Oppressive and Repressive Social Institutions, Value Systems and Codes of Behaviour Are Central to the Horror, Science-Fiction and Fantasy Genres. Focusing on 1-2 Examples of Your Choice, Consider How These Genres

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

When asked to describe the two types of horror films, director Guillermo del Toro stated: “Much like fairy tales, there are two facets of horror. One is pro-institution, which is the most reprehensible type of fairy tale: Don 't wander into the woods, and always obey your parents. The other type of fairy tale is completely anarchic and antiestablishment”-Guillermo del Toro. (Attention Getter) In my presentation I will focus on the aspect of the slasher film genre as modern day fairy tales, with an underlying message of morality.

“Why we crave horror movie” is a type of mini review written by Stephen King in playboy 1981 in which he had discussed, various features of the horror movies. Stephen King is an American writer well famous for writing the horror movies and is popular in the world of literature as Richard Bachman. In this mini-review King had used an ethical approach to delineate the differences between the some of the horror movies and to highlight certain psychological factors responsible for people’s craving for the horror movies. In this piece of writing, King had spotted certain emotions that become reason for this psychological drive. Moreover, he by using his straightforward approach

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.

Wes Craven’s horror movie “Scream”, inspired the gruesome murder of Gina Castillo. Castillo’s sixteen year old son and his fifteen year old cousin killed Gina Castillo. Why would anyone wish to watch the petrifying film, “Scream”? What would trigger a person to take inspiration from the horror movie, “Scream”. Stephen King describes horror as a piece of the human condition. Author of several horror novels, Stephen King wrote an essay titled “Why We Crave Horror.” In this paper he thoroughly explains why the human species craves horror and how it makes humans feel. In this essay, Stephen King precisely claims that humans desire, horror because horror pushes them to face their fears, renew their feelings of normality, and to expose

MacKinnon similarly objects that the eroticism of gay pornography is derived from its ‘mimicry or parody or negation or reversal’ of the standard heterosexual arrangement. It affirms rather than undermines the standard sexual arrangement, and therefore harms women in the same way. However, applying HLA Hart’s practice conditions for social rules, the claim that variations from a norm endorse the norm can only be true if the variations are seen as deviations, are criticised as such, and the criticism is seen as legitimate. Although gay pornography has been criticised for a variety of sexist or heterosexist reasons, it does not induce these or similar critical reactions from its usual audience of gay men.

Many horror films provide their audiences with scares and screams.  Not many viewers follow what kind of model the films follow to appease their viewers.  However, after reading film theorist Carol Clover’s essay, watching one of the films she associates in the novel “Halloween”, and also watching the movie “Nightmare on Elm Street” I say almost every “slasher” or horror film follows a model similar to Clover’s.  The model that is a female is featured as a primary character and that the female tends to always overcome a situation at some point throughout the film to become victorious.

During 1981 there was a huge development in technology. In that same year of 1981, Stephen King published an article in the Playboy magazine by the name of “Why We Crave Horror Movies.” In his essay he wrote about why people enjoy watching horror films. King intends this essay toward young men who watch horror films. He mentions that everyone is a little insane and that it is okay to be that way. He wants young men to know and understand that there is something more to it then just wanting to get scared when watching horror movies, it is for young men's insanity relief so that the good emotions can be expressed. Back then there was a stigma, mostly in religious people, parents, and psychiatrists, but it is still present today. Critics believe that horror films were made to scare viewers and draw in the negative things. King is famous for horror movies and is known to be the king of them. The article “Why We Crave Horror Movies” was written forty years ago by King who is the author of many popular horror books and films King persuades young adults that it is okay to watch horror movies because everyone is a little bit insane in the inside.

Throughout cinema, there has always been space in our hearts for the gore and intrigue that come from horror films. Though they come with different plots, there remains “the monster”, the character that brings along disgust, horror, suspense, and even sympathy. In Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), our monster is Norman Bates, the boy next door. This was one of the first times in American cinema that the killer was brought home, paving the way for the future of horror movies. According to Robin Wood in “An Introduction to the America Horror Film” (183-208), Bates follows the formula of the Monster being a human psychotic. This is conveyed through his normal façade portrayed with his introduction, the audience’s ambivalence, the use of

There’s not quite a feeling like it; the hairs on your neck rise in anticipation and fear, goosebumps form all over your arms, your heartbeat quickens reading every single detail on the edge of your seat. These feelings only arise in one genre, horror. Archeologists and researchers noted that the earliest recorded tales contained traces of horror, thus dating the genre all the way back to ancient civilizations; however, the genre has become a more popular literature genre since the seventeenth-century. Moreover, since the thirteenth-century authors liberally used horror, in which religious beliefs largely shaped and structured the tales. Then, during the 1580s, a new type of horror emerged, such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Macbeth, as well as

The main claim of An Introduction to the American Horror Film by Robin Wood, was to address the difference and similarity between repression and oppression, as seen in horror cinema. Before jumping into the difference between repression and oppression, the essay shows the difference between basic repression and surplus repression. “Basic repression is universal, necessary, and inescapable […] Surplus repression, on the other hand, is specific to a particular culture and is the process whereby people are conditioned from earliest infacy to take predetermined roles within that culture.” (Wood 197) This means that basic repression is needed in a society, but surplus repression is what makes us “into monogamous heterosexual bourgeois patriarchal capitalists.” (Wood 197) Further on, the essay mentions repression versus oppression. “What is repressed is not accessible to the conscious mind.” This states that what we repress is not available to us. We do not realize what we have repressed, while we do realize what has oppressed us.

Monster and horror movies can be a perfect mode for representing repressed fears and can be seen throughout the history of the genre. Haitian zombies can be seen as a representation of the fear of being stuck as mindless workers forever, werewolves can be understood as representation of our repressed fear of being our most primal selves, Frankenstein as a fear of the power of modern science, and so on throughout history. While this film creates a sense of uncanniness through the replacing of our loved ones with mindless automatons it can also be seen as a repressed cultural fear of being a mindless, emotionless, cookie cutter member of suburbia that was present in the 1950s when this book and film were

Fears – rational and irrational – exist in every man, woman, and child. They configure into microscopic rattles at the back of the mind or towering creatures in the center of the path. Their lackey abused into submission, the fears control not only the person’s emotions, but also his actions. In his analysis essay Why We Crave Horror Movies, Stephen King creates this image when he writes “Our emotions and our fears form their own body, and we recognize that it demands its own exercise to maintain proper muscle tone.” Those bodies take different forms to personify each nightmare that keeps a person locked inside a box.

According to Cohen, monsters correspond with a culture at a particular time period, which reveals it’s and fears, desires, and anxiety. One of the main tragedies in both the film and the book is the insanity that has befallen Mr. Kurtz. He was portrayed as a man who is actually an average man, who seemed so good and stable, but suddenly became insane. Through the demise of Kurtz’s saneness and the way that Marlow and Willard responded to this, both the movie and the book showed that darkness prevails innately in human hearts. This paper aims to identify and prove who or what constitute the monsters and why monsters are used to represent a culture’s fears or anxieties in a certain literature or media.

The genre of horror films have been spooking audiences since the early 1900s with films such as The Abominable Snowman and Nosferatu. Although fans of these movies are scared, they continue to watch to the movies every decade despite their fears. This drive to see movies that induce fear but an overall avoidance to fear is known as a paradox of horror films. In 1990, Noel Carroll outlined the paradox of horror in his book entitled The Philosophy of Horror. Carroll discussed in his book at least three theories that could solve the paradox of horror but each are flawed. The two theories that are connected the most with experience and the knowledge of what a horror movie experience is the “illusion theory” and the “thought theory of emotions” but Carroll leaves out Edmund Burke’s sublime in his discussion of the paradox of horror. This concept of Burke’s sublime can be used without flaw to dissolve the paradox of horror films unlike the “illusion theory” or the “thought theory of emotions.” The paradox of horror movies is that people are afraid of horror movies despite knowing that the movies are fiction. Carroll attempts to use the “illusion theory” and the “thought theory of emotions” to explain the paradox but neglects to mention the concept of the sublime which can be used to explain