Houzhi Wu

Just another University of Oregon Sites site

Houzhi Wu

Archives for Unit 6

Horror Essay

The article “Why Some People love Horror Movies Whiles Others Hate Them” by Margarita Tartakovsky, explained why many people influenced by the horror movies. She writes about many different aspects of horror movie, which conclude the different stories, novelty, gender socialization and other reasons. To be honest, I hate that I like watching horror movies. Sometimes, I just couldn’t help watching them, although I know I really scared about all the stuffs in them. I guess Margarita discusses this in her article, which called “the excitation transfer process”. She also states that “when people watch frightening films, their heart rate, blood pressure and respiration increases”. I think this is the reason I cannot stop watching horror movies although I hate them so hard. It is because not only in mentally, but also in physically. There is another interesting thing when I watch horror films. I always know what is going to happen in the next scene, but when it is really happening; I still got shocked. And Margarita explains that in her article, she states that viewers’ sense are heightened after they watched the movie, which makes them feel enjoyable. Another reason is because people enjoy the adrenaline rush, a hormone that strengthens your sensory reception. In the reading “Why Horror “by Noel Carroll, she writes “the horror story is driven explicitly by curiosity. It engaged audience by being involved in processes of disclosure, discovery, proof, explanation, hypothesis, and confirmation” (Carroll, 279). This point is pretty same to the article “Why Some People love Horror Movies Whiles Others Hate Them”, she said many people love to watch horror movies included myself because they make us to think, analyze and explore the different scenes and then hypothesize what will be happen at the end of the movie.

Since sometimes I make movie by myself, I always learn some movie shot skills from horror movies. Such as the background music, the camera positions and etc. I have already talked about my thoughts about the background music in the reflection. Therefore, I would like to share something about the camera position. Talking about camera position, there is another vital factor, which is the light. As we all know, a child always act a ghost by holding the flashlight under his or her face. This is a shot trick, which is that putting the light under someone’s face would make him or her looks scared. Moreover, there is also a mirror trick. Every  times, when I see a mirror in the horror films, I always know that something bad is going to happen. For example, a person doesn’t see another stuff at first place, however, after he washes his face; something just comes out. There is another trick, which is the illusion in the mirror is different from the reality.

This is my thoughts about horror movies.

 

HORROR DISCUSSION

I am so glad we have this topic on this week. Because I love watching movies, and making movies. My dream is to be a director. In every movie, Sound, a kind of expression form, compare to the video part ,sometimes plays a more important role. For example, if we turn off the voice when we watch horror films, then, we will definitely not feel any scares. Since in horror films, the director always put a very scare sound before something fearful is coming out. However, as audiences, we don’t know when is that thing coming out. Then we would be nervous.

After I watched the first episode of Vampire Slayer. I found that there is kind of sound that could make the contribution of horror films. At the beginning of the video, Buffy has a conversation about her dreams under a willow tree. and then, there is a noise like a girl sing a song about the box. After they packed, the noise is still there. This sound build in a movie predict that there will be some horrible things happened, and these diegetic sounds add aesthetic value of horror for this film.

I remember that when Buffy and her friend wake up in the morning, there is a slow and creep background music in this scene. These kinds of non-diegetic sound make viewer feel uneasy and haunted. Also the non-diegetic adds a dramatic effect in the horror movie and had a best use of aesthetic value of horror to appeal the audience’s mood.

In my opinion, the basic reason for horror films make us feel scared is that they make us think. During our thinking, there will be a thousand possibilities. Therefore, the main point is that we make ourselves scared. And what makes us think? It is sound.

Skip to toolbar