Halloween is quickly coming upon us, and with it come the scares and attractions we all love: witches, skeletons, costumes and, of course, candy. But with that fun comes amusement park events such as the Field of Screams and the Pennhurst Insane Asylum. What makes these spooky attractions so appealing to us, the obsession to thrive every year in scary situations?
I think we love scaring ourselves to put a factor of thrill into our lives. After all, Halloween is a season of spooks; it would be anti-climactic if we went through the whole season without trying to scare ourselves at least once. Even though I do not usually go to haunted houses, I always think of how much fun it would be to go and try to be brave in the face of ghosts that jump out at you.
The same goes for horror movies around Halloween. Recently, I saw a classic black and white movie called “House on Haunted Hill,” and though I knew the 1930s effects were cheap and none of it was real, I could not help but be slightly afraid of the images I saw. So, why is it that we become legitimately afraid of these haunted attractions even though we know they are solely for amusement? I think this is because, even though logic tells us that everything is a show, part of us believes there is an actual ghoul in front of us that we need to run away from.
Despite the thrill of putting ourselves into these seasonal scary situations, I do not believe you have to be brave to attend something frightening. When I was a child, I went trick-or-treating at my neighbor’s house. When I was walking towards the door, the neighbor’s friends had all dressed as monsters and were slowly coming towards me. As a seven-year-old, this was the most frightening thing I had ever seen. I screamed and ran all the way back to my house. This was the height of scare factors during Halloween for me. But as people grow older and more experienced, they constantly try to raise the bar and test their bravery with different activities. There are plenty of haunted houses, amusement parks and hay rides that we can participate in to test our bravery and attempt not to freak out for as long as possible.
When I was younger, I went on a haunted house ride in Rehoboth, De. where projections of green ghosts would appear like they were sitting next to you in your seat.
And, in 2004, I rode the Tower of Terror in Disney World, which lifted about fifty seated people in an elevator shaft. At each level, the doors would open and all of us would be rolled into a room full of ghosts jumping out at us. Sometimes, it lifted all the way up so we could see the sky and the sun, only to drop suddenly to the bottom floor. During that ride, I was not afraid; I was having a lot of fun with the feeling of rising and dropping.
Sometimes, something that is intended to be scary is so comically unfrightening that you end up laughing through the whole experience. And even if an experience legitimately frightens you, you usually end up laughing at the end of it with your friends and taking pictures. Ultimately, the appeal of scary attractions is to give yourself a thrill and a good memory during the Halloween season. It’s always enjoyable to have a happy Halloween experience with friends. I do not believe you have to be brave at all to appreciate being scared this season because it is all part of the fun!
