Freaked By The Flicks

According to a recent study, some of us are so scared by 'scary' movies - we consciously alter our lifestyles. The culprit can perhaps be best defined by the infamous bathroom slaying scene from the 1960 Hitchcock classic, Psycho. "There are people who shower with the door open, even though they're quite sure there isn't a killer in the house," says Kristen Harrison, a University of Michigan professor who co-authored the so-called "fright effect" study. The survey was conducted on 150 University of Michigan and Wisconsin student guinea-pigs, and found that approximately 25 percent suffered long-term jitters from a film or TV show they'd seen as a child. In fact, the younger the subjects viewed a disturbing flick, the longer they were troubled by it. Only one-third managed to get over it in a week - another third were still soiling themselves regularly after a year. "Those effects were more serious than jumpiness at a slammed door or the need to use a night light," says Harrison. The actual symptoms ranged from full-on insomnia to actually avoiding the shower altogether - by no means an unfamiliar phenomenon on any student campus. One poor tormented soul involved in the study reported suffering severe nightmares for two whole months after watching the 1975 Spielberg thriller Jaws. So much so was the person affected by the giant fish that to this day, she claims still to be scared rigid of the sight of blood. Spooky. Harrison also added the incredible and groundbreaking fact that scenes most guaranteed to freak us out depict injury, pain and, would you believe it, a decent measure of that old chestnut - claret. Astonishing.