The Psychology Of Indulging In Horror

The heart races, the hand shakes, a drop of sweat falls off of a nose and into a world full of terror and evil. Yes, there are good feelings and pleasurable moments of life as well, but fear will never be forgotten; fear can never go away. The moments that people relive in every dream, the image lurking in every dark room, the face that appears every time one closes his or her eyes, that is the type of traumatizing fear that will never disappear. What is so attractive about this horror? Why do we feast on the releases of new monster phenomena in all types of art? Science shows us that this process of indulging in horror actually makes humans more violent, so it is not a process of catharsis as Aristotle once thought (The Psychology of Scary …show more content…
This is done in multiple movie scenes when they give the option to their captive victims to live or die. However, the choice to save one’s own life typically involves choosing to kill another in place of oneself. Death is inevitable, but watching a character decide to save one’s own life, even if it means the death of a friend, is what actually makes the person watching consider his own principles. Perhaps the discovery of one’s morals and “inner monster” is one of the single-handedly scariest effects of watching human villains and human victims in movies. As a film watcher relates to a victim in a circumstance like this, he must consciously decide whether or not he would choose to die. The other option could mean an internal torture for the rest of his or her life, knowing that they made a decision to kill another human being, even if the situation is out of his or her control. When the watcher relates to the actual villain, there is a similar effect, except it comes from the point of view of the other side. Both interconnections seem almost plausible, and this is only possible because the viewer is relating to human beings, instead of a mythical creature with no apparent human intellect or thought …show more content…
Getting a personal view of the sadistic aspirations behind the master-mind of the operation puts an audience in an entirely new world of evil. In addition to watching a relatable crime happen, the crowd also listen to the regretless, malicious thoughts of the villain. Knowing that these types of people have existed and still do makes one realize how terrible a person can really be. Not only do these people exist, but it’s very possible that a killer may not even be known. That being said, as imagination and reality clash, maybe the shady neighbor down the street really is a serial killer. Maybe the local police officer looks completely normal, but is one small push away from losing his sanity and going trigger-happy on the innocent. The very fact that a mass murderer is still a real human being, and though unlikely, could even be any person one trusts and loves, allows a viewer to always have a crazy suspicion of anyone that they may run