6 Comments
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Sandi's avatar

Interesting read. My go to movies are anything with sharks, The Conjuring collection, especially the Nun series and Sinister. Never thought about is as a legitimate release valve.

Olga Wefler's avatar

Hereditary, Sinister, and Zodiac as comfort movies? That is the most unhinged feel-good list I've ever seen and I mean that with total respect.

I'm with you 100%. Horror trains the brain. There's something so weirdly calming about watching fictional chaos when your own anxiety is spiraling, when you are completely safe. Also, there is research that scary movies help to burn calories)

Kevin Lackey's avatar

I find that strange movie like Lost Highway helps distract from anxiety.

Andrew Birney's avatar

So interesting. I always plan on whacking on a cosy comedy when stressed, but I always end up retuning to those dark films - not even horrors normally. Something like The Killing of a Sacred Deer, or We Need to Talk About Kevin. It’s an emotional playground to exercise the anxiety, leaving me satisfied and suddenly very tired

Julia T.'s avatar

It’s not that horror reduces anxiety.

It gives it a shape.

Something you can enter, feel, and leave—

instead of something that just lives inside you.

Daniel White's avatar

I'd beg to differ since the morning after watching Oldboy was when I realized I have intense anxiety