When I received a copy of the festival catalog, I flipped straight to the back, where I found listings for the increasingly popular "Danger After Dark" series curated by Travis Crawford. If it's bloody, weird and international, you'll find it here.

No surprise I flipped there first. You're talking to a longtime horror junkie here—my two favorite mags are The New Yorker and Fangoria, and not necessarily in that order. So of course I'm going to be drawn to "Danger After Dark" flicks like Evil Aliens, a grisly British dismember-fest, as well as plain ol' Evil, a Greek zombie epic, and Hell, a Thai shocker where a group of beautiful young professionals are killed in an accident and report straight to you-know-where; bloody chaos ensues. I was giddy just reading the plot descriptions.

What's wrong with me? That's a question I've been asking myself for years. But in terms of horror movies (and novels), I've always explained the appeal this way:

Horror movies inoculate us against the real thing.

The sight of my own blood—even a small gash on a finger—makes me woozy … which is why I loved Hellraiser, in which a man is flayed alive by hooks.

I have a major needle phobia … which is probably why I loved the pit o' syringes scene in Saw II.

The worst thing I can think of is being ripped away from the life I know … which is why I've been recommending Oldboy to everybody I know.

Theory is, if you can deal with it in the realm of the fantastic maybe your mind won't melt like apple butter when confronted with real-life horrors.

Yes, I know—it's possible all of this celluloid carnage desensitizes us, too. Which is why I don't plan on letting my son watch a fictional skin-flaying until he's at least old enough to shave.

Like I said, it's a theory.

But it's not just me. As reported in Newsweek and The New York Times Style section this past week, ultra-gory horror movies are—once again—huge box office successes. Why? The times we live in.

It is true that whenever the world has its panties in a bunch, horror movies have been there to give our minds an imaginary nightscape to confront our darkest fears. For every Cold War, there is an Invasion of the Body Snatchers. For every Vietnam, there is a Night of the Living Dead. And now for Abu Ghraib and Bush administration shenanigans, we have stuff like Hostel and The Hills Have Eyes.

Lately, some directors aren't even bothering to be all metaphorical about it: Joe Dante's Homecoming (part of Showtime's "Masters of Horror" series) has an angry zombie Iraq vet lurching his way to give Dubya a piece of his braaaaaaiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnssss.

You keep telling yourself: it's only an inoculation.

Wes Craven said something interesting in that Newsweek piece: "I don't think it's an accident that it's always average kids who come to these movies. They're wondering, 'Just how violent is this adult world?'"

But I think the kids—and by kids, Craven is referring to people under the age of 25—already know. How could they not?

And in that case, does the inoculation effect even work anymore?

Is a family of mutants who cook human flesh on a George Foreman grill anywhere near as scary as the rapidly devolving conditions in Iraq? What's worse—a zombie virus or the avian flu? And I've yet to meet the Jerry Bruckheimer flick that holds a candle to this week's Time cover story about global warming, and how the Florida coastline could become an underwater attraction a lot sooner than even Greenpeace thought.

I used to watch horror movies because I thought they prepared me for the worst.

Now I think I watch them out of nostalgia, when the monsters only wanted to eat your brains.