Are you someone who loves a good scare? Are horror movies your favorite thing to watch? Well, then your just like me. I’ve always been a fan of horror movies, but I’ve never realized that they can affect you more than just a jump scare. I love that most horror films are predictable in a way that still scares you even though you know it’s coming or when you think the main character is going to die and, yet they figure their way out just to die in the end. According to Encyclopedia Britannica horror movies are defined as, “motion pictures calculated to cause intense repugnance, fear, or dread. Horror films may incorporate incidents of physical violence and psychological terror; they may be studies of deformed, disturbed, psychotic, or evil characters; …show more content…
A common long-term effect that horror movies cause is developing phobias. These phobias are grouped into 5 categories including animals, environmental, blood, injections, or injuries, situational, and disturbing sounds or distorted images. Having an animal phobia means you have a fear of animals, insects, reptiles, animal-like aliens, ect. Having an environmental phobia means you have a fear of fires, floods, earthquakes, storms, water, nuclear holocausts, and other environmental threats. Having a blood, injections, or injuries phobia means you have a fear of blood, gore, injury, pain, wounds, needles, and other physical threats to living things. Having a situational phobia means you have a fear of heights, enclosed spaces, and limited situations like doctors’ offices. Having a disturbing sounds or distorted images phobia means you have a fear of loud noises, distorted faces, ect. The most frequently reported phobia developed from watching horror movies at 65% is the blood, injections, or injury phobia but disturbing sounds or distorted images phobia is the other common type of phobia from watching scary shows at 60%. Then, it’s situational at 33%, animal at 12% and environmental at …show more content…
Well, that is one of the mental effects horror movies can cause. Watching horror causes your brain to over analyze things and trick you into thinking things or acting that you would normally would not think or act. After watching horror movies most peoples’ minds trick them into seeing shapes, faces, people, animals, ghosts ect. in the shadows causing them to turn on lights. People also experience noises that aren’t there or are but they have a simple explanation such as when you think you hear someone calling your name, the house creaking, wind whistling though the trees, your animal bumping into something, you neighbor slamming a door, a car driving by, ect. What ever the cause these noises and sounds are just your mind over exaggerating the little everyday
The horror genre of film captives the frightfulness of individual fear, horror is the only genre that is meant captive the terror of the audience. The horror- the genre has been around well over one hundred- years there has been an extension of different types of horror and how the audience perceives horror. Many would even argue that horror films often reflect the fear of society in that certain time period. The evolution of horror reflects the evolution of society’s fear. American in 1929 face the stock market crash-inducing The Great Depression.
To begin with, some people would say they enjoy a horror movie that gets them scared out of their wits. They go see these movies once a month on average, for fun, each time choosing a newer sequel like “Final Destination” or “The evil Dead”. King says “When we pay our four or five bucks and seat ourselves at tenth-row center in a theater showing a horror movie we are daring the nightmare” (405). As a writer of best-sel...
Audiences love to be scared. Horror films attempt to find some sort of trigger in the audiences mind, and develop it to create horror. Preceded by the great horror novels such as Dracula, and developed in the early nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties in Germany. From slash movies, to the post-modern psychological thrillers, horror films have evolved into an art form. This genre relies heavily on the basic horror conventions.
For centuries, authors have placed human features on their fears allowing their public to confront a concrete creature rather than an abstract idea. The fear of death resulted in stories regarding vampires and mummies, fears of the unknown resulted in stories about creatures invading the Earth, fears of reincarnation resulted in stories of mad scientists creating life from death. With the invention of the motion picture in the late nineteenth century, these fears were able to be seen using human actors and actual “monsters” making both the fears and the fulfillment greater. As more of these films were created, audiences grew more tolerant of the once frightening monsters forcing directors to go even farther. To continue this trend, filmmakers soon were creating more fear than they were relieving creating another psychological void that needed to be filled. Sensing that the realm of horror films and many other genres of film were saturating the film industry, Mel Brooks wrote and directed two films in 1974: Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. Th...
Movies are a huge part of many Americans’ lives. Everyone has a particular genre that they like the most or a particular actor. There are many genres to choose from such as action, romance, drama, musical, documentary, horror, comedy, and children’s movies. This is always attached with the cliché ‘Everyone’s a critic.’ Movies will only want to be seen if someone else says that the movie is good. They trust that advice so that they will spend anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours watching a motion picture. This form of entertainment is driven by the viewer. Horror movies however, are designed by the same chronology: introduction, conflict climax, resolution. Horror movies also have many actors that do not show up in the sequel. The actors also are very unrecognizable because of the possibility that these actors are killed off in the movie as it progresses. Horror movies cause people to do many things no other type of movie can deliver. Horror movies make viewers jump, they make them scream, and they make the viewers want to cover their eyes. All of these aspects make horror movies a heart-pounding and enjoyable form of entertainment.
People are addicted to the synthetic feeling of being terrified. Modern day horror films are very different from the first horror films which date back to the late nineteenth century, but the goal of shocking the audience is still the same. Over the course of its existence, the horror industry has had to innovate new ways to keep its viewers on the edge of their seats. Horror films are frightening films created solely to ignite anxiety and panic within the viewers. Dread and alarm summon deep fears by captivating the audience with a shocking, terrifying, and unpredictable finale that leaves the viewer stunned.
Do you find yourself constantly encountering serial killers, masked murderers, evil scientists with an unwavering bloodlust, and the like? Are your days filled with token characters, futile running, a series of flat tires, dead cell phones, or deformed, inbred mountain-dwellers who would like nothing more than to see you dead? Do you feel your life has no practical plot line, climax, or believable special effects? If these things apply to you, then you may be living inside of a horror movie. Do not be concerned about your predicament—all hope is not lost! If you follow the rules and use common sense, it can be incredibly easy to recognize, survive, and overcome being in a horror movie.
Too many horror films provide scares and screams throughout their respective cinemas. Not many viewers follow what kind of model the films follow to appease their viewers. However, after reading film theorist Carol Clover’s novel, watching one of the films she associates in the novel “Halloween”, and also watching the movie “Nightmare on Elm Street” I say almost every “slasher” or horror film follows a model similar to Clover’s. The model is a female is featured as a primary character and that females tend to always overcome a situation at some point throughout the film.
First of all, why do I watch horror movies? That is actually a really good and very heavy question. I often times try to understand why I watch films tha...
Horror films are designed to frighten the audience and engage them in their worst fears, while captivating and entertaining at the same time. Horror films often center on the darker side of life, on what is forbidden and strange. These films play with society’s fears, its nightmare’s and vulnerability, the terror of the unknown, the fear of death, the loss of identity, and the fear of sexuality. Horror films are generally set in spooky old mansions, fog-ridden areas, or dark locales with unknown human, supernatural or grotesque creatures lurking about. These creatures can range from vampires, madmen, devils, unfriendly ghosts, monsters, mad scientists, demons, zombies, evil spirits, satanic villains, the possessed, werewolves and freaks to the unseen and even the mere presence of evil.
One might argue that the scariest horror films are those films which horrors portray a sense that something of that nature might actually happen in the real world. The beauty of horror films is that anything could theoretically be possible, like Freddy Krueger sticking his tongue through Nancy’s phone as he says, “I’m your boyfriend now, Nancy” or a horde of zombies stampeding through the cities of the United States wiping out humanity in its path. If one thinks about it long enough, anything we can perceive could happen. However, there is a line between the pure science fiction and those horror films which attempt to tackle a more realistic, social, cultural, psychological, or political problem in society.
Would you rather be horrified beyond repair or thrilled to the point of no return? In horror, the main purpose is to invoke fear and dread into the audience in the most unrealistic way. Horror movies involve supernatural entities such as ghosts, vampires, teleportation, and being completely immortal. As thriller films are grounded in realism and involve more suspense, mystery, and a sense of panic. Though both genres will frighten the audience, it will happen in two different ways. Whether the horror thrills or the thriller horrifies, a scare is always incorporated.
Therefore, a horror movie can affect someone’s life for a long time. When I was a senior in high school, I was camping with my friends. One of my friends named Mckyle brought a light because he could not sleep without light, and he was scared of the dark. I was asking him why he was scared of darkness, and he told me a story about himself. He told me that he was watching a scary movie with his cousin when he was seven years old, and the movie was talking about a spirit would come out when the light turned off. Therefore, he had a phobia of dark. This horror movie affected his life for a long time because he was sleeping with light more than ten years, and he still needed the light for sleeping. If he slept without light, he could not sleep at all. Also, he would have a nightmare about the movie. Until now, he still cannot sleep without light, and he is still scared of darkness. He never watches a horror movie in his life because it will remind him the spirit. Therefore, a horror movie can affect people for a long time because horror movie may cause a phobia to anyone. Horror movies do not potentially benefit to all the
Almost everyone has a favorite genre of film, but how everyone defines their favorite genre can differ greatly. Horror is one of the genres where its definition can be perceived differently by many people. Like all other genres, horror does have rules and traditions that must be included in order for a film to be considered a horror film. These rules and traditions include a protagonist, an antagonist, an escape or escape attempt of some sort, and very influential audio and visual effects.
“Natural Born Killers,” “ Psycho,” “ Friday the 13th ,” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” are all horror films. In these films there is always some crazy person or monster-like character that goes around and slaughters innocent people. And usually, but not all the time the killer is killed at the end of the movie. The media publishes or broadcasts stories that say that horror films influence people to imitate these wrongful acts of violence. I believe that these movies do not influence people to imitate these murderous crimes onto innocent people. Horror films are a way for people to exercise their violent emotions with out hurting anyone.