Cedie Bagos Dr. Mello English 100 13 May 2015 The Monsters Within Stewart Cohan, a nine year old boy from Chicago died of fright while watching the opening scene of "The Creeping Unknown" and yet monster films still manage to create a multibillion dollar film industry where watchers risk a similar deadly fate. So what makes these films click? According to Stephen King in "Why We Crave Horror Movies," he argues that we fuel the monster frenzy because "we are all insane," and by watching "re-establish our feelings of essential normality" (King # ). When the Japanese was bomb by the United States in 1945, they created Godzilla, a monster that embodied their fears and anxieties in the physical form. Monsters gradually change overtime and Godzilla …show more content…
The modern Godzilla now was greatly linked to science and the environment, an area that was increasingly indefinite and devastating. It represented our generations fears of the unknown and what according to Dendle "it means to be human"(Dendle 177). Throughout his essay, Dendle focuses on the changing nature of the Zombie monster as it gradually re-morphs itself upon newer audiences. In a sense, the changing nature of a monster represents the changing nature of humanity overtime. In the twenty-first century English remake of Godzilla by Gareth Edwards, the monster has drastically changed as Godzilla was now a millennial beast representing our own culture moment. Japan and Russia, now strong economic allies of the United States have simmered down tension, and negotiated peace, thus killing the 20th century Toho-produced Godzilla and the American Zilla that represented the terrors of the atomic bomb. This millennial monster now represented the events that cursed the Millennial generation like the spread of HIV/AID, an unheard of deadly disease that plagued Americans especially during its early development as it became a death sentence to those who were infected, the Year 2000 problem (Y2K), and the surge of the supernatural brought out by the imaginations of a well-informed, tech-savvy generation. In the 2014 film of Godzilla, the fears of the generation …show more content…
In the film, when the government could not hold off the truth that following the nuclear disaster a new creature was reborn, they now needed to name the new monster which was "MUTO" a Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism. The creation of names help us to grasp the unknown. Similar to how scientist needed to name the elements of a periodic table as they were discovered, how we name monsters and how we name natural disasters such as hurricanes to make them less daunting. In a recent study conducted by Modern Healthcare in their article "Hurricanes with Feminine names seen as less Scary," they argue that hurricanes with a more feminine name brings out more casualties because people underestimate the dangers (Modern Healthcare 1). In a way, the characteristics of a deadly hurricane that kills thousands every year is forgotten because what is stuck in the people are the innocent attributes brought out by names like Emma, or Katrina. This is similar to how MUTO was a way to deescalate and underestimate the dangers of the massive extraterrestrial who wreaked havoc in the
The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, a teleplay written by Rod Serling, starts in the late afternoon on Maple Street USA. Something bright flies overhead and the power goes out and the people who live there get advice from a 12 year old and get scared there are aliens out there. Tommy, the 12 year old, told them about the movies and comics that he has read. The narrator is an observer that is describing what happens while everyone goes mad trying to find a scapegoat. Steve is the only person who tries to reason with everyone while they are getting suspicious and trying to blame a scapegoat. This teleplay shows some of the human flaws that the people on maple street will encounter during their little power outage.
In order to scare us, books, movies, and television shows will take the most ordinary things and make it into a monster. For instance, the movie IT takes a clown and turns it into
These days, more and more people are making the choice of going to the cinema to be scared out of their wits, and they actually find it thrilling. But why?
A man starting from nothing with only the urge to write becoming so much more. The King of Horror is a member of many guilds, writer of some of the best horror novels, and has even made a couple movies. Although, with a current net worth of 400 million dollars, Stephen King was not always the King of Horror.
During the Industrial Revolution machines and technology were being introduced to people that made them worry about the lessening of the impact that humans are making (Industrial). There were protestors at the time that thought these machines were de-humanizing. The monster was feared in the same way. He was not human. His strength was beyond that of humans and he in a way was de-humanizing mankind. When people saw him they were afraid because they couldn’t comprehend what he was because they had never seen anything like him before. In the same way people could not comprehend the machines because they were new and people had never seen things like them before.
Throughout history we see monsters taking many different shapes and sizes. Whether it be a ghoul in the midst of a cold nightly stroll or a mass genocide, monsters are lurking everywhere and our perception of what monsters truly are, is enhancing their growth as a force with which to be reckoned. Fear of the unknown is seen throughout time, but as humans progress we are finding that things we once were afraid of we are less frightening than they once were. Monsters can evoke fear in their targeted victims rather than physically harm their victims. For instance, every year a new horror film is released with the next scary beast, but why do we call something a monster even if we know it is not real? Even certain people and creatures are classified as monsters, but are they really monsters, or do their actions speak of monstrous doings? In his article and book chapter Monsters and the Moral Imagination and chapter 5 of On Monsters, Stephen Asma suggests that monstrosity, as we know it, is on the rise as humans progress, and how we perceive monsters can often define monstrosities in itself, providing evidence as to why monster cultures are on the rise, and showing how human progress has evolved our perception of how we think on the topic that is monsters.
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.
Monsters are symbols and representations of a culture. They exist because of certain places or feelings of a time period. Monsters are “an embodiment of a certain cultural moment”. Author of Grendel, John Gardner, and author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, both create a monster to represent something larger than itself in order to have the reader reflect on their “fears, desires, anxiety, and fantasy” in society, which is explained in Jefferey Cohen's Monster Culture (Seven Theses). The latest trend in monster media, zombies, also fit into Cohen's theses on what a monster is.
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. (Horror Films)
We live in a world where creatures have abilities that can blow our minds, however we are ignorant of this. We live in a world where a constant power struggle is occurring between these secret species, a struggle that most human beings have no inclination of. We live in a world where people who know the truth are sworn to secrecy, and those proclaim this truth are considered crazy and locked away; to be sane is to be ignorant. Well, that is what I would love to be true. In actuality, I am fascinated with the topic of monsters; I love them all: lycanthropes, Frankenstein’s monster, witches, fae, necromancers, zombies, demons, mummies, and my favorite: vampires. This fetish has been manifested in the movies I view, the televisions shows I watch, and the books I read. When my obsession with reading is crossed with my obsession with monsters the result is a bookshelf containing more vampire novels than most people would consider healthy. I have discovered that every vampire novel varies vastly; no two books are ever alike. For example, the Twilight Series, the Anita Blake Series and the Vampire Chronicles Series have different legends and lore, different relationships between vampires and society, and different genres, theme, and purpose; this array of novels display most clearly the range of audience for vampire genre can cater.
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
sample, but it also appeals to population and emotion. To further explain why we crave
Stephen King believes that we are naturally attracted to the horror genre because we can identify with it to some degree and it is also considered a challenge by some to be able to withstand horror. I find it slightly unsettling that to some degree we are all insane according to King, however, I find this to be very believable.
Stephen King wrote a very brief essay titled "Why we Crave Horror Movies", in which he explained some of the reasons that people choose to go to horror movies to be entertained. In his essay, King goes on to explain that we as a people need horror movies as a sort of release; to feed the darker elements within all of us without having to sacrifice our humanity (also, civility). King does this by comparing people based on their levels of sanity whereas some societal "eccentricities" are completely acceptable, while some will get you thrown right into the loony bin. It’s summed up pretty well in this quote:
This is a Rhetorical Analysis essay analyzing an article that was published by Playboy in January 1981 by the author Stephen King “Why We Crave Horror Movies”.