Tonight the streets will be crawling with ghosts and goblins, witches and monsters. I'll be curled up with a good scary book, or maybe I'll watch a horror film, hiding my eyes behind a pillow during the scary parts.

As long as I'm safely ensconsed on the couch, I love to be scared. I can feel my pulse quicken as the soon-to-be victim opens the door to investigate the strange noises coming from the back yard -- when everybody knows you shouldn't go look.

UMR English instructor Jack Morgan knows all about horror stories. In fact, he's an expert on the subject. In his book "The Biology of Horror: Gothic Literature and Film," Morgan says there is more to the element of horror in books and movies that the gross-out type found in films like Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street. It's the deeper, underlying rhythms of dread and anxiety that make us love to be scared. A perfect example is the original 1956 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. There is no blood or guts, just people being slowly taken over. "It's the sense of disestablishment of order that gets to you," Morgan says.

BOO!