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Why do people like to watch horror movies?

This is a serious question. I had watched Jason movies when I was young and I realize that these movies are popular and they have a certain element of sexuality and fear and anarchy to them.
I just don't get the violence part of it. I don't know why people want to see fake murders or any kind of murders for that matter.
Is it a fantasy?
I mean they're so popular.
Why do people really watch horror movies?
Why do you watch them?
Thanks.


Posted - February 12, 2018
Tags : None

Responses


  • 14795
    No one in my extended watch or likes films like that.......personally I don't ever want images like that in my head.....
    Why anyone would want to make them and why are ones so extreme allowed to be made.......
    Sick people like sick things I think....


      February 12, 2018 7:11 PM MST
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  • 666
    That's what worries me because I think horror movies are incredibly popular. Does that mean that there's a lot of people out there with some kind of bloodlust?
    Or is it a power thing?
    A fantasy of having power and control and having people fear you like they do a murderer?
    I've heard that some women are turned on by horror movies.
    Is it something to do with the excitement and fear involved?

      February 12, 2018 7:37 PM MST
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  • 14795
    Their up bringing and unsuitable friends....Living in a armed police state ....unruly nogo ghettos and how TV and news readers love to exaggerate things to create disharmony to make their jobs pay more....l

    How can a newscaster make millions from such a medial job...
      February 13, 2018 3:29 AM MST
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  • 6098
    Would guess because some people are less able to feel without such strong stimuli. Then they need more and more shocking and extreme content to interest them. Which is my hunch but really I've never liked them and seldom watched them. 
      February 12, 2018 7:48 PM MST
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  • 666
    That could explain why they keep getting more gory and realistic from the little I've seen.
    Is there a certain dark side to human nature that is stronger in some people and these movies tap into that for them?
    I would watch them myself to try and understand it, but I hate to see suffering even if it's acting. I can't watch It.

      February 12, 2018 7:58 PM MST
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  • 6098
    No I don't think that but just like some people are sensitive to a light touch say during lovemaking but other people need a lot more extreme stuff to feel it and respond positively. Same with emotions - some people need all that gore and drama and fantasy to feel they are alive while some people don't need that at all . 
      February 12, 2018 8:32 PM MST
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  • 23577
    I'm using part of your comment here in a reply to my answer. I hope that's OK, officegirl.
    :)
      February 12, 2018 8:54 PM MST
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  • 23577

    I think the movies delve into territories that other mainstream movies avoid.

    From my thinking, I can't imagine why anyone would want to watch romance movies. Or romantic comedies. I find most of them insipid, of the ones I've seen. But just like I've found, every once in a great while, a romance movie or romantic comedy I actually enjoyed, a horror movie that I truly enjoy is few and far between. All horror movies are not the same, not all are good and, also, not all are excessively gory or violent.

    George Romero's 1968 "Night of the Living Dead" is my favorite movie. An image from the movie is my avatar. Why do I like it so well? The main reason is the feeling of pure DREAD (not violence) that Romero creates from the beginning of the movie and it never lets up. It's the mood of the film that captures my interest. I like the movie also because of its observation of seven people trapped in a farm house surrounded more and more by the walking dead --  and the seven people inside the house can still not get all together and help each other against the throng of the dead outside their doors. I find that a truthful observation of the human condition.
    Perhaps I read too much into the film. But I still find the reasons I like the movie are more than just "It's a horror movie."

    I think there are probably just as many reasons people watch a horror movie as reasons people watch war movies (Why glorify war and real death?), science fiction movie and hero movies -- or any other kind of movie.

    I don't mean to sound nasty.  you've asked a valid question. I've just been accused of untrue personality traits just because I've watched quite a few horror movies.
    And, hey, sometimes it's fun just to have a safe scare -- we know we'll still be safe at the end of the movie. But we got scared.

    I've rambled on too long.
      February 12, 2018 8:27 PM MST
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  • 666
    Thank you for your response. I agree that there are some parts of horror movies that can be very interesting, but I still skip through the attack sequences. I think they ruin the movies, but that's just my opinion.
    So you're saying "Sometimes it's fun to have a safe scare."
    I can buy that. Do you think it might be kind of like a fetish for some people?
    Like maybe they were scared and chased around the house by an older relative as a child and these movies possibly trigger that same excitement and fear they felt as a child?
    Is that possible?
    Were you ever chased around as a child or do you think any of these films remind people of vivid nightmares they've had as kids?
    Thanks.
      February 12, 2018 8:52 PM MST
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  • 6098
    Thank you for your response.  I agree there can be very well-done films in any genre.  I guess a lot of women watch horror flicks too.  I don't know - I don't want to be scared .  Because there is just too much in real life that is really scary.  Perhaps men watch them because they think it prepares them to handle such things.  I can enjoy a romantic comedy or not comedy long as it is plausible enough and realistic enough to me. And the heroine enjoys the sex. Romance novels bore me. 

    That Night of the Living Dead I remember was what used to be called a "cult" film when I was young in the 1970s and some people would go see it regularly and theatres would run it for months or maybe even years. 

    Haha what is an "untrue" personality trait?  Seems to me if it is a personality trait it would make it true. 
      February 13, 2018 5:24 AM MST
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  • 23577
    :)
    Thanks, officegirl. I quoted part of your answer somewhere up or below in this thread.

    As far as that personality thing - - some people have accused me of being -- 'this' or 'that' type of person based upon my watching some horror movies. And I don't agree with their assessment of me.
    :)

    Yeah, "Night of the Living Dead" was/is definitely a cult film, from what I understand of "cult" films.

    sorry, got to run to work now ~ 
      February 13, 2018 7:39 AM MST
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  • 23577

    In general, I think officegirl hits it on the head with part of her comment in an above reply- - 

     "Same with emotions - some people need all that gore and drama and fantasy to feel they are alive while some people don't need that at all . "

    I think that is why a lot of people are attracted to the horror genre. The excessiveness of much of it.

    and I need to admit I don't watch horror movies anymore -- much because of the same reasons you've sated. I simply can't take it anymore.

    An interesting example- -  the very first original "Saw" movie is one of the best movies I've seen. Intriguing, scary, not excessively gory. Then the sequel "Saw II" came out -- they took out everything I liked about the original and focused only on the gore and violence. I hated the movie.

    It may be a fetish for me, you might be right.

    As far as I remember, I did not get chased around by adults nor are the horror movies ways for me to re-create vivid nightmares. But your theories are all interesting !
    :)
    Who knows?
      February 12, 2018 9:01 PM MST
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  • 666
    Thank you.
    I agree about the Saw movies. The first one was kind of interesting and then they seemed to get nastier if I remember correctly. I stopped watching them too.
    Anyway, thanks for your input. I do love movies and I always wonder what the hell is up with horror movies? 
    My child was scared to walk through that section at the video store and for good reason. The covers on those movie cases are sick, but to each their own I guess?
    Just my opinion.

    Hey maybe horror movies allow us to explore our fears? This post was edited by Summer at February 13, 2018 7:39 AM MST
      February 12, 2018 9:20 PM MST
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  • 53509


      I don't watch horror movies any more because they bore me to tears. When I first watched them at around age five or six, they never scared me, nor did they give me nightmares, they were just entertainment. As I got older, especially throughout my teens, I began to watch them less and less. As an adult, the yawn-factor really set in due to their predictability, all the hype that the studios put into advertising them, the poor writing, the poor acting, the poor directing, etc.
    I came to the conclusion that the average horror film was aimed at the lowest common denominator as its target demographic, of which I was not a part.
      The exception, or the above-average horror film, seemed to be a few of Steven King's books that made it to the big screen. I was reading a lot of his works, and when one of them that was adapted to film stayed true to his writing, my interest grew. King's books weren't the only ones like this, and it certainly wasn't everything he wrote that later became a film that I found worth watching, but in general, a good horror story in book form that stays faithful to the written version made for a good movie.
      Nowadays, everything seems to be about vampires and zombies. I can't yawn enough to tell you what I think of those "genres".
    ~




      February 13, 2018 6:02 AM MST
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  • 1713
    I rather enjoy the really corny horror movies, they're just fun to mock. I can't stand too much gore or torture though, like in those Saw movies my brother loved so much. Yuck. I don't understand the big attraction to that franchise.
      February 13, 2018 7:19 PM MST
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  • 22891
    cause they know theyre not real when they see them
      February 13, 2018 7:42 PM MST
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