Every movie has its story, and also a movie is an integration of idea. Even the horror movie has its own and different aesthetics in it. These aesthetics are built on people’s fear. This is about people’s negative emotional reaction. They always include some scary elements in it, like ghosts, evil, monster, or vampire. People could be afraid of their looking, and also depends on the plot of the movie.

The article that I picked is “Horror movies throughout decades have constantly reinvented genre”. In this article ,the author mentioned that In 1950s, the horror movie was not that scary at that time, this means people do not want to watch it any more. He also mentions that “English director Alfred Hitchcock would also change the horror genre with the 1960s “Psycho,” which stunned audiences with its suspenseful tone and infamous plot twists.” It changed the genre of the horror movie by killing the female protagonist. It is the new idea, because at that time character should be safe from harm. Alfred Hitchcock is the first guy to direct horror movie in the slasher way to make people scared. In 70s, the horror movie also keep doing the slasher way. “For the most part, the ’80s and early ’90s all followed the slasher genre or tried to be violent for the sake of violence.” Most horror movie scares people by violence and blood. This kind of method keeps a long time in horror movie history. He also talks about directors always compete with each other’s violence. They try to see whose method of violence is scarier. He also talks about the movie “The Cabin in the Woods” is simple and original, but it is scary. This is kind to reflect that this author’s opinion of scary movie.

From the Carroll’s article “Why Horror”, there are some similar idea as the article that I picked.  In the “Why Horror”, Carroll says that “we are attracted to, and many of us seek out, horror fiction of this sort despite the 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.” The horror movie need disgust things, this is same as the violence and blood. In a horror movie, the directors just try to scare people with the thing that people do not like to see. When people see these things that they cannot imagine, they will feel stimulation. These are the basic thing of horror movie. The mise-en-scene looks more important for this part. Just like Carroll said, “It is not what we crave disgust, but that disgust is a predictable concomitant of disclosing the unknown, whose disclosure is a desire the narrative instills in the audience and then goes on to gladden.” When people see the thing that is disclosure, people could feel satisfied by this. This is just a trick that directors use to catch people’s mood. The logic of a horror movie is different sometimes. It always makes surprise for people. But these surprises always not be the good one. They are counterfactual thinking. When people mention about the horror movie, the first thing people will connect with is violence or scary characters. This is the basic elements that normal horror movie should own. Like the article that I picked, he said that, “Maybe this will remind viewers that being simple or original can be scary, rather than simply tearing someone’s heart out for shock value.” This shows that this person has seen too many horror movies, and he knows what is going on here. He knows what a horror movie will have, violence and scary scene. So this person said the horror movie should be simple or original would be scarier. This must be the person’s view of horror movies. Horror movie do not need too much complex things to scary people. It just depends on the non-diagetic and diagetic sound. These things are basic of horror movie, or every movie. If a horror movie has the right non-diagetic and diagetic sound in it, the movie will more scary than to use mise-en-scene. Horror movie is a special movie in the movie category. There is not too many people like to watch it, but some people try to find stimulation from it. This is why people watch it. The element for the horror movie is much more important to scary people. The sound of it is like the source of a meal, it makes the movie more flavor.

Reflections:

I do not like to watch horror movies, because some views in the horror movie will my heart be tighten. I do not like the feeling of it. After I have done this chapter, I found that horror movies are not that so scary. Horror movies are made by human, because we know what kind of things could make us scared. People just put these factors into it to make a horror movie. The most importance of horror movie is the music of it. The music will be put in the right place to lead the audiences’ mood. This could be scarier for the audiences. Horror movies are the collection of sound and scene. Horror movies is not that popular for most people, so this means that people like to watch beautiful things and people do not like stimulation of their mood. I think the way that horror movies use to scare people is different in different country. I think this is because of the different culture. People in western countries use vampire to scare people, but in eastern countries horror movies mostly depend on the belief of ghost. Sometimes the author make a horror movie will scare themselves. If they can scare themselves, the movie must be much scarier for the audience.

Future goals:

I will see more horror movie in the future, and I will pay more attention on the music and some scary factors. When I see the horror movie, I will ask my friends different opinion about it. I want to see what the view of different people about the horror movie is. For the normal movie, I will see how the author add the music, and when the music played. I will try to make some shot video with my friends and put some music into it. I think this would be fun.

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.