Why Horror Movie?

Why People Watch Horror Movie

By: Natalina (Sogang University)

Talking about horror movie, our mind will never escape from all the movies or films that contain blood, ghost, something that is mystery, and those that make you express your emotional and give your negative reactions when you watch them. Even though they are scary to be watched, but some people feel comfortable and excited (or maybe they tend to) when they watch it, while some people don’t. Personally, I am not a horror movie fanatic. Although I am a chicken for horror movies and get scarred really easily, and I cannot watch one if I am alone, but I found myself sometimes enjoying watching a good horror movie, and there are reasons for that. 

First of all, I want to hide one of my weaknesses that I am one of those who are scared of such horror things, especially blood. I want to prove to my friends my bravery towards horror movie, so I took way that I better challenge myself watching horror movie with them once, in order to prove that I have ability to be able to have courage. I was introduced to ghost story from my sisters and my cousins when I was around 8 years old, but I had not watched scary movie until I was turning into 11 years old, because we had no TV that time. I remember my very first time watching a horror movie entitle The Exorcist in my house with my friends and my sisters once my dad bought us TV and complete with CD/DVD player. It was one late Saturday night I invited some of my friends to come sleepover in my house. Since no one was silent while watching the movie, I then proved that we all felt the same fear and dread.

It’s supposed to happen to many kids, where I got really fear after watching The Exorcist, I promised to myself never to watch such genre of movies again. However afterwards, when I grew older and got to see many different types of movies, I decided to give horror movies one more opportunity. It was on my second year of high school that I experienced of sleepover activity. I and my best friend, every two weeks we went to one’s house for sleepover, and it had become the tradition of our group to watch more than one movie overnight. The movies that we watched the most were horror and thriller movies. We did watch this kind of movies because we wanted to get the feeling of fear, and screamed out as loudly as we could. And, it really did help us to relieve our stress too, since our parents didn't allow us to drink when we got stress due to school works. Therefore, I can say that horror movie, on the other side, is a good movie to be watched and it can help a person to be a strong against their own fears toward something that not even exists.

It is fun watching horror movie with friends

Another reason I watch horror movie is I am bored of being bored by watching routine movies, so I want to try something new in my routine life instead of keep watching the same genre of movies over and over again. As we know that people always desire to get something new in their life or in their activities. So, by watching horror movies, I can feel something different. I understand that after watching horror movie some people keep watching it because they began falling in love with horror things, however, some may stop watching because of the fear that it will happen to themselves in their lives.

It is true that everybody who likes watching horror movies has their own purposes and reasons. However, I think the main reason is because people are curious and obsessed with the unknown. The fact that this world leaves space to fear, doubt, concern, and it becomes interesting for human being to have a close encounter with it. I do enjoy horror films, but only the ones that are psychologically thrilling. It's not so much for the pleasure of watching people suffer as it is for this morbid tendency I have towards disturbing subjects.

People who like horror movies somewhat they enjoy watching it very much, but many things can change their mind depending on some horror movies. Horror movies seem to make the mood very interesting because it makes a person want to watch it, but then it doesn't because of its horrifying elements. The mood can be different depending on the movie, which makes the whole horror movie very interesting. In my opinion the best thing about horror movies is that it can make the movie’s scenes realistic to life. Everybody has different perspectives on horror movies depending on their interest. Therefore horror movies can be determined by the viewer’s discursion. This is what I think can make a horror movie horror.