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Cats as Horror Movie Villains

Speculation on feline-human fascination being ancestral vigilance triggered by their behavioral similarity to major primate predators, evolutionarily, creating a compelling ‘safe danger’ like watching a captivating villain.

I speculate that there may be an evolutionary psychology reason: cats in Africa prey on primates to a degree I suspect few people appreciate, and this seems to have been true for millions of years, making them our apex predator. And true, in many places, humans are far more afraid of animals like wolves or bears or feral dog packs, and it is easier to be traumatized by a dog as a child and develop cynophobia … but lots of humans have been killed by big cats up until quite recently, attacks still happen in places like India, and that was a long time to be terrified, every night, of cats, and to learn to recognize them in our very genes. Say what you will about canid attacks, but they at least bite you to your face, as it were; they don’t climb in your bedroom window to murder you in your sleep (nor claw through the walls of your house, like the Leopard of Rudraprayag).

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