As a co-host of a horror podcast, not much phases me. However, I can still remember the beating of my heart as I lay awake, terrified each night for a week straight, after I watched my first scary movie.

In fourth grade, I decided to dive straight into the deep end with “Paranormal Activity.” The film follows a couple who are haunted and eventually possessed by a demonic spirit. I watched it on a rented DVD from Blockbuster at a sleepover, and it wasn’t all that bad until I imagined the countless scenarios that could happen to me when I got home. I slept with a night light up until high school because of my fears that something would grab me in the dark of the night.

Similarly, Sara Shohoud, a sophomore screenwriting major, grew up terrified of the hit demon film “Insidious,” which premiered in Canada in 2010 — a mere three years after “Paranormal Activity.”

“I was afraid that a demon would be following me,” Shohoud said. “Especially — I can’t stress this enough — (because of) the fact that it happens during daylight, because then I’m, like, never safe.”

Shohoud hates horror movies, but her grandmother, who is a fan of the genre, showed the film to her when she was growing up. She cites her religion as a possible factor for why the film affected her so much.

“I’m Muslim, and demons are also a big thing (in my religion),” Shohoud said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, if you talk about demons they’re gonna come.’ It’s like you summon them, if that makes sense. So, not only did I talk about them, I straight up watched a movie about them, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m gonna die.’”

Unlike Shohoud, Jack Stassi, a junior animation major, is a superfan of the horror genre. He said the film that terrified him the most is “Hereditary,” a 2018 arthouse film from writer-director Ari Aster about a dysfunctional family that is manipulated into carrying the host of a demonic spirit. When asked how he felt after watching the film, Stassi said it made him feel paranoid and disturbed.

“Especially during the piano wire scene and where (a character is) crawling on the wall, that messed with me, and normally that stuff doesn’t mess with me,” Stassi said. “But, there’s something about the way that movie was shot that just made it feel much more jarring and unsettling.” 

Demon films seem to be a popular pick among some students at Chapman. This isn’t surprising, considering the influx of hit blockbusters on the subject that came out when most students in college now were growing up. Franchises like “Paranormal Activity” and “The Conjuring” are still ongoing to this day due to their intense popularity starting in the early 2010s.

“Those films are all tapping into ideas that we could lose ourselves,” Dawn Fratini, a Chapman film professor, said. “That’s a really scary idea, if you think about it, and that’s part of why death itself is so scary; because we’re so embedded in ourselves.”

Fratini is a film historian and teaches an on-rotation class on the horror genre for the film studies department. Unlike most of the students I interviewed, Fratini said horror films based in reality are what scare her the most. Monsters and ghosts are intangible, while the horrors of what human beings do is all around us.

“Because horror is ultimately a form of a fantasy, and because I was so immersed in it as a kid, it’s less scary to me than things that are more realist,” Fratini said. “There are the films that walk the line: are they horror or are they thrillers — something like ‘Zodiac,’ which is based on a true story? (Thrillers like ‘Zodiac’) do scare me, because to me, there’s nothing more scary than real human beings.”

Caroline Sechio, a sophomore screenwriting major, seemed to share a similar sentiment; she said she will not ride roller coasters to this day after watching “Final Destination 3,” a franchise with an intangible antagonist — death itself — who picks people off in ordinary ways. In the scene that scarred her, a roller coaster breaks while in motion, and the passengers fly out of their seats, plummeting to their deaths.

“The thing with thrill rides is you’re not actually supposed to be in danger, and now you’re like, ‘Oh I could die, like it could all go wrong,’” Sechio said. “(The “Final Destination” franchise) takes normal things and just makes it horrific, and now you’re thinking about it.”

While Sechio grew up so scared of horror that she would cry at the sight of Halloween decorations, she now loves it. She shared some advice for students who may be too afraid to watch scary movies this Halloween season.

“It’s not real, so just don’t be scared, unless it is real (and) based on a true story,” Sechio said. “That’s what I always tell my friends when they’re scared to watch horror movies ... it’s just a movie.”

Even though I grew up not being able to sleep after movies like “Paranormal Activity” and suffered from panic attacks at the sight of a scary trailer, I now find the genre cathartic. Horror is all about confronting and unpacking our anxieties in a fantastical way, which I find a lot of power in and hope others can, too.