Horror movies and why we love the kill
Michael Rotellini
It’s that time of the year again where we marathon horror movies, consume popcorn, candy and delight in the macabre and grotesque aspects of our society.
Horror movies are an essential part of the season and a normal part of our society. In the last couple of years, movies have helped shape the genre of horror and continue to give kids of this generation nightmares that will continue on for weeks.
With such movie legacies like “Saw”, “Paranormal Activity” and other cult classics the question is why do we love these movies so much?
Theaters continue to sell out, showing the audience terrible things that happen to generally good people. The movies typically give the audience time to bond and relate to the characters before they are killed off, tortured or even see their desperate struggle for life at the hands of some powerful or unnatural antagonist.
People love to see the brutality of the human experience, to see the absolute terror and fear and even feel it themselves.
Ever since the beginning of creation, people have sought out evil and its existence in the world. Roman coliseums were built to feed people to lions or watch men fight to the death. In every society or culture, there have been ways to unleash the inner brutality every person seeks.
To put it in simpler terms, think about the movie “The Purge”. It’s based on a society that is better off because they dedicate one day a year where there is no punishment for any crime. This leaves people free to unleash their inner evil and kill, rape and pillage others to “get it out of there system.”
In my opinion, it’s not that different from why we love horror films. Many people would never do what they see in movies, but there is an instinctual part of ourselves that crave what is animalistic or depraved.
We like to see things out of the ordinary, events that would never actually happen to us in the real world. This is the same reason why people love superheroes, to dream of superpowers or a symbol for the ultimate good.
Horror movies are almost the opposite of that, but still attract people for the same reason—to feel scared, nervous or enjoy in the torment of others in a fictional setting.
I would be a liar if I didn’t say I think it would be fun to be in horror situation in the woods or at a camp. If it actually happened I would do one of two things. Either I would never elect to split up from the group, or I would run as far away as I could and or grab a vehicle and get the hell out of Dodge (no pun intended).
We like horror movies to experience things we don’t normally feel or see because we like to imagine life differently for a little bit. We seek to unleash the animalistic side of our personality and see the deprived things of our society. We are always thinking about what would we do in that situation and then being scared for a whole week.
It’s that time of the year to be scared, to see the kill and to feel the macabre and grotesque side everyone has for at least an hour or two.
