Horror Movies For Our Blood Cravings

This essay was written as a response to an article Stephen King wrote about why people love horror movies. I personally would rather see a good comedy or romance before I'd see a scary movie but I know a lot of people that are just the opposite. I often watch shows on animal cruelty with my family and we discuss how people can do such horrible things to living things and we come up the the same conclusion that people are still as barbaric as they were thousands of years ago. As I read King's article I noticed a connection and decided to add my two cents.


Horror Movies For Our Blood Craving

When people think of the Coliseum in Rome, they are taken back to what they call a barbaric time. We all think of the Gladiators that were thrown into pits where they had to either kill or be killed. Romans would cheer at the slaughter of humans, the more blood that was shed the better. People now seem to be shocked at how bloodthirsty the world was years ago, what they do not realize is that people are just as barbaric today. Stephan King wrote an article about why people love to see horror movies where he reveals the true insanity in humans. However he forgets that humans have a need for blood that horror movies are able to satisfy.
King’s first reason is that people want to show they aren’t afraid. We all remember being young and a new horror film came out, every kid wanted to rush out and be the first to see it so they would be able to claim bragging rights the next day that they weren’t afraid to see the movie. When we are older the need to prove to others that we are brave enough diminishes and it becomes a need to prove to ourselves that we are still able to handle an intense movie. King also says that we go to have fun. He believes that we all have a bit of insanity within us that is unleashed by horror movies. While watching a scary movie we are able to let our emotions completely free. He claims that we have emotions within us that keep us in socially accepted normality and that unless we let these emotions out we would all rolling around in the grass screaming. King says that the horror movie appeals to the worst in us, the part that normally has to be kept within us but for the two hours of a horror movie is can be let free.
Stephen King should know better than most why people crave horror movies. Every person has an ego against other people as well as to themselves. King relates scary movies to roller coasters, the more loops and hills the better. We all know that tingling fear we feel the first time we climb the big hill of a roller coaster, we may be thinking that we really shouldn’t be on this ride but after the ride when the train reaches the station we feel immense satisfaction and pride that we were able to overcome our fear. Like the hill of a coaster, we go into a horror movie with the tension that we are about to be scared, this fear builds up during the movie as we watch characters in dangerous situations, we also feel the satisfaction on our way out of the theater as we did riding a roller coaster. Scary movies give our egos boosts of pride.
King believes that horror movies let us release our emotions that are not normal is society. He says that horror movies are like sick and dirty jokes. We all remember in school trying to come up with the sickest and dirtiest joke we could, or pointing and laughing at naked statues in art museums. We still have the emotions that are let out when we hear dirty jokes as kids but we aren’t supposed to unleash them in society. Those pent up emotions need to go somewhere and we can use them while watching scary movies. Horror movies bring out our natural insanity that is frowned upon by society.
There is also another reason why people love horror movies that King has not touched upon. We all know when we see a car accident on the side of the road we all slow down to look. Even though we know the more ambulances and fire trucks there are the more worse the accident is but that makes us want to slow down all the more. People crave blood. We are always shocked to hear of someone killing a dog with a bb gun or even a shooter at a school that kills dozens of people. What we forget is that people have been killing for thousands of years. We think the Romans were terrible for cheering on Gladiators being forced to kill each other but people haven’t changed over the years. We still have the killer instinct that for some is completely let out in murders but for most is still pent up and needing a release. People still watch boxing cheering for the first sight of blood and fans go crazy during a hockey game when two players decide to fight out an argument. We need some sort of entertainment to feed this need and hence we have the horror movie. Today most horror movies like “Saw” or “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” are complete bloodbaths. The more people that can be killed in one movie the more people want to see it. The movie is our modern day Coliseum that can actually be accepted in society.
Stephen King makes strong arguments as to why people crave horror movies in his article. We all need to feed our ego and to prove to ourselves that we can overcome fear. The horror movies also let us unleash the emotions that we have that are not accepted in society. However, King forgets that along with the insane emotions that we have to keep inside, we also have a blood thirsty craving that needs to be fed. The horror movies feed this craving in what we like to call a more civilized way rather than actually killing.