WHO Is the Scariest Movie Monster Ever?
By Cathryn Conroy, Netscape News Editor
Dracula. The Lord of the Undead has been rated as the scariest and most compelling movie monster by fans young and old in a nationwide survey that tried to find out what scares us the most and why. “What we found was that people are attracted to monsters who are intelligent and have super powers, but also monsters who can perform on screen with the kind of evil and lack of inhibition that we just can’t do in real life,” researcher Dr. Steven Fischoff of California State University in Los Angeles told Reuters.
The team surveyed almost 1,200 Americans who were 16 to 91 years old. Coming in behind Dracula are berserk killer Freddy Krueger, Godzilla, Frankenstein, and the less-than-cuddly demon-doll, Chucky. But when it comes to being scared, there’s a generation gap. Older folks are more attracted to the classic monsters who only kill for survival, fear, or revenge. But the youngins’ like their monsters to be violent and bloodthirsty slasher-murderers. Why? Young people think they are immortal so senseless violence doesn’t hit them personally. Older folks realize that life is not limitless and killing-machine monsters can seem like a personal threat. But why do we LIKE to be scared? Says Fischoff, “…because it’s something that is out of the ordinary in our experience. Most of us live in somewhat insulated lives, we don’t have extreme ups and downs. And the pleasure in being scared is in knowing that it will stop. It’s a safe scariness. You can close your eyes, turn off the television–its like going on a roller coaster–you get the adrenaline rush, but you know it’s going to end.”