Fear, Horror Films, and the Creativity of Society

If we can catch a glimpse of our creativity by understanding our horrors, what does this say about horror films and our society today? How has this developed over time?

I believe that the enemy of creativity isn’t boredom, but fear. I think our fears are very closely intertwined with our creativity and oddly enough, I think creativity feeds off of our fear. It’s like creativity’s fuel. As I was thinking about this, I began to also wonder about horror films and how they might reflect society’s most popular concept of fear.

Back when horror films started coming out, they were mainly scary because of the monsters in the films. (Think of Frankenstein or Godzilla.) These movies came out in the same era as WW2 where socialism was haunting over the world. Maybe there’s a connection?

Thinking about horror films today - they’re mostly psychological. Most of the scary aspect isn’t based around a “monster” per se, but there’s an eerie aspect to the tone of the film. Sure, there’s a “bad guy”, but that’s not what makes the movie scary. It’s the psychology behind it.

The amount of people that suffer from depression and anxiety is increasing over time in this day and age. Is it a coincidence?

How does this connect with creativity?

Well, if you think about how quickly our world is changing, it’s pretty amazing. I mean, we have people going to Mars pretty soon. We have so much innovation occurring, and sometimes I think we regard it as normal and forget to stop and think about it.