The Horror Of Horror Movies

They are made to be more masculine and seem stronger than the average “woman” and how society tells us we, as women, should be. Even in real life, women are always seen with their best female friend. They never go anywhere alone, and the characters in horror movies are no different. They go through the whole plot of the story with their best friend, and their best friend most of the time is more of the fragile and girly character. They are more like society tells us women should be. There seems to be an imbalance with the presentation of women, because they show the lead woman as strong with masculine qualities, while the others are weak and fragile. “Double standards occur when the expectations meted out for members of various groups differ, and they often privilege one group at the expense of another.” (Lauzen, M. M., & Dozier, D. M. (2005)). These women can be sexualized or the complete opposite, depending on the

When the leaves begin to fall and the jack-o'-lanterns appear on our neighborhood stoops, we know Halloween is on its way. But who says we have to wait until October 31st to celebrate? These 13 Halloween-themed horror movies are the perfect way to set the mood and enjoy the creepy season all month long.

The horror genre has held a prominent position in culture for most of history. Beginning in folklore, used as a device to scare children into good behaviors (e.g. The Grimm Brother’s Fairy Tales), horror has integrated its way into the 21st century through film, and in recent years even video games. Yearly, primarily during the fall when the leaves start to brown and the natural eerie sense of fear fills the air around Halloween, the film industry likes to fill in the holes between its major grossing seasons by filling the audience with fear. However, it was Christmas of 1973 that defined the new age of Horror, when William Friedkin released The Exorcist. According to Julia Heimerdinger of Academia’s online journal, Horror, as a whole, can

What is horror? Webster's Collegiate Dictionary gives the primary definition of horror as "a painful and intense fear, dread, or dismay." It stands to reason then that "horror fiction" is fiction that elicits those emotions in the reader. An example of a horror film is "The Shining", directed by Stanley Kubrick. Stanley Kubrick was a well-known director, producer, writer and cinematographer. His films comprised of unique, qualitative scenes that are still memorable but one iconic film in his collection of work is The Shining. Many would disagree and say that The Shining was not his best work and he could have done better yet, there are still those who would say otherwise. This film was not meant to be a “scary pop-up” terror film but

The framework breaks down my literature review to explain female performances in science fiction horror films in a visual aspect. It focused on the two research questions stated below:

Halloween is a horror film released in 1978 directed by John Carpenter who also produced escape from New York and Starman. The film stars Jamie Lee Curtis who stared in The Fog another famous horror film and Donald Pleasence who was in the Great Escape. Halloween was distributed by Compass International Pictures who also released horror films such as Hell Night and Blood Beach. Halloween is a typical 1970s horror film, I think this because the font in the titles looks dated and the images are grainy, unlike the the highly polished images and high tech devises used in films today. The pumpkin in the beginning titles has been used to represent Halloween.

Horror movies throughout history have been known to have their cheesy storylines or continuous bad acting. Especially horror movies. People nowadays could easily spot the flaws in a film and judge them drastically in reviews. Yet, little do people notice the ongoing discrimination between genders. Horror films tend to portray males and females substantially differently because of stereotypical views. There seems to be a pattern in which each gender takes a certain role in a movie continuously. Females are shown to be “objects” such as sex and emotional symbols, while males are shown as strong or powerful and moreover as the main bad guy. Although some of the newer edition films of the horror genre are displaying each gender more and more equal throughout the ongoing years, the gender discrimination dilemma still exists and can be seen by the statistics in the movie industry in general.

Horror is the genre that keeps the reader on their toes for nights upon end. It keeps them thinking. Thinking about how cruel and disturbing someone, or something, could possibly be. Thinking about what in the world happens to a character after the story drops off in a cliffhanger. Thinking about the probability that the events in the narrative could transpire in real life. Thinking about how likely it is for those things to happen to the reader. Refusing to look out their window in fear of seeing the glimpse of a murderous face, and listening to every sound with acute accuracy, praying that the noise is not one of a stranger creeping up the stairs. Scary accounts make the reader live in fear whenever the

Horror movies defy the norm when looking at media theories and arguments. It doesn’t follow mood management theory because no one would possibly watch a movie because they’d like to make their mood darker and sadistic along with the movies plot. One argument that works with horror movies is the idea that they can desensitize the viewer to specific things such as violence in general, or even more specifically violence toward women, especially women who are sexualized in some way. Desensitization is the idea that a person becomes detached to a specific thing such as violence toward women, or begins to believe that something is the norm due to over exposure to something that is down played or glorified.

A girl runs frantically through the woods trying to escape an axe wielding villain. The defenseless victim suddenly trips and collapses to the ground. The villain laughs wickedly as he lifts the axe above his head. The girl releases a final scream as the weapon quickly ends her life, causing the audience to go silent as they watch the villain drag away the lifeless body. Death, blood, guts, suspense, screaming, and terror are all just a few things to expect when watching a modern day horror film. What is horror? Horror can be defined as an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. (Wilson) The description of horror is not very pleasant, but for some reason horror films are extremely popular. Why is this so? People are addicted to the

Horror movies, the kind of movies to capture responses of fear, horror and terror from viewers and that’s the reason it draws in so many viewers. Horror movies always make people have different feelings when they are watching them. Most people like to watch horror movies, and it is because people know they will be frightening. Also people enjoy the violence and entertainment because people want to show others that they are brave. Stephen King argues the reason why we crave horror movies, is because he believes we are all mentally ill.

A sixteen-year-old boy sits on the couch and watches a horror movie. Suddenly, a scene where a man stabs a woman emerges on the television screen. The boy is not distressed by this scene because he is used to witnessing a great deal of violence before. He just learned a new idea and increased his criminal expertise. As a result, horror movies inspire copycat crimes. Copycat crimes are defined as those that are “inspired, motivated or modeled after acts that have occurred before in the media” (“Understanding”). The crimes themselves either mirror the inspiring acts or are simply based upon them. Violence and criminal behavior shown in horror movies affect people psychologically and physically. Watching violence in the media desensitizes people to the world around them and enables them to become more familiar with violence and crime. One may conclude that horror movies do not affect them because they watch horror for fun, however, people are unconsciously affected by watching horror movies. Although most people believe horror movies do not impact them, horror movies inspire people to commit copycat crimes in real life because the violence portrayed in the media psychologically damages people and makes them more aware of violence.

Horror films are movies that aim to elicit a strong physiological reaction in the viewer, such as raised heartbeat and fear. Three horror films by the names of Psycho, Scream and The Messengers will be analysed and compared to an episode of the popular children’s show Shaun the Sheep. Five elements will be addressed in this analysis, those being camera techniques, Mise-en-scene, Editing, Lighting and Sound.

Horror is designed to scare, cause alarm and dread, while also entertaining the audience at the same time in a cathartic experience (Dirk, 2016). Horror films are meant for a specific type of audience that enjoy scary films. Dirks (Tim, 2016) approach to genre horror, is that films went back as 100 years ago, from the earliest days our vivid imagination in seeing ghosts in the shadows to be connected emotionally of the unknown, and fear things that are improbable. You watch a horror film, it makes you aware of the scary surroundings, the essence of fear itself, without actually being in any sorts of danger. Dirks argues that there is a fun and thrill factor in being frightened, or watching something disturbing. It gives you that feeling of an adrenaline rush, as well as having that feeling someone is actually next to you lurking in the dark (Dirk, 2016).

Horror is a genre that can include many themes but the ones that are most commonly