Morbidly Curious: A Scientist Explains Why We Can’t Look Away

Why are people irresistibly drawn to horror films, violent video games, and true crime? In his scattershot debut treatise, Scrivner, a behavioral psychologist and horror film producer, frames such “morbid curiosity” as an evolutionary advantage—it lets people use relatively risk-free environments (like movie theaters) to learn about threats from which they might need to protect themselves. To support his thesis, Scrivner pulls evidence from psychology, anthropology, cinema studies, and evolutionary biology, citing everything from Nightmare on Elm Street villain Freddy Krueger’s razor-claw glove (especially terrifying because claws trigger “deeply rooted fears” that prime the brain to escape predators) to zoological studies of interactions between cheetahs and gazelles, dream theory, haunted hotels, and violent sports. While many of these disparate accounts intrigue, Scrivner’s conclusions can feel selective or open to alternative interpretation. for example, the fact that kids remember stories about predators, like lions or tigers, better than accounts of what animals eat, as one study showed, doesn’t necessarily indicate an evolutionary predisposition to coping with fear. The impression readers will be left with is that of an author throwing a lot of ideas against the wall to see what sticks. There are plenty of insights, but Scrivner leaves copious room for doubt. (Oct.)