Post 2: Ghosts: Watch me not?

Horror films or movies is a film genre made to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's primal fears. These films often make scenes  that would somehow startle or knock you out of your seat. Ghosts, murderers, supernatural, aliens, and monsters are the common characters that film creators are usually using in creating these film genres. Horror films often deal with the viewers nightmares, hidden fears, revulsion, and terror of the unknown.

Based on my experiences, I can say that horror movies about ghosts are somehow too exaggerated. I am not always happy or satisfied on how they present ghosts. Horror movies are also not accurate and I understand that because movies are made to entertain, but we must respect the fact that there are people like us who story writers can depend on when it comes to ghosts facts. But the question is why are we drawn to these movies? Why do many of us watch these movies eventhough these movies make you cry and scared?

I've read an article called Horror movies: why people love them by Leslie Fink. There are reasons why people love watching horror movies, one is the so called Desired effect which is explained by researchers as one reason why we watch, it is because the thrill calls up primal behavior, mainly in males, to assess threat levels. the second is the Just plain suspense which is the wanting to watch these movies that give you chills and unwanted feelings of fear and excitement. The third one is the In your brain which explains that the brain has the ability to interpret or horrific situations because the brain has an enormous capacity for thinking, reasoning, and just plain musing, allows us to worry and to exert these feelings when we watch horror movies.

"We watch for different reasons, which include enjoying the adrenaline rush, being distracted from mundane life, vicariously thumbing our noses at social norms, and enjoying a voyeuristic glimpse of the horrific from a safe distance." as Fink mentioned. People are watching these movies because of the adrenaline rush and the excitement. These emotions are what people want because we don't usually have this feelings in our normal lives. These feelings we get from horror movies are weird but its what our minds wants us to experience and feel eventhough we don't want to see these movies.

In another article I've read called Why do we watch horror films? by Anthony Rivas. People are drawn to these kinds of movies because it somehow helps us in our everyday lives and here are three reasons, Understanding archetypal fears through horror explaining that because of the fact that we put ourselves in situations to be scared because we want to understand what our population fears as a whole making us knowledgeable on the fears of the public. Another reason is Horror films give viewers a psychological ride which gives higher levels of arousal thoroughly enjoy the response heightened feelings of awareness their bodies have to intense experiences. These experiences range from watching horror films to skydiving and bungee jumping. And lastly the Overcoming fear of horror films some of us are too scared to watch these movies but when viewed makes us overcome our fear of these movies.

"Some people want to watch something that addresses their archetypal fears, while others just want to go along for the psychological ride." as Rivas Mentioned. People are attracted to these movies because they are sometimes mainstream and having the knowledge in the archetypal fears we somehow overcome our fears knowing that you are not the only one who fears.

Horror movies are made to entertain it does not matter whether it is made too exaggerated or unreal. Watching horror movies can be so scary and terrifying but it is not that bad to try and watch them because you may learn something from it. So the next time you watch scary movies about ghosts do you have the guts to watch ?