This is an I-Heart podcast.

There's a vile sickness in Abbas town.

You must excise it.

Dig into the deep earth and cut it out.

From IHeart podcasts and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky,

this is Havoc Town. A new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater Audio Universe, starring Jules State and Ray Wise.

Listen to Havoc Town on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Brain Stuff, a production of IHeartRadio.

Hey, Brainstuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here with another classic episode from our archives.

I wanted to air this one because we are dead in the midst of spooky season, though I

personally believe every season should be at least a little spooky.

And so that got me thinking again about why lots of us love being scared.

Hey, Brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here.

On the menu of what's scary these days there are many threats to choose from.

Mass shootings, an uncertain political and economic future,

nuclear war, spiders. So it begs the question, why would anyone want more? Why do people, in fact,

pay money to be scared when there's already enough frightening stuff served up daily? But that's

exactly what tons of people do. We horror

fans seek out horror movies, scary books, and haunted houses. We pay to consume fear. And

selling fear is an increasingly profitable pursuit. For instance, the number of horror movies

released in 1996, only seven. In 2017, 62. The top 25 horror films of

2017, including Stephen King's It, sold a combined 140 million tickets and grossed more than

...