Stephen King Why We Crave Horror Movies

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Watching What Lurks Within Us “One man’s tragedy is another man’s story.” –Arokarmesy.edu. Almost everyone enjoys watching movies, but one of the most acclaimed genres of films is horror. Horror and slasher films are claimed to escalate many vile emotions to its audiences. Viewers are consumed with all the calamity and violence that they witness in these kind of films. In Stephen King’s essay, “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” he examines the main reasons why people are obsessed with watching horror films as well as the effects it takes on them and society as a whole. Moreover, the most predominant reasons for why moviegoers succumb to this obsession is to fulfill both their needs for excitement out of this sinister entertainment and to alleviate…show more content…
Every horror movie fanatic has cruel emotions and fantasies that they hold deep within themselves, and sometimes just need to release it. People love scary movies because they help relieve this need to release our darker side, immediately pleasing their socially wicked desires. According to King, “society showers us with positive reinforcement. When as children, we hug our rotten puke of a sister and give her a kiss, all the aunts and uncles smile and twit.” (pg. 523) Adults reward children for hugging and kissing their younger siblings demonstrates these positive actions. However, King disputes this sense of positivity and social morality through explaining how people need to exercise their immoral emotions and fantasies. In the ninth paragraph, he uses an analogy to compare emotions to muscles that help function the body. It strengthens the idea that watching scary movies is normal because they make people exercise those horrendous emotions that constitute part of the body. People would lose strength without being able to apply their emotions. Then again, not releasing these “uncivilized emotions” damages the psyche. King applies the analogy of “hungry alligators” in his last paragraph to signify the inanity of peope and their viscious emotions. Alligators are dangerous just like human insanity can be, and by them ‘swimming around” (pg. 524) shows that, like a person’s inanity, they need to release their evil. This analogy successfully reveals the outcome of scary movies fulfilling people’s psychological needs. The nature of insanity is extremely dangerous therefore showing that scary movies intensify people’s insanity and people need to satisfy their cruel desires for violence instantly. Almost everyone has an evil side deep within themselves and what they expose themselves to makes them the
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