There is no denying that people are drawn to the things that they fear watching a horror movie or reading a good book is strangely compelling. According to Glenn Sparks, Ph.D, a professor and associate head of the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University, one reason for the appeal is how you feel after the movie. This is called the excitation transfer process. Sparks’s research found that when people watch frightening films, their heart rate, blood pressure and respiration increases. After the film is over, this physiological arousal lingers. That means that any positive emotions you experience are intensified.
Why are the best horror premises that you have ever heard? If you are in the publishing industry you have often heard countless elevator pitches on the next great horror novel. Authors are always on the lookout for something that inspires them to pen a Kindle Single or a feature length novel. Reditt is riding to the rescue, in an excellent post that entitled “What is the best horror story you can come up with in two sentences“. Here are a few of my favorites.
There was a picture in my phone of me sleeping. I live alone.
I couldn’t tell if the noise was a cry of sorrow or cackle of laughter. Then I realized I was the one making the noise.
I always thought my cat had a staring problem, she always seemed fixated on my face. Until one day, when I realized that she was always looking just behind me.
My grandmother told me that it was a gift to see the angel of death in front of people’s houses, to know that he’d be collecting someone there soon. I thought it was a gift too, up until the day I began to see it in front of every house.
I begin tucking him into bed and he tells me, “Daddy check for monsters under my bed.” I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed, staring back at me quivering and whispering, “Daddy there’s somebody on my bed.”
They celebrated the first successful cryogenic freezing. He had no way of letting them know he was still conscious.
“I can’t sleep” she whispered, crawling into bed with me. I woke up cold, clutching the dress she was buried in.
My sister says that mommy killed her. Mommy says that I don’t have a sister.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.