Noel Carroll Why Horror Analysis

In Why Horror?, Noel Carroll addresses two theories for why people watch and enjoy horror media. The first theory he discusses is that of H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft argued that individuals enjoyed supernatural horror because it established the feelings of awe and “cosmic fear”. He describes cosmic fear as an “exhilarating mixture of fear, moral revulsion, and wonder” (Carroll, 1990, p. 162). He believed that human beings were born with a fear of the unknown, which verged on awe, and that their attraction to supernatural horror only provoked that sense of awe inside them and confirmed that the world contained several unknown forces. Lovecraft compared this feeling to that of the religious feeling of awe, “an apprehension of the unknown charged …show more content…
I do not believe I have any repressed desires to exact revenge on people for the way my parents treated me as a child. I am not seeking a mother figure in my life nor do I have any weird sexual fantasies about Samara and her actions. This just leave Noel Carroll and his theory. Just like A Nightmare on Elm Street, I believe that Noel’s theory fits perfectly with why I enjoyed The Ring. The concept of the film is very fascinating. I mean who would not be captivated with a video that is rumored to kill those who watch it after seven days. With the technology of today, we have all been guilty of looking up and viewing some pretty weird videos so it is not entirely impossible that a video like Samara could exist. The narrative of The Ring does a great job of keeping the viewer curious as to who Samara is, where did she come from, what the video is/means, how the video was created, etc…. The viewers curiosity does not end when the film does. We are left wondering whether Rachel and Aidan are successful in passing on the curse to someone else or if Aidan will die by Samara’s wet hands. All in all, The Ring was a good film to end the class with and maybe, just maybe, I won’t avoid watching them from now