In Stephen King’s essay, “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” he explains the reasons why we desire horror films. He starts by stating that everyone is mentally ill inside, and that all of us have a way of concealing it. King explains why people who watch horror movies prove that they can’t be frightened. He conveys his reasoning “to show that we can, that we are not afraid, that we can ride this roller coaster.” The author then re-establishes to everyone people are normal from the actual terrifying image they see in the movies. Furthermore, King states that “the fun comes from seeing others menaced-sometimes killed.” He believes that watching people die urges adults to be more civilized and less aggressive.
The Chemical That Rules Us Adrenaline. It’s the chemical that courses through a person’s veins whenever their body thinks something is particurally exciting. In acient times, it was deployed when a sweaty caveman was being attacked by a predator. Today, however, it is used when comfortable viewers watche scary images on their televisions in their cushy chairs. In Stephen Kings’s essay “Why We Crave Horror,” Stephen King challenges the sanity of mankind becaude they like to watch scary movies.
The American obsession with spectatorship is a phenomenon created by the inaccessibility of timely and relevant knowledge. This oddly leads to an increase in the demand and likeability of terror. In her piece “Great to Watch”, Maggie Nelson explores the origins of this fascination with horror and gives an
The text writing that was most influential to me was the review by Stephen King, “Why We Crave Horror Movies.” In this review the author was very upfront with his option that was a reasonable one. He explains different events where you might get the same, in your stomach feeling, that horror movies give you. He also states a bold fact that everyone is insane and people cope with it in different ways. He explains how horror movies unchain or our worst fantasies, he says, “It’s like throwing a bucket of raw meat to hungry alligators to feed our dark thoughts and ideas.”
Alfred Hitchcock’s film Vertigo (1958) was voted the “best film ever made” by the 2012 British Film Institute, and for good reason. The plot is elaborate and intriguing and the cinematography is legendary. On top of this, the characters, like good characters should, all have their own needs and wants that are evident in the film. The needs of these characters affect each other and they affect the story and they all follow one common theme: control. Our protagonist, John “Scottie” Ferguson’s wants and needs differ greatly throughout the film, but his only constant is his yearning to get over his acrophobia, or fear of heights.
Stephen King’s “Why We Crave Horror Movies” discusses factors that persuade people to watch horror films to help their mental state. He first explains that people watch movies to show that they are brave and can witness unpleasant scenes. He compares this sense of bravery to the sense of riding a roller coaster, they may get scared at first but they continue on doing it. Secondly, he talks about how watching horror films restores the sense of normality, which is trying to find your place in society. An example, he presents is although people aren’t as pretty or successful as actors and actress, they aren’t as ugly or evil as monsters and villains played in horror films.
Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho redirected the entire horror genre, and in doing so dismantled the prudent 1950’s societal barriers of cinema. Although unseen for its potential by the large studios of the time, Psycho became one of the crowning achievements of film history. While based partially on a true story of murder and psychosis from Wisconsin, the widespread viewing of this tale made way for a new era of film and ushered in a new audience of movie goers. The use of violence, sexual explicitness, dramatic twists, sound, and cinematography throughout this film gave Hitchcock his reputable name and title as master of suspense.
She does so by presenting a rhetorical question in the beginning: “Can we expect a decent society if the state is allowed to kill its own people?” (para.2). In the attempt of doing so, she heightens the emotional impact it would have on her readers, which in turn makes the readers question the positive beliefs they might have held about the American government. In the fourth paragraph of this essay, King draws the interest of her readers to the text by talking about her personal experiences relating to the issue of capital punishment. She does so in order for the readers to come to an agreement with her main purpose and that is to present them with the fact that the American government’s actions to legitimize murder as a way of dealing with violence is a step forward in the wrong
However, film critic, Robin Wood, argues that ‘since Psycho, the Hollywood cinema has implicitly recognised horror as both American and familial’ he then goes on to connect this with Psycho by claiming that it is an “innovative and influential film because it supposedly presents its horror not as the produce of forces outside American society, bit a product of the patriarchal family which is the fundamental institution of American society” he goes on to discuss how our civilisation either represses or oppresses (Skal, 1994). Woods claim then suggests that in Psycho, it is the repressions and tensions within the normal American family which produces the monster, not some alien force which was seen and suggested throughout the 1950 horror films. At the beginning of the 60’s, feminisation was regarded as castration not humanization. In “Psycho” (1960) it is claimed that the film presents conservative “moral lessons about gender roles of that the strong male is healthy and normal and the sensitive male is a disturbed figure who suffers from gener confusion” (Skal, 1994). In this section of this chapter I will look closely at how “Psycho” (1960) has layers of non-hetro-conforming and gender-non conforming themes through the use of Norman Bates whose gender identitiy is portrayed as being somewhere between male and female
He characterizes fear by saying that it includes a belief that one is endangered by what they fear and one will be motivated to act as a result of this belief (Walton 263). Since the person watching the horror movie cannot be said to exhibit either of these qualities, they cannot be said to be genuinely afraid. Walton explains the phenomenon of “fear” when one watches a horror movie by saying that when the person watches the movie, they enter a game of make-believe in which they have a fictional belief that they are threatened, and therefore possess fictional fear (Walton 264). The problem with this view is that the person watching the movie is not aware that they are playing this game. Since games require awareness of the structure of the game and objectives in order to play, it cannot be said that the person watching a horror movie is really playing a game, since they have no such awareness.
In the article “Why Do We Crave Horror Movies” King shows the idea of why humans crave to watch horror movies. To watch horror movies, people show to others that they have no fear of these things. King’s argument is that the horror films is a way for people to get the sense of normality. King believes that “We also go to re-establish our feelings of essential normality; the horror movie is innately conservative, even reactionary” (King 16). Re-establishing our feelings of essential normality allows us to release our emotions and enjoy our time watching horror films.
How it affects us, our emotional muscles. It may be that horror movies provide psychic relief on the level because it is an invitation to lapse into simplicity, irrationality and even outright madness extended rarely. “But anticivilization emotions don't go away” (king,Why we crave. 3) this explains why some people think this way. King thought about “ if we share a brotherhood of man, then we also share an insanity of man.
There are multiple people who are intrigue and love horror movies without knowing the reason. In Stephan Kings essay, “Why We Crave Horror Movies” he does his best to find an answer to the question “why do people crave horror movies?” Throughout his essay he came up with certain key points to answer the question. At the beginning of his essay, he makes a bold statement that “we are all mentally ill.” He motions that people just watch horror movies to portray their fearlessness while suppressing their true emotions.
However, I don’t feel that I have rid myself of any negative feelings when I watch a horror movie. I believe that some people enjoy horror movies. I don’t think that anyone actually graves a genera of movie. I like the analogy that Mr. King uses when he compares horror movies to roller coasters. To me, that is the enjoyment I get out of the horror movies.
In Stephen King’s essay “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” King is conveying that because we are human, we are insane. We may not be in asylums, but that does not mean we are not insane, it just means we hide our insanity better than others. By watching horror movies we are just asking to have the constant nightmares. However, we watch horror movies to prove to others that we can watch them, and sometimes we watch them so that we feel normal compared to the people in the film. Other times we watch the movies for enjoyment, which is a very weird enjoyment since we are watching people get killed.
Movies can be used in various ways to create different moods and emotions in both a person’s growth and well being. People of all ages, use movies as a form of entertainment or even an activity to learn, which aids in the growth of brain activity. The different genres of movies, create different inclines and declines in an individual 's mood, depending on the program they are viewing. Specific films can have different effects on people depending on their background, interest, and personality. Movies have a significant impact on people’s physical and psychological states; negative effects include more aggressive and destructive behaviors, whereas positive effects include making viewers more lighthearted and enhancing productivity within their thought process.