It has previously been shown that emotional pictures catch and hold attention more so than neutral ones. Previous studies have suggested, however, that not all emotional dimensions are equally prioritized. Threatening stimuli may have a greater prominence than other emotional categories. Therefore, here we tested the effects that stimuli which elicit varying emotions (threatening, positive, negative nonthreatening) would have on orienting and executive attentional processes. We presented emotionally charged and neutral pictures as task-irrelevant distractors while participants performed a visual search task (finding numbers in ascending order). Participants’ eye movements were also monitored. Our results showed that the initiation of the task was slower when a threatening image was presented compared to other emotional and neutral stimuli; however, overall task performance was faster in the presence of threatening and positive distractors (compared to negative or neutral ones). Eye movement data showed that threatening (compared to nonthreatening distractors) were fixated upon earlier and were observed longer throughout the task. Our conclusion is that the effects of emotionally charged stimuli on attention depend on the nature of the emotions they evoke. Both threatening and positive stimuli can facilitate visual performance, but possibly through different background mechanisms.