Some people do not know why I really like the horror movies. Why is the horror movies interested a lot of people? I think the reason is unlike most of the love movies, I can guess what will happen and what the end of the story is; but you will never know what will happen in the next second in the horror movies. The horror movies do not like other movies that have an approach from beginning to the end. The reason that the horror movies are different from the others is because it is easy to make the unreal story real. Just like what Carroll said in his article “the pleasure derived from the horror fiction and the source of our interest in it resides, first and foremost, in the processes of discovery, proof, and confirmation that horror fiction often employ”(Carroll P277). Base on his opinion, he believes that the process of looking for horror moment is the most attractive part for us.
In Anthony’s article “Why do we watch horror films”? He says “Some people want to watch something that addresses their archetypal fears, while others just want to go along for the psychological ride.” In his article, he first tells us what the basic of horror is. “We put ourselves in situations to be scared because we want to understand what our population fears as a whole, according Paul J. Patterson, PhD, an assistant professor of English and co-director of Medieval, Renaissance, and Reformation Studies at Saint Joseph’s University.” Then he tells us the reason that people like to watch the horror films. Base on his articles, he believes that people like the horror movies is because horror films gives viewers a psychological ride. “In the real world, people simultaneously can experience happiness and sadness, exhilaration and anxiety…people enjoy excitement, even if it’s from a negative source, otherwise, things could be pretty dull…People who seek higher levels of arousal thoroughly enjoy the response — heightened feelings of awareness — their bodies have to intense experiences.” I really agree with the point he mention. In our lives, most of people never see a serial killer or something scared them and people are not familiar with fear. This is the best point that the horror movies create. I think we should not only enjoy the feeling that we can enjoy in our daily life but also some higher level of arousal thoroughly. High sensation-seekers enjoy levels of arousal higher than that of low sensation-seekers. This is typically caused by two things: testosterone and the body’s response to the neurotransmitter dopamine. There is a horror movie “paranormal activity”, which talk about some scared events happened around people who live in a house. This movie is famous, because the place in the movie is just like where we live and we are familiar with it. Some things happen around people without any reason will scare people and this is what we want when we are watching the horror movies.
Another thing he points out in his article is the way to overcome the fear of the horror films. “By understanding that the films are acted out, and that all of the blood, guts, and gore are only special effects, you might be able to enjoy them a bit more. No one’s arm is being sawed off. It is a special effect. People are not being maimed. These are actors.” This is a good way to help those people who are not enjoying in the horror movies to start to look at it. People should believe all the things that happen in the film is not true and all of these things are act by actors. Then people will not pay too much attention on those scared things and really enjoy the horror films.
Anthony, R. (2013. Oct 22). Why do we watch horror films? Medical Daily.Retrieved from http://www.medicaldaily.com/why-do-we-watch-horror-films-some-want-understand-archetypal-fears-while-others-crave-psychological