Why we crave horror movies - Essay Example

Scream (1996) The first horror movie that I ever saw was scream that was released in 1996 directed by Wes Craven and starring Drew Barrymore. It wasabout a pair of psychic friends who killed young nubile girls for fun’s sake. The film contains lots of gory, violent and horrible scenes of stabbing and slitting. Casey is a young girl alone in the house. She receives a call which she thinks of as a prank call. She flirts a little when the caller has already sneaked into her house. Wearing a white mask, the killer chases her and then stabs her to death when her parents are just entering the house.

Following this is a series of other killings and finally the killers get caught while trying to kill a girl who is the girlfriend of one of the two killers. Since that was the first horror movie I ever saw, it had a bad effect on me. Although I felt sick at the scene when Casey was stabbed to death, still I wanted to watch more. I was scared and I did not prefer to watch the movie alone with lights turned off. I do not understand this feeling even today, that is, how could I enjoy such a movie which was making me so frightened that I could not sleep for a couple of nights.

This is what surprises me about human nature. Although I did not want the killers to reach out on Casey and kill her, still I was enjoying her being made fool of through the prank call. Also, although I did not want to see Casey die, still I watched the full scene when she was being stabbed and her dead body being pulled leaving blood marks on the floor. Although I often had my hand on my eyes out of fright, still I did not fast forward the movie. This is what Stephen King has talked about, that is, the inner psychic person that lives within every one of us makes us want to watch more gore and more violence even if a part of us is getting frightened.

I was scared when I saw the two masks coming out of nowhere attacking young girls. The end of the film was what frightened me the most when I saw that the best friend of the girl was the killer and the girl did not know this ever since she knew him. This made me decide not to trust even the best of friends. Also, I did not manage to hate the killer maybe because I was impressed by him. This is again against normal human psyche because according to rules, one should loath the wrongdoer and be sympathetic to the one being wronged.

But again, what Stephen King stated was right, that is, we all are fanatically mad deep within us and there is a part of us that wants us to be impressed by the one who scares others and does wrong. We like being scared and being shows violence. Although we make long speeches and lengthy discussions against aggression, destruction, hostility and belligerence, still we enjoy aggressiveness being shown in films and being played around us. Does this mean that we are becoming inhuman or does this mean that we are just getting insensitive to gore and blood, is better understood by what Stephen King states.

In short, my response while watching the movie was upsetting which kept me startled for many days, but still I recommended it to my friends. That is amazing, I know.