Sweat stinks. Or rather, the sweat that comes leaking out from your hot little pores begins to stink when bacteria that lives on your skin begins to eat the fat and protein in your sweat.

This is what you mean when you say you can smell fear. A nervous body sweats extra. It's just part of our flight-or-fight response. A generalized whole-nervous system reaction to our brain deciding that we just might have to run very very soon. When a nervous body sweats, the society of bacteria living on its skin begins to chow down on the yummy yummy sweat, and this bacteria party produces an odor that you recognize as fear.

This is not what I mean when I say that I can smell fear. When I settle down into the dark of a movie theater, with the cool air passing over my skin and snacks both salty and sweat at my finger tips I smell each and every hint of anxiety, concern, or terror the patrons of the theater feel.

It's a scary movie of course. The scariest that's been made for a long while, say the reviews. I don't care as long some people in here get properly worked up and i get a good wiff.

After the first good jump scare i close my eyes to focus on smelling. As people shift in their seats whiffs pass over my nostrils.

What does fear smell like to me? have you ever had a huge crush on someone who wears very nice perfume and is completely indifferent about you? Have you ever been trapped in a chalky sweaty room doing tedious exercises and caught whiffs of fresh baked goods through the one open window?

The movie didn’t seem to be so scary. The fear I smelled was transient and mild. The audience seemed to find some sort of solidarity with each other, screaming performatively at jump scares, and disarming scenes of tension with jokes that made each other laugh.

So leaving the movie I’m disappointed. I might go and try and see another showing. Hmmm but what’s that?