The Virtues of Horror and Gore
A new book explores how violent video games affect kids, and more.
Posted October 7, 2025 | Reviewed by Abigail Fagan
This post is a review of Morbidly Curious: A Scientist Explains Why We Can’t Look Away. By Coltan Scrivner. Penguin Books. 272 pp. $19.
From a young age, Coltan Scrivner indicates, Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer , collected, bleached, and preserved the bones of rats and roadkill. He watched The Exorcist III several times each week and forced his victims to view the movie before he murdered them.
And, Scrivner notes, the two students at Columbine High School who killed 12 of their classmates and a teacher before taking their own lives loved the video games Doom and Mortal Kombat .
In a provocative, counterintuitive, and often compelling new book, Scrivner (a behavioral psychologist and the executive director of Nightmare in the Ozarks Film Festival and the Eureka Springs Zombie Crawl) maintains that easy access to horror media has become a “scapegoat” for many Americans desperate to explain an epidemic of gruesome violence.
Drawing on recent research by social scientists, Scrivner asserts that morbid curiosity is not “a stain on our psyche,” but, instead, a personality trait that can help us “face fear , disgust, and the unknown” in our lives.
Over millions of years, Scrivner reminds us, human beings became more knowledgeable about and sensitized to threats from predators as well as repulsed by and afraid of them. “This imprint,” Scrivner writes, “lies at the core of our morbid curiosity,” which can serve us well “when threats are placed in a safe context,” such as a story, a movie, a “haunted house,” or a video game.
In the last two decades, Scrivner emphasizes, researchers have demonstrated that violent video games do not stimulate children to commit acts of violence. Some games, he agrees, may well be inappropriate: “but this doesn’t mean that kids shouldn’t experience scary stuff.”
Acknowledging that studies of morbid curiosity are in their infancy, Scrivner relies on his own (collaborative) work to counter what he regards as misconceptions about the impact of exposure to fictional killers, monsters, horror and gore.
Morbid curiosity, he asserts, does not correlate with less empathy or compassion. Empathy, moreover, can be dysfunctional. Empathy can make a good torturer “a more effective manipulator,” a good surgeon need not be empathetic , and “a good horror fan is probably somewhere in the middle.”
Studies he directed during the pandemic concluded that morbidly curious people were more resilient than non-horror fans. But, paradoxically, they were also somewhat more prone to high anxiety . Horror, Scrivner speculates, provides a safe place to express, come to terms with, and manage anxiety. The ability, for example, to cover their eyes, pause a movie, if viewing it at home, and clearly identify villains and victims, allows viewers to gauge and regulate their feelings. And, “after about 90 minutes, the movie-related anxiety fades as the credits roll… tricking your mind to think you have escaped or overcome the threat.”
“The process may not work for everyone,” Scrivner notes, but a use of this version of exposure therapy , which “is one of the most empirically validated treatments for anxiety,” can break patterns of avoidance, prove that feelings of dread aren’t always indicators of how dire a situation actually is, and provide a sense of self-efficacy .
Scrivner, in my judgment, may put too much emphasis on the amount of “threat-related information” fictional violence supplies. Does the genre really help viewers “safely explore real-world situations,” with “real-world relevance,” and their “psychological and moral implications?” Does it convey “important information” about “potentially dangerous individuals” and the treatment of bodily injuries?
And as Scrivner indicates, “the creeping suspense, the spooky atmosphere, and the sudden appearance of monsters,” often provides “a boost of adrenaline” to some “sensation seekers.” An undetermined percentage of whom find risky or dangerous situations that elicit feelings of fear “exciting and enjoyable.”
That said, Scrivner provides substantial evidence that scenes of horror and gore may give some people “a push,” perhaps with help from an exposure therapist, “to play with fear and explore our anxiety.” But we still have a lot to learn about how morbidly curious folks have responded to that push.
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Glenn C. Altschuler, Ph.D. , is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.