About the Life-Changing Magic of Reading Horror Movie Spoilers

October is Horror Movie Month on the Criterion Channel: all but one of its series are devoted to the genre (the exception being "Starring Madonna," which arguably also qualifies, but I'm going to give Madge a break this week). I have a lifelong aversion to horror movies; one of my core childhood memories is being so frightened by Freddy Krueger's face that I shut my eyes every time I passed by our local video store's horror section. But I also don't want to feel like I'm missing out on the Cultural Discourse, and in recent years, the horror genre has moved from the fringes of cinematic respectability to the molten center of the zeitgeist. Thanks for nothing, A24!

It was only a little over a decade ago that I felt just fine not knowing what happened in the first six Saw movies, or being unable to contribute to a conversation about The Human Centipede. For me, the only tolerable horror was old horror: The Shining, Carrie, Night of the Living Dead—horror that erred on the side of creepiness rather than gore*, and whose fangs had been dulled by age and familiarity.

This began to change around 2013, when A24 released Under the Skin, which starred Scarlett Johansson as an alien who has taken the guise of a comely human female to lure unsuspecting Glaswegian men to their deaths. Critics loved it, and I found myself wanting to know what happened without actually having to see it. Ditto the host of critically praised horror movies that followed: The Witch, Midsommar, The Babadook, Hereditary, Pearl, Weapons. The idea of subjecting myself to any of these films was deeply unappealing, but so was the prospect of not knowing what people were talking about.

So I decided to go someplace I had always prided myself on avoiding: spoilers. Or more technically, Wikipedia film synopses. It is thanks to Wikipedia that I now know that in Midsommar, one character is bludgeoned to death by a man wearing the skinned face of another character; that Hereditary is rife with decapitations, including that of a child; and that in Pearl, the title character feeds her friend's dismembered body to an alligator named Theda.

I cannot tell you how happy I am to have never seen any of these movies. But if reading their spoilers satisfies my morbid curiosity, it also fulfills the more depraved hunger familiar to anyone who has ever slowed down while passing a traffic accident. I don't want to watch horror movies, but I do want to partake in the vicarious, grotesque thrills they offer, to peer into the abyss without falling in.

Of course, one can peer into the abyss 24 hours a day simply by consuming the news. Maybe that's another reason I love reading horror movie synopses: they tell me exactly which bad things will happen, and when. There are no spoilers in real life, just grinding, unremitting suspense that very rarely culminates with the good guys—whoever they're supposed to be—saving the day.

After I read a synopsis, I often read about the film's cast and production, details that further buttress the fact that I've been indulging in a kind of horror without consequence. After the director yelled "cut," those actors got to take off their makeup and go home.

But where do we go? We're just here, spinning through space on the only home we have, wondering what will kill us first, climate change or a bunch of mouth-breathing broligarchs. I prefer my horror to be scripted, and its splatter neatly summed up in a paragraph or two. So I take advantage where I can.

*Although Night of the Living Dead is impressively disgusting for something made in 1968.

What I'm consuming this week:

Reading: I just finished — and loved —Anna Hogeland's Wild Aster, which comes out in December. It follows a woman named Mae over the course of 40 years, from childhood to motherhood to middle-age. I'm a slow reader, but I tore through its 400-plus pages in three days.

Listening: Sparks, "Angst in My Pants."

Watching: Grace of My Heart, Allison Anders's underappreciated 1996 dramedy about a Carole King-esque singer-songwriter played by Illeana Douglas.