“We wake up as horrors to help us cope with real ones” as quoted by Stephen King, the ideology of horror lies within a terrifying experience, it is ironic that popular authors writing dark fiction symbolize real-live horror experiences through their stories. Characters illustrated in thriller stories are fictional but it seems conspicuous when authors make a connection between fiction and reality. The audience’s purpose in horror stories is to indirectly empathize with the character’s situation that being the victim or the criminal. As I sulked through the dark driveway, a chilly breeze struck my face and skin; an eerie feeling crept behind and a hand slowly moved toward my shoulder. I shrieked at the top of my lungs and quickly turned around …show more content…
As I opened the door it made a creaking sound, I shifted down the hallway unsure what was about to occur; it was a very soft whisper and I could not make out the words. I froze in the middle of the hallway ready to sprint for my life; a chill went down my spine and I felt as someone was watching me. It was not a reassuring feeling I was hoping one of my cousins would come rescue me from this nightmare and then fear came striking in an unusual way. I finally discovered a lantern attached to the bare walls but it was still very dim in the room, a man wearing a hockey mask with a chainsaw approached me, the pupils in my eyes constricted; I sprinted out from the door and back into the long pathway. I stood there waiting anxiously for a familiar face to help me escape this chamber, I paced myself and decided to walk straight ahead and not look back, I sensed someone’s presence lurking around me, and it touched the tip of my hand. I let out a high-pitch squeal and jumped back in horror, as I stealthy moved in the darkness I saw deceased bodies hanging from a rope, I was regretting for ever considering this exhibition, I wanted to comfort myself in believing it’s just a stage production but I couldn’t. I heard racing footsteps and someone call out my name; I let out a sign of relief and embraced my cousin, she realized after exiting the chamber I was left behind and came to the
I have provided a clear evaluation of his essay in an organized way using the appropriate standards of evaluation. In understanding why humans “Crave Horror Movies” even when some people get nightmares after watching them we find the importance of our emotions and fears. We find those emotions and fears form a body of their own which needs to be maintained properly in order to remain healthy. We see how emotions can be controlled though viewing horror movies. Stephen King’s “Why We Crave Horror Movies” is a well written essay with convincing analogies, comparisons, and urban humor.
Picture yourself walking into your home from a good night spending, you put your stuff down and lay on the couch. Suddenly you hear footsteps upstairs and a big thump. Curiosity gets to you, so you go upstairs to check on what it was; no one could be in the house, you live alone. You walk into your room and start examining every corner, nothing. Once you’re about to leave the door slams shut, the light turns off, and the window shatters; trying to reach for the switch the light turns back on and in front of you a black figure stands and whispers your name slowly. This type of story is designed to make your heart beat as fast as a buzzer, they are known as horror stories. A writer tries to scare the reader by trying to relate to relate to everyone’s fear, or by using suspense. Suspense is needed for a good horror story; writers would use reversal or foreshadowing.
Just as a mirror reflects one’s face, the horror genre is a physical representation of how fear is portrayed to discuss the social anxieties of one’s time period. Representations of fear have continued to vary in accordance to reflect a particular time period’s social anxieties. Robin Wood, in the essay American Nightmare: Essays on the Horror Film, articulates how the ‘true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that our civilisation represses or oppresses.’ He contended that the way in which any given horror narrative determines this conflict, uncovers its ideological orientation, and further, that most of these compositions will be conservative; stifling desires inside of the self and disavowing it by projecting
Humans crave horror to simply “dare the nightmare” (King, “Why We Crave” 1). Everyone has something that they are afraid of; even though we don’t like to admit it. The ideal life is to be fearless but, it never happens. Stephen King’s story, “Strawberry Spring,” gives a thrill to the story; through Stephen King’s writing, we are allowed to “show that..we are not afraid.” (King, “Why We Crave” 1). For instance, in the beginning of the story, “Strawberry Spring,” the narrator had been introduced
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
Horror movies are one of the most fascinating genres of film that exists. They are unrealistic but at the same time, they are also realistic. This realism that they contain is what draws people’s interest towards them because viewers are able to associate aspects of their own lives with the film. Every horror movie, no matter how farfetched the theme or plot may be, contains an element that people can relate to. This element may not be observable to a conscious mind, but to an unconscious mind, it brings back memories of something that has been repressed earlier in our lives (Wood, 197). This recollection of suppressed memories is how horror films create a sense of fear and it is literally what Robin Wood means when he talks about “the return
I heard a blood-curdling scream and I jumped. I felt silent tears running down my heavily scarred face, but they weren’t out of sadness. Mostly. They were a mixture of pain and fear. I ran into the eerie, blood-splattered room and screamed as I felt cold fingers grab my neck.
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.
Horror is one of many fears humans have. We all have many terrors, but horror is the one that gets the best of us. Some crave, while others resent, the feeling horror movies bring to our body and the emotions that we experience. In Stephen King’s article, “Why We Crave Horror,” he explains that it is a part of the “Human Condition,” to crave the horror. King gives many strong and accurate claims on why we crave the horror movies, such as; testing our ability to face our fears, to re-establish our feelings of normality, and to experience a peculiar sort of fun.
The genre of horror when associated to film, it reflects on a vast variety of issues but when examined for the cultural significance it is narrower to what the aim is. This review surveys multiple scholarly sources from different aspects of the purpose of horror films. This literature review justifies that horror is derived from the fear and guilt within our psychological minds. I will argue that the cultural significance of this genre relates back to the emotional appeals that are conjured up when viewing these films.
“It started on halloween night 2015, I was 13. I lived in a white house. It was three stories with big colorful flowers covering it in the summer. We had a big yard about eight acres. My room was painted orange and I had a pumpkin cover for my bed. But my mom made me put it away for christmas. But everything I had all my earrings were Halloween it was crazy. I went to school at Jacksonville middle school. It was a good school with a nice clean gym new bright red lockers. My friends were Ariel and Victoria, Ariel had long red hair with bright blue eyes and light skin she was also 13 years old. Victoria had jet black hair with big chocolate brown eyes that pleaded with compassion, she was also 13 and all three of us were
One Halloween night it was freezing and rainy. There was a little boy named Jackson and he sat on the side of the road on halloween so my friends and I told him he could come with us so he woulden't be by himself. he came along and he was talking about how he didn't have a mom or dad. I asked him how come and he woulden't tell me he would just tell me he had to stay close to someone so they dont get him. I asked him why and what was wrong because he started to scream and cry. so i took him to my house for a couple minuts so he could calm down but he just keept saying please dont let them get me please. I asked who they where he didn't answer but he did say they killed his mom and dad.
Halloween was great. I had lots of fun handing out 4 bags of candy to thousands of kids at the safe walk. Me and my cousins would race to give kids candy, I always got shoved to the ground, we laughed. We saw people. We saw really good costumes. I dressed up to, I was a devil. No one else in my family dressed up because, they said, "They were to old." They told me I shouldn't dress up, but I'm not to old.