The Importance Of Horror Movies

We yearn for horror to re-establish our feelings of normalcy. For instance, some people would watch a movie and see people melting or in an ugly form, but then realize what King said,

One time when I went to the theater, I saw the conjuring. It was fun at the same time.When I am watching a scary movie I feel scared. People like scary movies because they like to feel the adrenalin. During the 19th century, in venezuela folklore, there is a belief of El Silbon person who kill his father.

In the essay, “Why We Crave Horror Movies” Stephen King attempts to explain why we love horror movies, and he gives a few different reasons why people go to see horror movies. People want to show that they are not scared; people want to have fun; but the main reason that he suggests is that we are insane and we need to watch horror movies to keep that insanity locked up in society. He uses a variety of argumentative strategies and literally decides to prove his thesis. On the other side, King surprised me by the reasons and comparisons he made and gave about why people watch horror movies, but then, the essay went off into tangents that I did not expect.

Do you enjoy watching murder, the paranormal, and any other morbid scene which makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, your palms sweat, and your adrenaline surge? Why people enjoy watching murder, tragedy, and carnage in their spare time has been a mysterious phenomenon. If these gruesomely horrific scenes would not be enjoyable in real life, why is watching a recreation of it so riveting? Stephen King, a world-renowned horror novelist, wrote “Why We Crave Horror Movies” to give insight as to why horror movies, although gruesome and morbid, captivate audiences. King also aims to persuade readers to continue to watch horror movies, arguing that they are a crucial part of keeping sanity. King delves into this psychological aspect of humans and believes that the desire to watch horror films is a normal tendency of humankind. “Why We Crave Horror Movies” includes appeals to emotion, logic, and author credibility in order to convince readers of the positive, normal desire to watch horror films, why it is important to watch them, and why the reader should believe what the author is saying. King utilizes the rhetorical devices—pathos, logos, and ethos—in an effective way through the use of metaphor, logic, humor, and emotion to persuade readers that watching horror films is normal.

If somebody asked me what my favorite type of movie is I would probably say horror. I would say horror because it provides a thrill in me that no other type of movie sparks within me. When reading Stephen King’s article I realized there is more to a horror movie than just thrill, there is anticipation, and even suspense shown. In “Why We Crave Horror Movies”, Stephen King uses a mysterious tone and pathos to successfully persuade his audience of kids and adults into watching mysterious horror movies that will let you re-establish your feelings.

Horror movies allow us the experience of intense emotional excitement from the unacceptable actions and their consequences in the films.

Humans crave horror as a way to get out of facing our fears. There is a man in the story “Strawberry Spring” that is walking around killing college girls like it is a normal thing that people do. Did you know that people have been burying their dead for at least 200,000 years. Stephen King says in his article “Why We Crave Horror”, that we have certain feelings due to the “human condition”. Stephen King is correct because he states that we as humans crave horror; we watch and read horror to show that we can, to re-establish our feelings of normality, and for us to experience a peculiar sort of fun and experience and adrenaline rush.

King argues the genre has an important role because while watching a horror movie people show their true emotions. King uses the words “daring the nightmare” to explain the experiences people put themselves through when they pay to be frightened (King 1). The truth is most of them go to see the most brutal way’s producers can come up with to harm someone. As the king of horror himself puts it, “It urges us to put away our more civilized and adult penchant for analysis and to become children again… We are told we may allow our emotions a free rein… or no rein at all” (King 2). It’s fun to let loose and feel crazy sometimes, feel no one is watching. Still, people are watching, so what keeps them from putting everyone into an asylum?

Further, King goes on to state that when we watch a horror movie, “we are daring the nightmare,” meaning we are almost begging to be scared. King also states there are multiple reasons for this, but one of the main points is “to show that we can, that we are not afraid.” He then appeals to the audience experiences by making his paper more relatable and comical when he compares horror movies to roller coasters. King states, they are both usually liked by the young, but once their age reaches to the forties or fifties, “one’s appetite for double twists or 360-degree loops may be considerably depleted.” Additionally, King uses his clever collage of comparisons to explain one of the horror genre’s many intentions are to show us right from wrong. Which might also provide some of us with “psychic relief,” throwing ourselves in a place where intensive questioning is unnecessary, giving people a small break from their complicated daily life.

After reading or watching horror, the emotion produced from this action is similar to that of someone who just finished watching a documentary on absurdly lazy adults, thinking “at least I’m not like them.” By doing so, we re-establish our normality in our behaviors or positions. “Strawberry Springs,” another piece of work from King, does an exceptional job in fulfilling this reason for craving horror. The short story depicts the mystery of serial murders of college students on their campus, all in the perspective of Springheel Jack. Springheel Jack was a normal student like the most of us, and we all relate to him in many other aspects. What re-establishes our normality is that, hopefully, we don’t go around killing our classmates like he did. Furthermore, he was not even aware of the shadow that followed him, as he had forgotten of his whereabouts the night before, pleading that he was “with another woman,”(King, “Strawberry Spring” 5) as his wife suspected he was, rather than have killed someone, even if both situations would end in a divorce. By reading “Strawberry Springs” one may feel a sense of relief that they’re not dead, that they don’t live on a campus with a serial killer on the loose, or especially, that they are not unknowingly killing their classmates. All of this leads up to the fact that “no matter how far we may be removed from the beauty of Robert Redford or a Diana Ross,” we really are still “light-years from

It was a dark, cold, November night. The moon overlooked the lake as it mirrored its reflection. It was peaceful, too peaceful. I was on my way to my aunt’s, who lived a mile or so from my house. I didn’t want to go, but my mother made me. She was working a double shift at the hospital and she didn’t want me to be alone tonight. Tonight was the night my brother died two years ago. It’s a funny story how it happened, but that’s a story to tell another time. According to Stephen King’s essay “Why We Crave Horror Movies” he draws viewers into horror stories like the one above simply because we crave it. King claims in his essay we obsess over the wanting of horror as if we are daring the nightmare. The human condition is finally allows people

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).

When we think about horror, we think about death and bad things happening to good people. Horror gives a face to material that generally does not have a face. It gets our blood flowing and you cannot stop thinking about it. When is the next bad thing going to happen? Who is it going to happen to? It allows our minds to be creative and picture what we want. It kind of follows the idea that we are not at the top of the food chain like we always are and most people find that scary. Matthew Lewis does a wonderful job of depicting horror in The Monk.

Horror movies are the creators of terror that gets a person’s adrenaline coursing. Overall it’s like an uncontrollable roller coaster ride. Many people enjoy horror movies, but for others, it can cause significant pain and displeasure. Horror movies have been around forever. “Horror movies since their early days in the 1930’s have a history of people fainting, reliving traumatic experiences, having seizures and even dying from heart attacks while watching them” (SSRF Blog ).

Horror movie industry is an actual and essential problem in the social life of the public. There is an ambiguous opinion on this matter. Is it possible to consider it as a positive factor or negative? How does the virtual violence influence a viewer? This paper will analyze the impact of horror movies on adults and interpret the abovementioned questions. People who discuss this problem are divided into two groups. The first one believes that watching horror movies affects people negatively and it should be forbidden. Others have the opposite opinion. They consider bloody movie is a safe alternative to real violence that causes beneficial effect. There is also the third category of people, but they do not argue about anything. They enjoy watching horror movies.