Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
Why we crave for horror movies
Why we crave horror movies
Why we crave horror movies
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Why we crave for horror movies
Why we crave horror movies
Why we crave horror movies
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In the excerpt, “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” written by Stephen King, he argues that that we all have a little bit of insanity in all of us, and we all express it in different ways, from the chills to the guilty pleasure. It’s like we are attracted to horror movies, but we never really knew it. So, King uses a variety of rhetorical strategies to support the allure of horror movies. He uses these strategies to describe what horror movies make us feel like and it’s impressive.
The Chemical That Rules Us Adrenaline. It’s the chemical that courses through a person’s veins whenever their body thinks something is particurally exciting. In acient times, it was deployed when a sweaty caveman was being attacked by a predator. Today, however, it is used when comfortable viewers watche scary images on their televisions in their cushy chairs. In Stephen Kings’s essay “Why We Crave Horror,” Stephen King challenges the sanity of mankind becaude they like to watch scary movies.
He characterizes fear by saying that it includes a belief that one is endangered by what they fear and one will be motivated to act as a result of this belief (Walton 263). Since the person watching the horror movie cannot be said to exhibit either of these qualities, they cannot be said to be genuinely afraid. Walton explains the phenomenon of “fear” when one watches a horror movie by saying that when the person watches the movie, they enter a game of make-believe in which they have a fictional belief that they are threatened, and therefore possess fictional fear (Walton 264). The problem with this view is that the person watching the movie is not aware that they are playing this game. Since games require awareness of the structure of the game and objectives in order to play, it cannot be said that the person watching a horror movie is really playing a game, since they have no such awareness.
Summary of “Why We Crave Horror Movies” In Stephen King's essay,“Why We Crave Horror movies,” King describes the reasons why people desire to watch horror movies. King elaborates on the fact that we are all mentally ill in our own way; going to horror movies just provokes those terrors. The young are more inclined to admire the excitement and thrill; however, as people grow older they lose interest. Horror movies, King describes, are for making oneself feel normal by comparison to the mentally insane.
The American obsession with spectatorship is a phenomenon created by the inaccessibility of timely and relevant knowledge. This oddly leads to an increase in the demand and likeability of terror. In her piece “Great to Watch”, Maggie Nelson explores the origins of this fascination with horror and gives an
You may be less motivated to do such things when you are 60 (King 357). • Freda Jackson’s performance as the hideous melting lady in Die, Monster, Die! shows that we still have a long way to go before we are completely ugly, even though Robert Redford and Diana Ross have a long way to go before they are hideous (King 357). • One reviewer said watching horror movies is like going to a public hanging in the 21st century compared to watching professional football (King 357). • The famous “fairy tale” horror movie tries to be as honest as possible for its target audience (King 357–358).
(Phillips) is reminding the audience that this is not the first time people have committed acts of terror onto others. In the story, Gerald is made out to be almost an isolated character, as though he is the only one who has ever committed an act of terror. In reality, many people have done similar or even worse. Throughout history, mental illness has been prevalent in being the underlying reason as to why awful events are done. For instance, the Salem witch trials.
In the article “Why Do We Crave Horror Movies” King shows the idea of why humans crave to watch horror movies. To watch horror movies, people show to others that they have no fear of these things. King’s argument is that the horror films is a way for people to get the sense of normality. King believes that “We also go to re-establish our feelings of essential normality; the horror movie is innately conservative, even reactionary” (King 16). Re-establishing our feelings of essential normality allows us to release our emotions and enjoy our time watching horror films.
To the unknown eye, Hitchcock has carefully and skillfully used Mise-en-scene to his advantage, causing the audience to feel fear and a sense of caution towards the character of Norman Bates. It isn’t until we reflect back on the scene and notice how intelligently Hitchcock uses the positioning of props and the characters, lighting, camera angle and staging, that we notice how he has added meaning to his characters but has also to the film, creating suspense and fear from one scene to the end of the film. Ultimately proving the point that Hitchcock “the master of suspense” uses Mise-en-scene to not only help make a brilliant film but also uses it as his disposal to add meaning in his
Citing the article of Tudor's idea and concept the paranoid, pressure of horror films has been increased day by day and they have noted all the matters step by step. In some cases, horror is rooted in a rapidly changing situation yet with the unreliable world (Radner, 2003). If in this situation we try to understand the appeal of Horror then at first we will have to move through gratification where the horror movie’s presence in harbored repressions and space for fundamental bestial demands. Simply it can be told that it has become a place for repressed desires.
Horror keeps our insanity, “down there” and our average selves, “up here” (King, “Why We Crave” 4). As we hear of a serial killer slaughtering a college student and taking “her head with them” (King, “Strawberry Spring” 5), or smearing, “HA! HA!” in human blood all over a car windshield (King, Strawberry Spring” 8). Due to the morbid side of our Human Condition, we satisfy our, “nastiest fantasies” because of horror (King, “Why We Crave” 3). Horror supports Stephen King’s third claim on why humans hunger horror for the reason that we need to, “keep the gators fed” (King, “Why We Crave” 4).
Around the world there are many kind of problems that afflict kids of all age but there is one in particular that is relevant, this problem is the bullying. Also many kids commit suicide because of this problem, this isn't an actual problem, the bullying exist many years ago almost all generations of humans witness the bullying in the childhood.
Stephen King’s birthplace is Portland, Maine. His parents are Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. Stephen King is a university of Maine graduate, he graduated with a B.S. in English and a minor in dramatics. King has several major achievements for his literary masterpieces. King is most known for writing novels, short stories and screenplays; not many people know about the children’s book he published.
How it affects us, our emotional muscles. It may be that horror movies provide psychic relief on the level because it is an invitation to lapse into simplicity, irrationality and even outright madness extended rarely. “But anticivilization emotions don't go away” (king,Why we crave. 3) this explains why some people think this way. King thought about “ if we share a brotherhood of man, then we also share an insanity of man.
However, film critic, Robin Wood, argues that ‘since Psycho, the Hollywood cinema has implicitly recognised horror as both American and familial’ he then goes on to connect this with Psycho by claiming that it is an “innovative and influential film because it supposedly presents its horror not as the produce of forces outside American society, bit a product of the patriarchal family which is the fundamental institution of American society” he goes on to discuss how our civilisation either represses or oppresses (Skal, 1994). Woods claim then suggests that in Psycho, it is the repressions and tensions within the normal American family which produces the monster, not some alien force which was seen and suggested throughout the 1950 horror films. At the beginning of the 60’s, feminisation was regarded as castration not humanization. In “Psycho” (1960) it is claimed that the film presents conservative “moral lessons about gender roles of that the strong male is healthy and normal and the sensitive male is a disturbed figure who suffers from gener confusion” (Skal, 1994). In this section of this chapter I will look closely at how “Psycho” (1960) has layers of non-hetro-conforming and gender-non conforming themes through the use of Norman Bates whose gender identitiy is portrayed as being somewhere between male and female