How Watching Horror Movies Reminds Us What It Means to Be Human

It can help you discover, or maybe remember, what makes you you.

Eve Peyser
Forge

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Photo by Lina White on Unsplash

October 2021 commenced on an eerier note than usual: I turned 28, officially entering into my late twenties, the carefree simplicity of my youth fading away in the rearview mirror. Several days later, my boyfriend contracted a breakthrough case of the ol’ Covid-19. Despite making out with him a day before he tested positive, I tested negative throughout the whole ordeal. (Yes, my superpower is being able to kiss a coronavirus patient without getting infected. Who knew?) I nevertheless spent the majority of his illness stuck inside, just to be safe, yet another quarantine in an era of seemingly ceaseless quarantines.

This was the perfect moment to partake in the ancient tradition of spending the tenth month of the year gorging on all things spooky. I wasn’t always a Halloween diehard. Sure, I’d dress up on the actual day, but I wouldn’t really get into the spirit of the whole thing. It was only over the past several years that I began to treat October with the respect it deserved. This is the first year, however, that I’ve gone all out in the spooky department: I started a video game, Until Dawn, where I played as a college student stuck in an isolated cabin with a serial killer on the loose. I rewatched…

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Eve Peyser
Forge

nyc native living in the pnw. read my writing in the new york times, nymag, vice, and more.