Why do so many people like scary movies? Why on earth does anyone pay good money to sit in a dark theater and have the living daylights scared out of them? Fear is not fun. Fear feels really bad. Fear does nasty things to both our minds and our bodies.

As a kid I saw several movies (Invaders from Mars and House of Wax, 1953) that gave me nightmares for weeks. As a young adult, I saw one (The Haunting, 1963) that sent three of us straight home to turn on all the lights, raid the parental liquor cabinet, and sit closely together with our backs to the wall for a long time.

No more. Life itself is plenty scary enough.