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Why Do We Watch Horror Movies?
Horror movie has come into being for more than 100 years. Ever since its beginning, it caught hundreds of thousands of people’s eye. But have you ever really thought about it: Why are so many people fascinated with horror movies?
In my opinion, there are three reasons which contribute to this common phenomenon.
First, people watch horror movies to relieve the anxiety toward death deep down their heart. According to a survey done by American Psychological Association (APA), major factors of human fear in decreasing sequence are: death, darkness, loneliness, and helplessness. However, if you take a close look at them, you can find out that those four factors are the basic elements of horror movies. In other words, horror movies are more like a nightmare to us, by watching them we human are actually relieve the terror and worry deep down our heart. As the screen light up, we are facing with the scaring-faced demons or bloody serial killers, the scene could be a looming night, with whimsical shadows everywhere or a completely familiar situation: something strange is going on right in your wardrobe. The strong visual impact and emotional appeal horror movies bring give us a chance to experience the imaginary struggle between life and death. Only in this way, can we feel how secured we are in reality and thus our stresses toward death are removed automatically.
Second, people watch horror movies to have a change for their dead life. As the development of our society, the movies we need diverge a lot: romantic love movies no longer agree with our taste, what we need is something more thrilling: the horror movies. By watching them, our boring life will have some slight changes and the shocking scenes of the movies are like cold water, which can make our mind chilled.
Last but not least, we watch horror movies because we want to be scared. As a new study done by two professors in University of...