Stephen King's Essay Why We Crave Horror Movies

Decent Essays
Stephen King’s essay “Why We Crave Horror Movies” was thought provoking reading. Personally, I have never been fond of horror movies. I realized this when I watched the movie Annabelle, it was something I did not enjoy watching at all. To my surprise, people who also watched the movie told me it was not as scary as I thought it was.

However, I have to agree with King when he says that “we’re all mentally ill”. In one way or another, we all have particular likings that would not be approved by some people in society. In my case, I love learning about unsolved murders and mysteries. In my spare time, I tend to watch YouTube videos about these topics. There’s something very compelling about them that makes me watch video after video.

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Steven King Biography Steven King is arguably one of the most influential horror writers in modern pop culture. With hits like “Carrie,” “It,” and “The Shining,” King has earned his spot on the New York Times bestseller list (biography.com) and as in inspiration for readers nightmares for years. Steven King was born on September 21st in 1947 to Donald and Nellie King in Portland Maine. After his parents divorced, King and his brother David bounced between his father’s family in Indiana and his mother’s house in Connecticut (Biography.com) Eventually settling in his mother’s home, he was left alone for much of the time because of his mother's busy work schedule.…

    • 393 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He explains that people have to control and hind their inner emotions by “periodic exercise” and “proper muscle tone” (King 3). The inner emotions consist of lust for terror/horror. The only way to relief these feels are by horror movies. How does horror movies help? Well, they are, as King puts in, “modern version of the public lynching.…

    • 771 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Within the average human life we pass by twelve murderers in our lifetime. After reading this creepy fact, the strong feeling of wanting more comes upon us. Even true hair-raising facts like this in real life are exactly as King hypothesized in his essay “Why We Crave Horror”. To face the fears that we have, to re-establish our feelings of normality, and to have an experience of a peculiar sort of fun are three precise claims by Stephen King that within the human condition we do crave horror.…

    • 817 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sinister Film Analysis

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Despite its perfect casting and attention to detail, Sinister’s predictable plot falls short in inducing fear into its audience. The most important aspect of a horror film is whether or not it evokes fear from its audience. Unfortunately, Sinister fails to produce the hair-raising, nail-biting, and heart-pounding content that horror movie junkies crave. One thing that adds an eeriness to the…

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In comparison, we crave horror because “ we also go to re-establish our feelings of essential normality” (King “Why We Crave” 1). As humans, we all can relate to this in many ways. Whether you're a child or an adult, we have all seen the “perfect” lives that people lived. For example, they get good grades, find the love of their life, graduate from a good school, and get their dream job. Most of us can't relate to…

    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    He mentioned ideas of why we might crave horror movies. The ideas included showing off and being brave. To prove the point that we aren’t cowards. Other points include being able to put aside our civilized, adult ways and become young again. King claims that horror movies “may allow our emotions a free rein . . .…

    • 1176 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Human beings are emotional creatures. We can be happy, sad, scared, and angry all at the same time. Some can be described as overly emotional, dramatic, cold, and crazy, but just how accurate and exclusive or inclusive are these given stereotypes, more importantly crazy? “Why we crave horror films?” by Stephen King is about the underlying reasons human beings are so drawn to the production of horror films and rollercoasters, what they bring out in us, and why we keep going back for more. King argues that horror movies satisfy an important and essential human necessity of grim impulse and socially unacceptable desires in everyone.…

    • 1054 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fear In America

    • 1183 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Why is American in love with fear? There is a certain genre of movies called “Horrors”, which when a director creates the intense shock, fear, or disgust in their movies. These so called horror films include murders, ghosts, demons, monsters, and creature. Horrors get people’s hearts racing, and a movie like, The Children of the Corn, could leave some with the eebie-jeebies.…

    • 1183 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    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.…

    • 1025 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Horror films are movies that seek to bring your fears and nightmares to life. They to scare with the morbid and grotesque while entertaining also. They often involve an evil entity, event or person. Horror films feature supernatural creatures like werewolves, ghosts, vampires, witches, and zombies. They also dive into fears of death, of the unknown and loss of identity.…

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Some viewers enjoy the adrenaline rush they get from watching violent entertainment. The same act of watching violent entertainment is also a way of coping with actual fears or violence. Most viewers can distinguish between possible real and unreal events in horror…

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    (Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2014) In this paper I will focus on the horror genre, specifically the gory horror film, Saw and how it helped change the shape the boundaries of the horror genre. Tim Dirks describes horror films as unsettling films designed to frighten and panic, to cause dread and alarm, and to invoke our hidden worst fears that center on the dark side of life, the forbidden, and strange and alarming events. I think that the movie Saw, which was released in 2004 written by Leigh Whannell and James Wan, directed by James Wan, and stars Cary Elwes (Dr. Lawrence Gordon), Leigh Whannell (Adam Faulkner), Danny Glover (Detective David Tapp) and Tobin Bell as the Jigsaw killer. The Jigsaw is mysterious man who after a failed suicide attempt gained a new respect for life and has learned to not take it for granted.…

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A horror film, for example, of a child getting chased might bring back memories of a tragic moment in one 's life of them either getting kidnapped or where they felt as if they were close to death. Some people may try their whole life to forget a tragic moment that happened in their life and do not want an hour long movie to bring it all back and more. For some, horror films may cause some people to go into shock. Watching someone suddenly get their head chopped, for example, might scare an individual so much to the point that they urinate on themselves.…

    • 824 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Essay On Horror Films

    • 425 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Horror films are designed to scare and disgust viewers with evil characters, plots and events that can range from realistic to completely supernatural. Nobody will ever really understand why people would prefer to put on a horror DVD rather than a nice, relaxing comedy that won't make you jump out of your seat. However, the horror genre has been around for years with classics from Dracula and Frankenstein to modern day versions such as The Hills Have Eyes and The Ring. A horror DVD is the top choice for many people when it comes to selecting a film which is why this genre has remained a firm favourite amongst movie fans.…

    • 425 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays