Is The Horror Genre Appropriate For Middle School

The horror genre is synonymous with images of terror, violence and human carnage; the mere mention of horror movies evokes physical and psychological torture. As remarked by noted author Stephen King “the mythic horror movie…has a dirty job to do. It deliberately appeals to all that is worst in us. It is morbidity unchained, our most base instincts let free, our nastiest fantasies realized.” (King, 786). At manageable intervals, we choose to live these horrific events vicariously through the characters in horror movies and books as a means of safely experiencing the “what if”. The horror genre allows us to explore our fears, be it spiders, vampires, loss of our identity, or death of a loved, under the most fantastic and horrible

Setting conventions play a huge part within the horror genre. Since horror first existed it has been set in ghostly abandoned castles with spooky dark dungeons, gloomy forests and spine-chilling secret passageways. Since these, settings in the horror genre has evolved into a more terrifying definition of scary. In horror movies today we mainly see old, haunted, broken down houses set in isolated forests exactly like the new house the family moves into in ‘The Conjuring’ or like in the horror movie ‘Halloween’, set in a neighbourhood during the night time. Horror has moved into these more sophisticated ideas of creepy and scary as the setting is more relatable to everyday life, and takes a toll on the audience's psychological mind set to start

Since it’s infancy at the beginning of the eighteenth century, horror has followed certain conventions that results in an awakening of the senses, evoking intense emotions of fear and terror in the audience. Horror feeds off triggering the primal fears embedded within all of humankind, creating a sense of menace that is the very substance of this genre. Furthermore, the central menace of a piece tends to enlighten the human mind to the world of the paranormal and the enigmatic, dark side of the unknown. The movie “Psycho” directed by Alfred Hitchcock is a perfect example. Infamous for its shower scene, but immortal for its contribution to the horror genre, “Psycho” was filmed with great tact, grace and art in regards to horror conventions.

In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, Michael Fanselow, a behavioral neuroscientist at UCLA, says that horror movies, despite being unrealistic, teach us to have proper responses to actual threats, especially when we’re young. "The brain changes physically when we learn, and young adulthood is when the parts of our brain that provoke and control our fears need experiences in order to learn and come into balance," Fanselow says.

The first time I watched a horror movie, I was nine years old. While all of my cousins shrieked and closed their eyes, I felt totally engaged. Will we become more violent if we watch these movies? Will we become a gore-loving, emotionally insensitive society? What is it about scary movies that we love so much? It all comes back to the Human Condition. Facing our fears, establishing our sense of normalcy, and experiencing a weird sort of fun are all solid claims that Stephen King states in his essay “Why We Crave Horror Movies.”

Horror films have been around for over 100 years, petrifying people and bringing their worst fears to life but still they can’t get enough of this sick and gory genre that is unbelievably entertaining and captivating to the audience. Horror comes with many sub-genres from your bloody slashers like Friday the 13th to your Supernatural-Horrors like The Exorcist, but in the end they all seem to do their job by scaring you and leaving you with nightmares for weeks on end. Usually Horror’s films have the same character stereotypes such as the nerd, the jock, the slut, the virgin, the junky, the tough hero, the unlikely hero and last but not least the masked murderer, but yet they all play their own part in the making of these horrors movies whether it is the extremely slow walk the killer does but almost always catches the victim, or the unwise decision to split up and investigate where the unusual noise is coming from.

Children are confused about fantasy vs. reality. The characters and events in scary movies may seem silly or unrealistic to us, but children have a hard time differentiating what is real and what is not.

It is a mind boggling phenomenon that a lot of people are fond of horror movies. To determine the inherent mechanism, Stephen King, the leading role in the field of modern horror fiction, indited this article "Why we crave horror movies?" He analyzes with artful inditing skills from psychological perspective the possible reasons driving people to optically canvass horror movies. In this article, Stephen King provides several explications to why people like horror movies. The simple and conspicuous reasons include that people want to show that they are valiant or they assure themselves that they are absolutely dull compared with the deviant ones in horror movies. A more paramount and implicit reason, according to King, is that people go to have fun because

“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win” (Stephen King). Compared to springheel Jack and Carrie, we are Considered pretty normal, but there are times our anger slips out, and it causes us to do deranged things. Sometimes from yelling at someone to even murdering.Stephen King accurately explains though his stories that humans are addicted to horror because we want to have fun, be able to face our fears, and feel human compared to the abnormal.

Horror films have been around long since the 1890s, slowly gaining the following we now see today. The horror genre has continued to gain popularity with each passing year. Yet, comparing the films of today to those of the past, we can see a large number of differences that continue to evolve. Although there are examples of the horror genre found many years prior, director Alfred Hitchcock, also known as “The Master of Suspense”, highlighted many of the common horror formulas that are still prevalent within the genre today. Arguably one of, if not the most well-known Hitchcock film, Psycho (1960), captured the very essence of the horror genre, and grabbed audiences by their throats. From the characters to the music, each element of the film

Unlike romance and erotica, horror doesn't always portray a happy ending (see what I did there?) and certainly doesn't portray relationships as something dreams are made of. Unlike fantasy and sci-fi, the settings depicted in most horror stories could be your own home or backyard, not some distant or non-existent location. The realism helps make horror enjoyable.

From bloody massacres to demonic possessions, the genre of horror has come a long way, todays horror movies have a variety of things in common with horror movies from the early 1900s. Although horror movies have been around for decades, they’ve changed through out the years. From extreme gore and gushing blood to edge full suspenseful horror; horror movies have different and unique styles.

Horror is a film genre which is made to trigger an emotional response to its audiences. This is done by playing on the audiences worst fears in society such as animals, ghosts, diseases etc. the scenes in horror films often scare or shock the audiences different events in the film such as supernatural. The horror genre sometimes can overlap the thriller genre. using the horror genre in films many can tell a story from the point of view of the monster, victim , revenge and survival.

“Horror film”. For most people, the first things that come to mind are monstrous paranormal antagonists, a plethora of gruesome deaths, and, of course, the infamous jump scares that so often drive the thrill and exhilaration of such films. While films under this genre are intended to illicit negative emotions, such as fear, alarm, and anxiety, these same aspects are ironically what attracts viewers endlessly. As an avid horror film fan myself, I have seen many horror thrillers that have shaped and developed my understanding of this particular genre. In analyzing what makes a horror film a horror film, I will be discussing three different films: “Child’s Play”, “The Birds”, and “Paranormal Activity”. While these films have their own distinct

Horror has been a very influential theme throughout the ages. It brings a thrilling and suspenseful experience that lingers into the minds of the audience; making them unable to sleep peacefully and grow goosebumps all over the body. In the modern day, fascination with ghost and the supernatural is becoming a thing. More and more people produce horror films with unique plotlines and crazy ideas. Although the superstitions and beliefs of the old century still lives, the horror of today is not the same as the horror of yesterday, such as Shakespeare’s abominable works.