A black cat crosses the muddy pavement. Above, the bright moon pops out against the night sky, and there’s a chill in the air. For visitors of all ages, Andelin Farm’s Corn Creepers attraction is the perfect way to end a Thursday night, with heart-pounding terror.
Haunted attractions and scary movies are popular ways to get an adrenaline rush during the fall months. Aside from jump scares, many day-to-day things can create feelings of fear, anxiety, and disturbance.
Dr. Frank McAndrews, a social psychologist, said that while there’s little physiological difference between being scared and being creeped out, places and people, or the lack thereof, determine how we react.
“Being scared is a very clear emotion. You know you're in danger. You know what the nature of the problem is…creepiness is all about uncertainty,” McAndrews said.
When people aren’t sure of what is waiting around the next corner, or how a person will act, it triggers the feeling of being creeped out. McAndrews said that it is an emotional response to the ambiguity of a threat. Until we find out the nature of the threat, we’re paralyzed until we can figure out what is going on.
Haunted attractions can trigger the fight or flight response to elicit reactions from visitors, with their maze-like twists and turns, dark shadowy corners and fog machines. This gives scare actors who work inside the haunts the perfect opportunity to frighten, or even creep out, guests.
Scare actor Tiffany Williard, who was dressed up as Freddy Kreuger’s victim, said creepiness is all about the unexpected, like hiding in the shadows or silently following someone.
“Being creeped out, you're more just like unsettled. It's just that feeling in your stomach almost, where being scared, you are actively experiencing what creeps you out,” Williard said.
For scare actor Shianne Price, the everyday can be full of creepy occurrences.
“Being creeped out, like I don't know if you know, like the uncanny valley type stuff, where it's like something that looks human is trying to be human, but it's not,” Price said.
Much of McAndrews’ research looks at tolerance of ambiguity, or measuring our perception of what makes places and people creepy. He said the amount of ambiguity is the tipping point on the scale between fear and creepiness.
“Whenever anything is so human that it starts making your brain automatically identify it as human…But you consciously know that it isn't, That creates a cognitive tension that's really uncomfortable,” McAndrews said.
Our ancient ancestors were afraid of things like heights, snakes, deep water, and spiders because they posed an immediate threat of harm or even death, he said, adding that because of our evolutionary biology, these are common fears in the present day.
This explains why people often fear these things that they don’t encounter frequently, whereas things that can cause harm in everyday life, like cars and guns, are rarely given a second thought.
As McAndrews said, there has never been a documented case of somebody being killed by a ghost.
So why do people seek out scary movies, tell scary stories in the dark, or pay to be chased through a corn maze?
McAndrews said that today, people seek out certain things for the fun of fear.
“It's the same reason we like scary stories going way back prehistorically, when you're in the safety of a movie theater or you're at a commercial haunted house and you know it's not real… It's a way of mentally rehearsing what you might do in the future if you were to encounter a situation like this for real,” he said.
Scare actor Mo Mowrey said they use horror movies as a reason to feel anxious without overthinking.
“It gives me a reason to funnel my anxiety into it, and after so long, you can recognize the pattern in them. It's a safe release of that anxious fear," Mowrey said.
Walking through the dense towering corn stalks, creepiness hides around every dark corner. For some, being creeped out keeps us grounded, and experiences like corn mazes help us rehearse in a controlled, safe space.
While being creeped out by things and people is natural, there’s something to be said about the experiences that make us uncomfortable. McAndrews says while jump scares are fun, don’t always rush to conclusions about people you may find creepy.
