Culture, from a sociological perspective, is everything humans creates in establishing our relationships to nature and with each other including language, behavior, and knowledge. An example of culture includes but not limited to: the way a person would talk if they grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood. vs a person who grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood or a criminal in prison has a code for no snitching, etc. From the video, we saw in class, culture is a subconscious of society. An example of this is “if horror films are nightmares of societal subconscious…” (quote from video), it seems that the villains in movies are victims of a traumatic experience that they went through. The Ring (2002) directed by Gore Verbinski was
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” a quote that sums up humanity’s unchanged love for horror movies. Over the years, as millions of people have watched horror movies the graphics, special effects, and sounds have changed for the better. While scenes have intensified yet remained the same someone gets stabbed, butchered or killed violently. It’s hard to imagine how anyone in their right mind could choose to see such violent acts. Which is the reason why Stephen Kings say’s “I think 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” (405). That sentence provides us with his twisted example of “Why we crave Horror Movies” claiming it’s mainly a matter of our mental state. King includes examples of reasons people continue to go, he says it’s to have fun, to dare the nightmare, and to re-establish our sense of normalcy. Kings arguments within this essay are strong enough to prove his thesis making this a well written essay. He easily convinces normal people that they are mentally ill, with his use of analogy’s, comparisons, and logos. Stephen King’s use of practical wisdom leads his audience to believe that without horror films, humans are all emotional ticking time bombs waiting to explode.
“Do you like scary movies?” purred a sinister voice over the telephone, and immediately Scream had marked itself out as something new in a tired genre. When it was released in 1996, the classic slasher franchises had all pretty much ran out of steam. Scream was different, it was a breath of fresh air: smart and self-referential, it reminded horror fans what they loved about the genre in the first place, and scared them silly at the same time.
Halloween is rife with psychological scares that affect its audience greatly. “Symbolism, dreamlike imagery, emotional rather than rational logic” are present in Psychoanalytic criticism. Siskel and Ebert talked about how the movie makes you feel as if you are the protagonist, scared for your life and feeling every bit of suspense (Siskel and Ebert). The movie is purely fueled by emotional responses to what is happening to the characters and focuses itself purely on how the audience will respond. In the clip shown, the main protagonist talks about how she killed the killer but he is shown alive. The movie is not concerned with the logic; otherwise, the killer would have at least been slowed down by the injuries he sustained. Siskel and Ebert laud the movie on its set up of scenes, score, character development, and use of lighting to make the audience feel the terror the characters undergo.
The genre of horror films is one that is vast and continually growing. So many different elements have been known to appear in horror films that it is often times difficult to define what is explicitly a horror film and what is not. Due to this ambiguous definition of horror the genre is often times divided into subgenres. Each subgenre of horror has a more readily identifiable list of classifications that make it easier to cast a film to a subgenre, rather than the entire horror genre. One such subgenre that is particularly interesting is that of the stalker film. The stalker film can be categorized as a member of the horror genre in two ways. First, the stalker film can be identified within the horror genre due to its connection with the easily recognizable subgenre of horror, the slasher film. Though many elements of the stalker film differ from those of the slasher film, the use of non-mechanical weapons and obvious sexual plot points can be used to categorize the stalker film as a subgenre of the slasher film. Secondly, the stalker film can be considered a member of the horror genre using Robin Wood’s discussion regarding horror as that which society represses. The films Fatal Attraction, The Fan, and The Crush will be discussed in support of this argument. (Need some connector sentence here to finish out the intro)
There has been a large variety of horror films produced throughout the last fifty years. People are always going to be frightened and scared by different types of horror films. But, what type of horror film scares more people, and were men or women more frightened by these horror films? Each one of the horror films had its own agenda to frighten its audience using several different methods of horror. Some of these methods were more so directed at the female audience than the male audience. Most horror movies show the female as being vulnerable, because in real life females are defenseless against monsters.
A girl runs frantically through the woods trying to escape an axe wielding villain. The defenseless victim suddenly trips and collapses to the ground. The villain laughs wickedly as he lifts the axe above his head. The girl releases a final scream as the weapon quickly ends her life, causing the audience to go silent as they watch the villain drag away the lifeless body. Death, blood, guts, suspense, screaming, and terror are all just a few things to expect when watching a modern day horror film. What is horror? Horror can be defined as an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. (Wilson) The description of horror is not very pleasant, but for some reason horror films are extremely popular. Why is this so? People are addicted to the synthetic feeling of being terrified.
In the movie it had a lot of things that had to do with culture and society. Culture is the “collection of values, beliefs, knowledge, and material objects shared by
The Horror Genre The Horror Genre has been very popular ever since Etienne Robertson, the pioneer of film horror, made the first film. The film 'Phantasmagoria' was more of a theatre shadow play. It was made during the French revolution. Since then, thousands of Horror films have been made. Many developments have been used in newer films such as special effects and 3-D animation.
What are the main roles that female actresses typically portray in horror films? Maggie Freleng, an editor of VitaminW, a website that contributes toward the female empowerment movement, expresses her belief that women are cast in “poor and stereotypical representation of women in the horror genre.” Some roles that many women portray that are seen as stereotypical is the sexually promiscuous women and the saved virgin, evil demon seductress, the overly liberated woman, and the most common role the damsel in distress. The possible reason that women are cast with these roles is because of the belief that women are seen as too dimwitted, overemotional, uncoordinated, weak, and incompetent to survive in a situation much like those in horror films. Anne T. Donahue, an author of Women in Horror: The Revenge an article in The Guardian verifies the belief of the females portrayed as the damsel in distress stereotype with the statement, “We see them [women] waiting for a man to save them, we see them running, bloodied and terrified, we see them tied and cut up,
We crave horror movies simply for “the fun of it” in agreeing with Stephen King Why We Crave Horror movies. King gave multiple examples in his story as to why we crave horror movies and I can agree with just about each and every one of them. After watching a few horror movies for yourself, you will understand why it is easy to agree with King. If you have watched movies such as the 2004 movie Dawn of the Dead, The Purge, or The Conjuring you will also be able to relate to Chuck Klosterman My Zombie, Myself “Zombies are just so easy to kill.” Klostermans theory of zombies are extremely useful because it sheds insight on the difficult yet exciting problem of zombies in the real world. Klosterman’s argument that the repetition of modern life is
Stephen King, a very well-known writer and director, has a passionate voice when it comes to anything dealing with horror. In “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” King calls us out for knowing that we love the adrenaline rush and how we are so captivated by horror movies. He explains how we watch horror movies for the level of fun. King proposes that we go to defy ourselves; to see how far it can push us and that is what makes the experience so interesting. We lock our inner psycho from reality and feed it with the demonic, bloody violence found in horror movies. Doing this suggests that horror movies are our fix for our psychotic thoughts. Stephen King’s “Why We Crave Horror Movies” portrays that we are all insane in some weird way through
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.
One of the newest upcoming horror movie that just came out is IT. IT is the rendition of Stephen King’s classic killer clown story “Pennywise the Dancing Clown.” I honestly have mixed emotions about this movie; two polar opposite sides of me are telling me two different things. One is saying “Go watch it now. Feel the thrill. You will love it” and the other side is begging me “No, no, no, please don’t watch it. You will hate it. Seriously out of anything why did it have to be freakin clowns ?” That’s the thing that I never understood about myself and others like me. Why in the world do people put themselves in a situation where they purposely make themselves vulnerable to be scared? Stephen King describes the reasons
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.