"COLTAN SCRIVNER: Everything I do is kind of surrounded by the Halloween spirit, if you will, right? My research is on horror movies and true crime and people who sort of are interested in the macabre, and I organize events that are, like, a horror film festival and a zombie crawl. CHANG: That's right, a zombie crawl, which happens every year where Scrivner lives in Eureka Springs, Arkansas."
"SCRIVNER: Morbid curiosity is just an interest in or a curiosity about things that are potentially dangerous. So the morbid descriptor doesn't mean the curiosity is bad. CHANG: Right. SCRIVNER: It just means that the thing you are interested in is dangerous. CHANG: Got it. Like, potentially... SCRIVNER: Serial killers or environmental disasters... CHANG: Ghosts. SCRIVNER: ....Or ghosts or, yeah, bodily injuries. Any kind of thing that gives you information about something you wouldn't want to be exposed to."
Morbid curiosity is an interest in potentially dangerous phenomena such as serial killers, environmental disasters, ghosts, or bodily injuries. The morbid label indicates the subject matter is dangerous, not that the curiosity is morally wrong. Interest in dangerous information can be healthy and evolutionarily adaptive because it helps animals, including humans, learn about risks in their environment. Social and cultural expressions of morbid curiosity include horror film festivals, zombie crawls, haunted hotels, brain-eating contests, and parades. Research on horror movies and true crime examines why people are drawn to macabre topics and how such interest provides useful threat information.
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