macabre.
It was when I was living in Japan a few years ago that I decided to give horror a real go. A friend back home who had watched horror films since primary school suggested to watch one together online (we still do this frequently now even though we live in the same country - it’s so much fun!). I figured “Why not!”. And I haven’t looked back. She paved the way for me in terms of what to watch and our friendship has blossomed around it. We found a shared passion that we can chat and, believe it or not, laugh about (horror can be very funny, who would have thought)
But horror didn’t grip me solely because of this friendship. There is something primordial about my magnetism towards the genre that I can’t quite place. My overactive imagination and childhood home setting brewed a sense of paranoia in me from a young age, and I’ve wondered if it’s precisely this paranoia that makes me crave horror. Is it a sense of preparedness, of knowing what’s out there? Or is it that I might understand better, if even a sliver, the human brain and how it could possibly commit such atrocities? Is there an intrinsic craving we all share for fear and destruction?
Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win. - Stephen King
According to Harvard Business Review, a curiosity in the psyche is indeed one of the positive effects of horror. We might never get closer to understanding the Hannibal Lectors of this world than through film. The mere feat of sitting through something scary makes us feel a sense of accomplishment and relief too. And the more I watch, the more I crave it. It’s become something of an obsession. I am still paranoid most of the time in real life but films and books have a cathartic quality to them and I believe it can be healing, especially with the new turns horror cinema has taken in recent years towards a female gaze. You can laugh through comedy and cry during sad movies, but horror has a way of digging into the depth of our minds, to bring out our worst fears, display them and dissect them and eventually come to terms with them.
So without knowing the exact mechanisms of my brain and its 180 turn from fear to love, I now adore horror, and I am curious to know if you do too.
Of all the different sub-genres horror entails nowadays, I’m sure there’s something in it for everyone. From horrifying comedy to the Grand Guignol ghastly. I am nowhere near caught up on everything, but I made a little list of favourites so we can chat about them or so you have a guide in case you want to dip your toe into this bloody jolly pool.
Films
Comedic
Scream (1996) by Wes Craven
Jennifer’s Body (2009) by Karyn Kusama
Supernatural and/or mysterious
Sinister (2012) by John El Manahi
The Barbarian (2022) by Zach Cregger
Classics
Rosemary’s Baby (1968) by Roman Polanski
Carrie (1976) by Brian De Palma
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) by Wes Craven
Slasher
Fear Street (2021) by Leigh Janiak
X (2022) Pearl (2022) and Maxxxine (2024) by Ti West
Psychological
A Cure for Wellness (2016) by Gore Verbinski
The Menu (2022) by Mark Mylod
Triangle of Sadness (2022) by Ruben Östlund
Blink Twice (2024) by Zoë Kravitz
Mother (2017) by Darren Aronofsky
On my list
The Substance (2024) by Coralie Fargeat
Raw (2016) by Julia Ducournau
Titane (2021) by Julia Ducournau
Books
It’s only this year that I started immersing myself in horror literature, which means I will share a more elaborate list of my favourite books with you in the future. For now, here is my 2024 tbr. Have you read any of these?
Rouge by Mona Awad: a gothic fairy tale about impossible beauty standards. I enjoyed Bunny and I have high expectations of this incredibly relevant premise
So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison: a cosy vampire story on mortality and friendship that I can’t wait to sink my teeth into
Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth: a comedic domestic horror about a mother-in-law haunting the main character and her husband
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman: a dystopian world where women are kept in a cage underground. I don’t know a lot more and I was told to go in with only this information. I heard the last sentence keeps people reeling and there’s a whole community around this supposed classic
Diavola by Jennifer Thorne: this basically sounds like the film Mother but in book format. Insufferable family dynamics in a haunted house
The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher: about a strange colony in the woods so I’m immediately hooked. This was gifted to me by a friend so I can’t wait to discuss it with her
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: a young woman investigates the claims that her husband is trying to murder her. I’m not going to lie, I wanted this for the cover (the vintage-y looking one) but it’s also been praised as one of the best horror novels of the century
Let me know what you think of these movies and books and if you have any recommendations yourself! I would be more than happy to know!!
As always, thank you for your support.
x Nora
I love horror but I def went through a period when I was living alone and couldn’t handle anything scary (paranormal activity gave me psychotic nightmares). Now I’ve seen pretty much everything lol
I just watched The Barbarian, I was impressed with how good it was because I haven’t heard many people talk about it!