Stephen King , also known as the father of horror , has created stories the tormented us as children and continued to scare us into adulthood. Though, the faint of heart may not be able to stomach King’s writing , some of us not only enjoy it , we crave it . As King challenges the sanity of mankind in his essay “Why We Crave Horror” , he explores just why we enjoy such morbid images. Could it be a gory get away or dive into the complex world of mental illness ? In agreeance with King , I will attempt to understand the possible mental insanity that may go hand in hand with humans love for horror movies. In the first paragraph of his essay , King states that he believes , as humans, we are all mentally ill . Why else would we pay our paychecks …show more content…
Although we tell ourselves over and over that it’s just a movie , we all wonder how these creatures can walk out of screens and straight into our dreams. Even if these horror flicks keep us wide awake at night , we all know in the back of our minds that Michael Myers is not real , or is he ? The shadow under your bed would happily disagree . King writes “...seat ourselves tenth-row center in a theater showing a horror movie , we are daring the …show more content…
We may all not be mentally ill in the sense of straight jackets and asylums , but possibly by little quirks we all seem to possess. “Why We Crave Horror ”reads , “ We’ve all known people who talk to themselves, people who sometimes squinch their faces into horrible grimaces when they believe no one is watching , people who have some hysterical fear - of snakes , the dark , the tight place , the long drop…” . Sure , King’s views on just why we love horror films may be slightly exaggerated but , does that discredit them ? No , at the end of the day , nobody is “normal” , we all go a little mad sometimes , even if we may not like to admit it
Alfred Hitchcock is known for his masters of works in the film industry. The film he is most famous for is Psycho. Alfred Hitchcock`s Psycho was critically acclaimed not only in the horror genre but within the entire film scene. It encompasses several key themes, which are portrayed through cinematic devices such as camera movement and sound, sound, lighting and costume and set design. The subject of madness becomes increasingly evident as the film progresses, centering on the peculiar character that is Norman Bates.
One of America’s famous actress film director and producer Katie Aselton once said,” I don’t love horror movies with something surreal happening. That doesn’t work for me. What’s terrifying is something that could actually happen to me and what I would do. I don’t know how to throw a punch, and I’ve never had to do it.” This quote shows connection to King’s article. I’m starting to consider that everyone has a crazy side. Why We Crave Horror Movies explains the reason people want to go see horror movies. The average person enjoys the horror movies because they are in a safe environment knowing they can not be harmed. By discussing the argumentative strategies such as ethos, logos,
It's not a film where a girl somehow walks out of the television screen and calls to tell you that you are going to die in seven days. It is a film that holds some realistic sense to it. Murderers are as real as anything can be. The reality that is witnessed within the screen when watching psycho is what truly makes it scary. Checking into an isolated hotel in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere, where the only people there are an odd man and his creepy mother seems like a total nightmare and coincidentally realistic. Mental illness plays an important role in Psycho. Norman was mentally ill, which is what made him commit all the crimes he did. "Psycho" along with many other films, portrays mental illness in what we can see is a negative light. A man who is mentally ill keeps his mother's body preserved through his previous knowledge of taxidermy, and from there he kills a good number of people, when the 'mother' part of him comes out. From the way things play out for Norman Bates, we can assume that he is schizophrenic and suffers from a bad personality disorder. Simply by knowing this, we see how negatively mental illness is depicted, especially for people who actually have these mental illnesses, the vast majority do not turn out to be psychotic killers. People with mental illnesses do not want to be viewed as crazy, they truly are not.
The article Why We Crave Horror Movies by Stephen King distinguishes why we truly do crave horror movies. Stephen King goes into depth on the many reasons on why we, as humans, find horror movies intriguing and how we all have some sort of insanity within us. He does this by using different rhetorical techniques and appealing to the audience through ways such as experience, emotion and logic. Apart from that he also relates a numerous amount of aspects on why we crave horror movies to our lives. Throughout this essay I will be evaluating the authors arguments and points on why society finds horror movies so desirable and captivating.
Overall, in Stephen King’s essay, “Why We Crave Horror Movies”, his suggestion that we view horror movies to “reestablish our feelings of essential normality” (562) and there is a “potential lyncher in almost all of us” (562) has brought forth many aspects that I have never really thought about. Why do we have so much excitement when it comes to horror films? Everyone has their own opinion, which will never end with one definite answer. Stephen King thinks there’s and evil in all of us, but I don’t think so. The evil only comes out if you make it, we do not need horror films for psychic
The issue of madness has been touched by many writers. In this paper I will focus on two important writings which deal directly with the mental illnesses. The first one is "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey first published in 1962. The second is "Hamlet" written by Shakespeare approximately in 1602. Ken Kesey worked nights in a mental institution in California and his novel has a lot of truth in it. He faced patient's insanity every day and was confident that it was natural response to the overall madness of the corporate America. Shakespeare on the contrary, focused on the completely opposite side of the mental madness: through "Hamlet" he wanted to show that in degree of publicity mental disorders can harm observers.
King chooses to compare the minds of a child and an adult to see the different resilience levels when exposed to the horror genre. He describes his findings as a paradox, “Children, who are physically quite weak, lift the weight of unbelief with ease” (PP 118). King assumes because the mind of an adult is mature it can handle the horrific depictions within the horror variety yet children seem too be able to withstand the pressure. King backed his theory by analyzing Walt Disney’s movies and their impact on a child’s imagination. Walt Disney’s movie Bambi is what Stephen King pinpointed when comparing the toll of horrific events in children and adult minds. King questioned adults about what was most terrifying about a movie when they were younger and they stated, “Bambi’s father shot by the hunter, or Bambi and his mother running before the forest fire” (PP 119). Another aspect King unveiled was the Doppler Effect and that, “A part of ‘growing up’ is the fact that everything has a scare potential for the child under eight” (PP 119). The cognitive imagination does not stop developing it just suppresses certain mental functions to draw a line between what is real and what is not. Horror novelist mask the tension with comedy yet with one swift motion it, “Knocks the adult props out from under us and tumbles us back down the slide into childhood” (PP
In his essay, “Why We Crave Horror Movies” King attempts to bring understanding to the phenomenon of the horror film genre. He states “sanity becomes a matter of degree” eluding to the theory that sanity is relative and that all humans are relatively insane. Jack the Ripper and the Cleveland Torso Murderer were the examples of humans on one extreme of the spectrum of sanity; saints represent the other safe end of the sanity spectrum. He illustrates the thought that in order for human kind to stay functionally sane there needs to be some sort of outlet for our violent “mad” thoughts. In King’s view horror movies provide a stable outlet and mental relief for innate madness. King argues that his insanity/ant civilization emotions are ingrained
This Novel, Carrie is written by Stephen King that based on the story of Carrie White, a lonely and painfully shy teenage girl with unbelievable telekinetic powers, and is slowly being pushed to the edge of insanity by frequent bullying from both cruel classmates at her school, and her own absolute, religious mother. One classmate, Sue Snell, feels sorry for Carrie and asks her boyfriend, Tommy Ross, to take Carrie to the senior prom instead of her. But another classmate, Chris Hargensen, is banned from the prom and is determined with her boyfriend to have her revenge on Carrie. Carrie soon discovers she has telekinetic powers; and when the most gruesome prank is played with her on prom night, anything can happen.
“Why We Crave Horror Movies,” an essay by the legendary Stephen King, explains two challenging concepts to understand: why people like gory horror movies and how people are able to control their darkest desires. “I think that we’re all mentally ill; those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better – and maybe not all that much better, after all.” King opens the essay by addressing the hard truth- we are all insane. People have dull lives, and often it’s the little bit of crazy within in us tha...
All in all, films that involve an antagonist with a mental illness is perceived as demonic with no redeeming qualities. Instead, their mental illnesses are exploited and multiplies the fear factor of whatever the character is, and at the same time associates those with the same diagnosis to these exaggerated, murderous
King owes his success to his ability to take what he says are “real fears” (The Stephen King Story, 47) and turn them into a horror story. When he says “real fears” they are things we have all thought of such as a monster under the bed or even a child kidnapping and he is making them a reality in his story. King looks at “horror fiction...as a metaphor” (46) for everything that goes wrong in our lives. His mind and writing seems to dwell in the depths of the American people’s fears and nightmares and this is what causes his writing to reach so many people and cause the terror he writes about to be instilled in his reader.
We all have cravings, be it for snacks or sweets, there is always something we desire. We crave horror in the same way. In Stephen King’s essay, “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” he argues that people need to watch horror films in order to release the negative emotions within us. King believes that people feel enjoyment while watching others be terrorized or killed in horror movies. King’s argument has elements that are both agreeable and disagreeable. On one hand he is acceptable when claiming we like the thrill and excitement that comes from watching horror movies; however, his views regarding that the fun comes from seeing others suffer cannot be agreed with because the human condition is not as immoral as he claims it to be.
Insanity is perceived as to be mentally ill or being extremely foolish or irrational. Insanity can also be developed from being greatly influenced by your emotions. It is not something that you will usually notice yourself to be, but to others, they may envision you as being insane, Many characters in books may seem insane to the readers through the choices they make and the actions executed by them. In Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, the scientist Victor Frankenstein is distinguished as being insane. He was not born insane, it was until after he made some choices that would change him. In the novel Frankenstein, insanity was caused by Victor Frankenstein’s decisions and the guilt resulted from it.
History shows that signs of mental illness and abnormal behavior have been documented as far back as the early Greeks however, it was not viewed the same as it is today. The mentally ill were previously referred to as mad, insane, lunatics, or maniacs. W.B. Maher and B.A. Maher (1985) note how many of the terms use had roots in old English words that meant emotionally deranged, hurt, unhealthy, or diseased. Although early explanations were not accurate, the characteristics of the mentally ill have remained the same and these characteristics are used to diagnose disorders to date. Cultural norms have always been used to assess and define abnormal behavior. Currently, we have a decent understanding of the correlates and influences of mental illness. Although we do not have complete knowledge, psychopathologists have better resources, technology, and overall research skills than those in ancient times.