Free Essays, Term Papers, Research Papers at Anti Essays

Response to “Why We Crave Horror Movies” by Stephen King

In reading Stephen King’s thoughts about “Why We Crave Horror Movies”, I found three things that really stood out for me. Two directly from the writing were how he loves to toy with our emotions and how he writes to help us re-establish our feelings. The third is more from his main writing is being able to relate to some of his characters. Any avid Stephen King reader will look for parts of himself or herself in his work.

First Stephen King loves to toy with our emotions. You feel scared when you hear that spooky music in a movie and you know somebody is about to be killed. If you are reading and you turn a page and one scene is not complete until you get to the next page so you are in suspense waiting to see when she opens the door or he goes to the garage. I know from watching Stephen King’s “The Shining”, you see the ‘redrum’ written on the walls and you know something is going to happen so you sit in suspense waiting for someone to jump out of nowhere. Another example of how he toys with your emotions is in “The Green Mile” when John Coffey tells you he did not mean to hurt the girls but he is still sitting on death row anyways. You get a sense of anger that an innocent man is on death row and you get the sense of sadness that he is wrongly accused.

Second, you see how Stephen King helps us better understand and re-establish our feelings. When I first watched “The Green Mile” and “Shawshank Redemption”, it shows you the life of a prisoner and the harsh living conditions they live in. For myself, I was a prisoner of society, constantly harassed for being different, limited in where I could be to save the harassment. When I was young, I felt forced to hide in the Science lab or Music room just to avoid the attacks as they were beat up in prison. Watching the movies reminded me of my past and brought on feelings of hurt as well as sadness.

...