Why Do People Like to Watch Horror Movies - Essay Example

of the English of the Concerned 17 June Why do People Like to Watch Horror Movies? There exists no doubt pertainingto the fact that the cinema goers have enjoyed horror movies since the conception of cinema. It is also known to the people that horror movies tend to evoke feelings of fear, intimidation, anxiety, apprehension, stress, violence and sometimes a positive disgust. The experts and scientists have propounded many theories and models to unravel the reasons as to why people find horror movies which obviously are the precursors and harbingers of such seemingly negative emotions, so interesting and riveting. People who do not prefer or like horror movies sometimes do wonder as to what makes people be so receptive to the blood and gore inherent in the horror movies? Some perhaps consider the experience of viewing a horror movie to be positively an excruciating ordeal. No wonder there is something really powerfully inherent in the horror movies that makes people view them. There are a range of valid and plausible reasons that could account for the peoples’ fascination with horror movies, the most salient of them being an avid desire to expose oneself to experiences that go beyond the mundane real life scenarios, a desire to go through and experience the enhanced emotional sensations that a horror movie facilitates and the immense social, personal and psychological relevance that a good horror movie affiliates to. To a large extent horror movies accrue such a fan following going by the adage that “normal is boring.” In the current modern civilization, human life is increasingly getting regimented and the individuals and groups tend to be involved in tasks and processes that are regular and repetitive, almost on a daily basis. Consequently, over the time the life gets increasingly boring and the human interest and inclinations do yearn for some sort of experience that is an anomaly, beyond the normal and very unlike the day to day social and individual experiences. Herein lays the relevance of extreme experiences like horror movies. Horror movies enable the viewers to satiate their need for intense and raw excitement, fulfill their innate urge to go through a roller coaster ride of emotions that are gripping, intense and scary and the yearning to get oneself exposed to such dramatical forms that are replete with violence and horror and tend to blatantly violate the regular social norms in a way that is seldom seen in the actual or real life (Weaver III & Tamborini 153). In other words, horror movies cater to the human liking for the bizarre and the extraordinary. While watching the horror movies on the one side people do get a chance to vicariously engage in something that is positively antisocial, sometimes obscene and violent, while on the other side allowing them to engage in evincing reactions and emotions that are more in consonance with the more tamed and socially relevant abhorrence for the antisocial and the violent (Weaver III & Tamborini 153). Since times immemorial human civilizations have been searching for the ways to escape from the grip of the ordinary and regular. For the Bacchanalians it was the indulgence in unrestrained narcotic pleasures, for the Romans it was the gladiatorial contests, and in the 21st century the answer to the human panache for extraordinary has found its full scope in the horror movies. Even a cursory perusal of the basic texts of psychology and neural physiology testify to the fact that the human personality has an indelible primitive side associated with it. There is a part of the human brain that is old and animalistic in its essence and that responds to the intense or threatening situations by resorting to the standard fight or flight mechanisms. In contrast the civilized human brain is more rational and is not that capable of experiencing such intense emotional highs. For instance when a person sees a rope lying in the dark, many a times the first human reaction is to mistake the rope for a snake accompanied by an intense emotional high. It is only after a few seconds that the rational brain takes over things and deduces the actual reality of the rope. This phenomenon also explains the peoples’ fascination with the horror movies. Horror movies excite primitive emotions of fear and aggression in people (Goldstein 149). When in a horror movie people see a one legged man with an axe chasing a girl, for a millisecond their brains assumes that it is they who are being chased, thereby allowing them to experience emotional highs. It is only after some time that the rational brain takes over and they realize that what they are seeing is actually happening in the movie. People like horror movies because they find them to be very relevant. It is a known fact that for a movie to be interesting, it is required to accrue the interest of its viewers. However, a movie often fails to solicit the viewers’ interest if it is not based on some sort of relevance. No wonder, it is only a few horror movies that manage to be a big success. The main thing is that many a times the relevance that a movie extends to a viewer may not be traced directly by a rational catechism (Weaver & Carter 60). Even then, the viewers hold on to a horror movie for hours because it appeals to some type of relevance in their minds that is subconscious and cannot be verbalized (Weaver & Carter 60). While extending such relevance, a horror movie taps into the varied innate aspects of a viewer’s personality and by doing so help the viewer come to terms with those aspects of one’s personality that one finds it difficult to accept in a social and public context. So to put it simply, horror movie are imbued with a deep relevance. Definitely horror movies will continue to command an immense following owing to their ability to provide the viewers with out of the life experiences which extend emotional highs limited to the primitive side of the human mind in a safe environment, and their innate relevance which makes the viewers feel comfortable with the hidden aspects of their personality. Works Cited Goldstein, Jeffrey. Why We Watch. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Print Weaver III, James B & Tamborini, Ron. Horror Films. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1996. Print Weaver, C Kay & Carter, Cynthia. Violence and the Media. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2003. 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