How Fear Affects The Body, From Silly Scares To Serious Traumas

Arlington TX

26 October, 2021

6:35 PM

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By Alexis Allison, Fort Worth Report October 25, 2021 As a "latchkey kid" who grew up in '80s Amarillo, Jason Wiseman biked to the local video store and hid the films he hoped to rent behind a tape he figured no one would want. Later, when his dad got off work, he'd reveal the stash. "We would rent all the movies I'd hidden earlier," he said. "I had a system." At 47, Wiseman now lives in Fort Worth. He still calls himself a "film geek." He's a member of The Grand Berry Theater's monthly film club, he hosts movie nights every Monday and, just before the pandemic, he formed The Reel House Foundation, a nonprofit with a mission to make art accessible for everyone through film. The genre he returns to again and again, he said, is horror. Stories "about ghosts, about aliens and about those creepy crawly things that go bump in the night," they've enchanted him since he was a boy. Bring on the people you wake to find at the foot of your bed. Bring on the dolls. In the weeks leading up to Halloween, he's watching a horror film every day. "There's no stopping it in October, really." The jump scares work for him, but the fear they invoke is contained. "You can turn it off after two hours, or close the book and still scare yourself to sleep, but still feel relatively safe," he said. "That things are going to be OK." To read the full article, click here. Fort Worth Report is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that produces factual, in-depth journalism about city and county government, schools, healthcare, business, and arts and culture in Tarrant County. Always free to read; subscribe to newsletters, read coverage or support our newsroom at fortworthreport.org.