This article is about the scary movie is good for you. The author Joe Martino claims that “Researchers found increases in white blood cells which left viewers better equipped to fight disease and repair the body. This means watching scary movies actually boosts your immune system”, besides, he still states “researchers found that watching scary movies was also great exercise. A single viewing of various movies tested revealed that you can burn around 200 calories depending on the movie”. These two statements are professional examples to prove Martino’s idea and to furthermore interpret the main idea of this article. After that, Martino uses some detailed information to show that horror is good for people. It not only tells people that the movie is no connection with reality, but also can help body to have additional energy. There is an argument shows the horror movie can “cause disruptions in sleep patterns and can cause increased fear in certain situations”. However, Martino still make conclusion that having memory of something scared would help people overcome the fear.
In our reading assignment, Noel Carroll claims that “Horror genre gives every evidence of being pleasurable to its audience, but it does so by means of trafficking in the very sort of things that cause disquiet, distress, and displeasure.” It seems that Carroll do admit that horror pleasure its audience, but he add some points that is the psychological effect. The audiences have curiosity to watch horror movie, then, Carroll claims that “we are attracted to, and many of us seek out, horror fictions of this sort despite that fact that they provoke disgust, because that disgust is required for the pleasure involved in engaging our curiosity in the unknown and drawing it into the processes of revelation, ratiocination, etc.” That is to say, horror movie satisfy a lot for people’s curiosity and provide people opportunities to discover themselves. After that, Carroll states a new idea which is the “horror fiction is a special variation on this general narrative motivation”, it is the center of something which people might not know previously. The horror movie is not as general movie which is in a normal narrative, however, it goes with abnormal stories with a lot of disclosure of elements, and unpredicted factors. Those things scared people usually.
As a result, the conclusions that Martino and Carroll made are kind of similar. They all claim that horror movies do affect people psychologically, but the difference is that Martino focus on a positive aspect, how horror movie good for people, like the horror movie can inspire your body to gain additional energy, but Carroll focus on why horror becomes popular and more entertaining. The difference is about “how” and “why”. I think these two articles are interesting, and if the ideas can combined, they would both be more persuasive.
Martino, J., (2014) “The Science is In: Scary Movie are Good for You!” Collective Evolution. Retrieved May 28th, 2002,from http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/05/28/the-science-is-in-scary-movies-are-good-for-you/
The second article is about if watching horror movie harm children. This might be a hard question for parents to make decision whether allow their children watch or not. The author Lawrence Ross says “It is equally true that many of these same children experience negative effects of trouble falling asleep, nightmares, fear of the dark, anxiety”. Those problems might confuse and bother people a lot. Actually, those effects can last for a long time, maybe several days, but sometimes several weeks and more. Ross believes that the story horror movie blur children’s mind of reality and fantasy. Sometimes, violence and blood shows up in a lot of horror movies, even with the red color which may in the whole screen when people watch horror movies. That would cause a serious problem, children may influenced by those story and change their perspective of right and wrong. The professional study shows that more than half of the students have disturbances in sleeping and eating. More seriously, 25% students “experienced such “lingering effects” a year or even years after viewing the disturbing movie.” Additionally, younger participants suffered more serious problem. Therefore, Ross made a conclusion to tell parents to lead their children to watch positive movies or sit with them together.
Back to our reading assignment and presentation, the presentation shows that horror movie can have aesthetic reaction from people. Such as, the color, line, shape, texture, composition and balance. It shows in horror movies, there are a lot of costume refers to clothes. At the end, there is a question at the end of the slides, it says “some people argue causes people to think and act in unhealthy, morbid ways, could this be true of other genres too?” I think if let Ross answer this question, the answer might be definitely right, and the horror do cause people to think and act in unhealthy, and morbid ways. Ross deep believes that horror do harm people especially children which related to their mental and psychological perspective. In our reading assignment, the Noel Horror says that horror becomes more entertaining although some monsters are disgusting in horror movie. Maybe people wants more stimulation, or they want to enjoy the feelings that cannot have in daily and real life. But as for Ross, Ross do not believe horror can have positive aspect for people, he claim that children need to be protected in some way and help them have a good living environment.
To summarize, this article really makes people to think deeply about how horror movie affect younger people especially for children. Maybe horror movie do have some positive affects for people, but children need protection no matter what kind of horror level horror are. I think this article is helpful, I learned a lot from it about the negative aspect of horror movie. I think people should pay more attention to horror movie and children.
Ross, L.(2013), “Can Watching Horror Films be Harmful to Our Children?”, Tidewaterparent. Retrieved October 22, 2013 from http://www.tidewaterparent.com/2013/10/22/can-watching-horror-films-harmful-children/