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| Heath Matheson and Nicole White write a blog about the psychology of horror films. (Bruce Bottomley Photo) |
One of Heath Matheson鈥檚 earliest childhood memories is a nightmare鈥攍iterally.
鈥淚 remember accidentally watching a horror film and having a dreadfully terrifying dream,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t was the second Friday the 13th movie. I was at a sleepover, which was the only way I could have seen this movie because my parents never would have let me watch anything like it; I think I was about four or five. (In the dream) the killer鈥檚 arm came through the wall and he grabbed me, dragging me through the wall. I woke up in tears and my parents had to be called.鈥�
Not the most auspicious beginning to a life as a horror movie fan, but his fear quickly ignited into a passion for the genre that he even carries with him into his studies. A PhD student in cognitive neuroscience, he鈥檚 recently started a blog with his parter Nicole White鈥攈erself a former Dal neuroscience student now at the University of Toronto鈥攁ll about the psychology of horror films.
鈥淚 think it鈥檚 because out of the movies you might watch, the phenomena that we end up often studying in psychology鈥攖hings like fear鈥攁re explicit topics in these movies. They discuss things like, for instance, whether a brain could exist in a vat, or something like that. And those are the types of philosophical questions that we might ask ourselves here.鈥�
The blog鈥斺�攄oesn鈥檛 just deal with the obvious slasher culprits like Jason, Freddy and Michael Myers. The pair writes about movies that pique their scholarly interests, from recent pictures like Splice and The Human Centipede to older films you might never have heard of, like Peeping Tom or The Brain Machine, both from the 1960s.
鈥淲e pick the movies, discuss them and pass our thoughts back and forth,鈥� says Mr. Matheson, adding that their goal is to integrate psychological theory鈥攆or instance, linking scholarly work on the relationship between testosterone and aggressive with the gender-switching ideas of this year鈥檚 Splice鈥攊n a way that鈥檚 simple and easy for genre fans to understand.
鈥渋t鈥檚 really important to me to engage in science outreach, making science accessible and available to a public that doesn鈥檛 get to spend all their time reading journal articles on the topic.鈥� He adds that he invites readers to comment and engage in a dialogue about the movies on the blog.
Mr. Matheson also does work with the AV俱乐部 chapter of Let鈥檚 Talk Science, and is looking into ways to integrate some of the more silly and age-appropriate classic horror films into the outreach program's high school initiatives. He鈥檚 also working through his New Year鈥檚 resolution: watching all of Vincent Price鈥檚 films this calendar year.
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