Artifact : Horror Research
Object: 1. Know the reason why people like the feeling of horror
2. How to create the feeling of horror
3. The history of horror
Original post:
Some people like Horror movie but some people are not. I just curious why people like the horror movie, why they feel enjoyable for watching the horror movie. I guess every people’s decision reflect their personal value inside, I trust people watch the horror movie have their own explanation. So I just google for the reasons why people watch the horror movie, and then found that some interesting articles about that.
The first article I found is name Why Do People Like to Watch Scary Movies? Actually, the webpage does’t gave the author name for the article, However, I found that the author’s opinion is so interesting, so I decide to describe his idea here. “There’s something to the cautionary tale theory as it relates to movies. Many do seem to depict chaos that occurs when people venture outside of what is considered societal norms. They’ve also been used in the past, especially slasher films, to promote themes of how innocence may prevail.” The author consider there’s some cautionary tale theories from the movies. Horror movie want people to know something about the unknow world and prepare to defense the crisis. Horror movie suggest people do not do something or try to revolt something. He gave us one example of the movie of John Carpenter’s Halloween. In that movie, people without sex and virgin will survive. In that movie, the director try to suggest teenage do not try sex. In addition, the author also point out that watching the horror movie will increase people’s positive and negative feeling. On the one hand, people see the scared scene will cause people negative feeling. They will afraid, upset or shock. On the other hand, the positive feeling like adventure, people try to keep watching the movie and figure out what will happen next. The author consider these reasons can explain why people watch the scary movie have multiple feeling. I consider this point is relate to Noel Carroll’s opinion “the horror genre gives every evidence of being pleasurable to its audience.” Finally, the author consider horror movie is a kind of culture. In the primitive society, people like to afraid some god for example totem. Horror movie is a kind of inherit culture from the ancient. Now, horror movie already become to a pop culture in our life.
The second article I read is Sharon Begley’s article Why Our Brains Love Horror Movies.
This article analysis why people like to watch the horror movies from the psychologically. Firstly, Sharon mentioned that people need to watch the horror movie because their nervous system require. Sharon use “periodic revving” to describe the nervous system. When people live in a peaceful world for a long time. Their brain need something excreting that help them to restart their engine. Horror movies give people a feeling of excreting that they can live better. Sharon prove a study that shows some people need to get more sensation that they choose to watch the horror movies. In addition, the teenage and young people are the major audience that to watch the horror movie. The older people lost their experience to seek out, so they are not prefer to see the horror movies. The study also shows that older people will feel tired by watching the horror movie. Secondly, Sharon mentioned“Horror movie provides a cathartic effect, offering you emotional release and escape from the real world of bills and mortgages and the economy and relationships.” Horror movie offer a chance for people who want to emotional release.
I keep asking myself, why horror? There’s only one answer in my mind. Because human need horror, so they create horror. Horror is a feeling that since from our ancestor. Horror movie as a kind of pop culture in nowadays. The meaning for “horror” already change. I can image that our ancestor fight with other animals then cause horror is totally different from what we see in the horror movie today. I just feeling with the time change, human has different value about different things. Culture also change with human’s value.

Reflection:
What a interesting class. I like this topic because I ‘m a big fans of horror. I like adventure and scared movie, but I never think deeply about why people like the feeling of scared. After the reading and the searching Internet, I know that horror is the feeling that human psychological need, they need to release when they feel stress. In addition, the authors of the horror movie might use the movie to show there are many area people still not know. Human should revere of the mysterious power from the nature.
Future:
Actually people’ value for the word “ horror” is changing by time. From ghost, demon to the Kinky Killer and then ET. I enjoying watch horror movie, in the future, I will keep continue to watch. I try to remember what I scared in different ages. I think that will be fun when I was a old man to remember what I scared in the past.

Bibliography:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/25/why-our-brains-love-horror-movies-fear-catharsis-a-sense-of-doom.html

Carroll, N. (2002). Why Horror?. In Neill, A. & Riley, A. (eds.) Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates (2nd ed., Chap. 17). New York, NY: Routledge.

Why Do People Like to Watch Scary Movies?
Retrieved May 11th, 2014, from :

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/features/why-we-love-scary-movies.