Oh, the horror!

My teenage son enjoys horror movies and watches them without even blinking an eye, while his brother, also a teenager, literally runs out of the room within the first half-hour of the movie. In the theatre he carries a jacket and covers his head and asks us whether the scary scene has passed, only then will he watch the movie again.

People who love action, comedy and drama might decide to watch an occasional horror flick, but the horror genre junkies keep an eye open for every new scary movie being released. My son’s mission in life is to see if a new horror movie will surpass the last one he watched. I have still not been able to figure out why this genre is so popular with him and other children his age.

Life is unexpected and throws challenges at us. I believe nothing can prepare us to face our fears ahead of time nor can we master various aspects of life. The jump scares in movies are only temporary, whereas certain things in life can scare us for a long time.

Human beings have many fears like losing a loved one, dying of an untreatable disease, break-ups, debt, not being able to save enough money before retirement, exams, legal battles, loneliness and much more. In my humble opinion horror movies don’t even scratch the surface of life lessons. The unfortunate beings who have not mastered resilience and are not optimistic cannot handle those hard temporary situations. I think it is just a sad waste of life.