1.      The First article I found is “Why Our Brains Love Horror Movies”. In the article, the author Sharon Begley analyzed the major reasons why most people would like to spend their money on horror movies and its relations to physiological reaction of human’s nervous cells while watching the movies. She described that human’s nervous system required “periodic revving” to be continuously active and watching horror movies will excite this part of nerve system and keep the system active. In current society, many people face a lot of stress during their daily life, such as unemployment, education and health problems. When they go to the movie theater and watch horror movies, they can use this way to active their nerve system and release stress, since people all know they are sitting in a safe environment and the ghosts in the movies are all harmless. The horrible effects of the movie will only decrease their stressful during their daily life rather than increase their tension.

Just like what Carroll described in his “Why Horror” article, “ The impossible being does disgust; but that disgust is part of an overall narrative address which is not only pleasurable, but whose potential pleasure depends on the confirmation of the existence of the monster as a being that violates, defies, or problematizes standing cultural classifications. Thus, we are attracted to and many of us seek out, horror fictions of this sort despite the fact that they provoke disgust” (284). People have the intrinsic behavior to chase a feeling of horror and they may not find out the feeling of disgust from the “non-narrative examples” of art horror. In addition, the author Sharon in my reading stated that horror movie is an approach for audience to release their repressed emotion. People can feel the horror scene but sit in the same place without getting hurt. The “Safe” property of horror movie will attract people to increase their visit of horror scene. Unlike extreme sports, which may bring dangerous, horror movie can bring people the feeling of excitement without getting hurt. In addition, you can be personally on the scene just let yourself comfortably sit in a chair. The experience is diverse, which can from hearing, seeing and even smelling, if it is a 3D or 4D movie.

2.      The second article is “Ever Wondered Why the Music in Horror Films Scares Us? The Harsh Sounds Tap into Instinctive Fears”, the author analyzed the scientific reason why people will feel scary when listening to the horror music in a great details. Scientist found that the scary music will trigger nerve system to release more neurotransmitter, which may bring much greater excitement to the receptor, thus trigger human’s scary emotions. The common features of horror music are “unexpected” and “discordant”, which will bring people a feeling of uncomfortable. Just like during the clips of Buffy movie, there are many non-dietetic background sound during the night time, especially when the monsters haunting on the grounds. Also, the screaming of women in the last part of the movie also brings a great horror feeling to audience. These sound all play together to trigger tense emotion to audience. Furthermore, the author pointed that the sound which is “non-linear” sound would make people feels much more horror, and it can make by blowing trumpet or other instrument hardly. The analysis showed that this situation is not random and this is for the purpose of enhancing audiences’ emotion. In addition, women’s scream found a lot in most films because it is bright and shrill, just like the effect of the “non-linear” sound.

After reading this article, it brought me back to the video clip we have watched during this week about Buffy. At 40:45 when the girl gets her voice back and screams very loud and long.(Buffy-the Vampire Slayer). During this part, the girl’s voice break up all the monsters and just like a voice of victory. This sound has been lost in the clip for the majority of time and when it comes back, it definitely increases the aesthetic of horror in this video. Imaging that, human voice is totally lost in the clip and has been quiet for a long time except for the scary background sound. Once the real sound comes back, it enhances the dramatic effects of the entire episode.

References

1. One example of non-diegetic sound from Buffy episode is at 14:00 when people sleep and their “voices” are all absorbed by the box of the monster. During this part, there is a very strange and scary background music, which increases the dramatic effect to the movie and creates horror to the audience. It is an example of non-diegetic sound because it is a sound effect which is added to the movie and the sound source is invisible in this clip. It is a source outside of the story and it also enhance the horror effect of the entire clip, which make audience to hold the breath and wait to see what happen next. Thus, it is a perfect example of this respective film principle. In addition, this example does increase the aesthetic of horror for the video, since the sound ends up when the monster comes out, which brings the whole story to another climax.
2. One example of diegetic sound from Buffy episode is at 40:45 when the girl gets her voice back and screams very loud and long. During this part, the girl’s voice break up all the monsters and just like a voice of victory. This is an example of diegetic sound, because it is the voice of the character herself and the sound source can be seen on the screen. It is an actual sound that produced by the girl.  This sound has been lost in the clip for the majority of time and when it comes back, it definitely increases the aesthetic of horror in this video. Imaging that, human voice is totally lost in the clip and has been quiet for a long time except for the scary background sound. Once the real sound comes back, it enhances the dramatic effects of the entire episode.
3. One example of the mise-en-scene is at 24:10 when the white monster pass by the window of the girl’s house. The girl almost screams out but there is no voice since she lost it. This is an example of the mise-en-scene, because it contains the major parts of mise en scene, such as color, lighting, actor’s performance and framing of the camera’s position. It is night time and the light is very dim, which enhance the horror effects. It also choose a close look of the white monster when he passes by the window, his strange smile and the certain camera angle give the audience a feeling of entire scary. In addition, the actress performance also enhance the dramatic effects. She suddenly falls back, which also draw the attention of the audience and surprise people.