Blood Rush Or Nothing

                 


At a very young age, many people discover horror. Whether it be spine-chilling
 movies, a creepy looking mask, or a Halloween walkthrough at their local school.
Some people get a sense that they aren't ever going to like horror and being scared and then there are others who live for fear and spooks. Some even like to take it to the next level and scare themselves with not only horror and thriller films but haunted houses. These haunted houses tend to mess with one's imagination and become reality when going through them, which is exactly why they are an enduring form of horror.
Going to haunted houses are something that people can only go to for about a month in the fall time. This gives them all the reasons more to go to as many as they can before the season ends. These haunted houses are typically on farms in what looks like in the middle of nowhere. They decorate the farms to look fun for pumpkin picking in the morning and to look like a bloody masquerade at midnight. The difference between movies and haunted attractions is that for a movie they can have all the lights on in the room and family and friends around to watch it together. For attractions there, is no choice whether the lights are on or whether or not friends the person went with getting separated from them. Now, yes these people might seem crazy for wanting to jump out of their skin but it's not just the scare they look for. They love the feeling of the build up when they are walking through not knowing what could be lurking around the corner, and then they also love the feeling they get after they have been frightened. To the people who don't like getting scared they don't understand how someone could put themselves in those type of situations on purpose.
Not only is it about the scare but it's about what's happening inside that person's body when something or someone jumps at them. In an article written by Daniel Bennett from BBC focus magazine called ¨The Science Of Fear ¨he explains that there is a part of the brain called the amygdala it is located at the bottom part and it can get set off. When the amygdala is set off it can cause higher blood pressure, a higher and faster heartbeat, and can also make a person sweaty. In another article, written by Allegra Ringo called ¨Why Do Some Brains Enjoy Fear? ¨ She talks about how there is a hormone released called dopamine which also goes hand and hand with the adrenalin felt. Some people appreciate and savor the feeling while others disfavor those feelings and reactions of the body. There's no way of controlling this because a person could get scared in various ways.This part of the brain is also attached to the hippocampus. This is where all the memories are, so if something scared the body and brain, it would remember that and the brain would automatically have the same reaction and fear it did the first time it saw it.
When looking at a video of Jimmy Fallon and Kevin Hart go into a haunted house in New York it was a great example. The very first room that they were walking through was dimmed and the color of the lights were red, the scene that was set up was a rainy forest. As soon as they got into the room the door shut very loud behind them , they continued to walk further into the room and something sprayed in them and when it sprayed it also made a noise as soon as this happened Jimmy screamed and Kevin said “C’mon Jimmy you're makin it worse!”. This continued with them jumping out of their skin and screaming, the better the actors hid themselves from Jimmy and Kevin the more scared they became. From the beginning, they knew that they were going into an environment that was going to scare them but they were never really ready for being scared because they didn't know where the people were coming from or when certain sounds were going to happen.
This is always a choice that comes up in life. There is a choice to watch a scary movie, there is a choice to go to a haunted attraction and then there is a choice to not do any of these things because staying in a safe zone will make that human being feel comfortable. But, if people who avoid being scared stopped to think about it, they would realize that going through haunted houses are not just about the vulnerable fear, but it is also about the physical aspects that happen inside of the brain and to a human being’s body as well. 


Work Cited:

Bennett, Daniel. “The science of fear - what makes us afraid?” Science Focus, www.sciencefocus.com/feature/fear/science-fear-understanding-what-makes-us-afraid. Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.
Ringo, Allegra. “Why Do Some Brains Enjoy Fear?” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 31 Oct. 2013, www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/why-do-some-brains-enjoy-fear/280938/. Accessed 19 Sept. 2017.
latenight. “Jimmy and Kevin Hart Visit a Haunted House.” YouTube, YouTube, 13 Oct. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozVRGho-cZQ.

Comments (2)

Alan Lee Chan (Student 2019)
Alan Lee Chan

This 2fer taught me that why someone like getting scared and someone don't. With the source you have researched and analysed, I learned how they get scared or how our brain works when we get scared. But the 2fer doesn't change me that to go into any haunted attractions.