It may sound counterintuitive, but watching horror films isn’t just about feeling scared. It’s also about feeling safe. Scary movies assure our brains that the terror is happening there, not here. They’re chilling security blankets.

A few weeks ago, the pandemic film “Contagion” was terrifying and cautionary but also a work of fiction. Now many of its fictions are facts, and the fear is real. (For some people, “Contagion” is still entertaining; streams of the film and other virus-themed disaster movies have surged.)

Besides pandemics, horror movies about isolation (“It Comes at Night”), home invasions (“Hush”) and the apocalypse (“The Road”) also come too close for comfort these days.

But what if I told you I had a motley list of films that are so far-fetched and improbable that there’s no way they could come true? That you can safely and sanely enjoy dread, mayhem and fear of the unknown? That each one carries a promise that this will never happen?