Horror unleashed: What makes us scared and why we love it

(PhysOrg.com) -- Horror has become such an ingrained part of popular culture, but the theory behind it is rarely explored. A new exhibition at the Macquarie University Art Gallery promises to give lovers of horror a good fright, while examining why on earth we would welcome it.

"Horror, Come Darkness" is the Gallery's largest exhibition of the year and will feature the works of contemporary artists who will create an experience of horror using cinematic effects, literary sources, paintings, stills, video installations and spooky sounds.

Tormented creatures, monsters, spectral beings and the living dead camouflaged within nocturnal landscapes will be some of the eerie features of the exhibition, which is guaranteed to set hearts pounding.

Artist, screenwriter and director, Alex Proyas, who is responsible for films such as "Dark City", "The Crow", and "I, Robot", will join more than 20 contributing artists, including Tim Silver, Scanner, Matt Coyle, Louise Hearman, Monika Tichacek and VR Morrison.

Some of the exhibits are quite disturbing, said Rhonda Davis, a curator of the exhibition.

"There's one video work by the artist, Pete Volich, where viewers can only see the expressions on his face while he's watching a massacre on film. It's all done in slow motion, so it's very creepy," she said.

Associate Professor, John Potts, from Macquarie's Department of Media, Music and Cultural Studies - and a co-curator of the exhibition - raises an interesting question.

What is so appealing about being made uneasy, uncomfortable, on edge, or outright terrified?

"For much of the twentieth century, theorists of horror followed Freud in pursuit of answers to these questions, but in more recent years the school of evolutionary psychology has offered another interpretation for our fascination with horror," he said.

"It takes us back to our earliest environments where the human species lived in ever-present fear, menaced by predators only too happy to make a meal of us. An acute sense of fear was crucial adaptive trait to ensure survival.

"Although there are no more predators, the fear impulse lives on because it has served us so well in the past. This is one of several theories," Potts said.

"Horror, Come Darkness" will run from Thursday, 24 September until Wednesday, 11 November, tying in with Halloween. It also coincides with the launch of "Terror Tracks: Music, Sound and Horror Cinema" - the new book edited by Department of Media Adjunct Professor, Philip Hayward.

Provided by Macquarie University