The Appeals of Horror Movies
Horror films are a big genre in the film industry and become the most popular types of movies, especially among young people. By presenting horrifying images, horror movies have always been told about ghosts, zombies, vampires, werewolves, vicious animals, and cannibals. Still, people tend to watch horror movies even if they are scared and watch it by glancing through their finger. Watching a horror film gives an opening into that scary world, allow people to experience different emotional feelings. Many people still continue to watch horror movies even though most of them know they will experience negative effects of anxiety, fear of the dark, nightmares, and sleeplessness after watching the horror movies. So, one might think why these people tend to pay money from their pockets in order to buy those uncomfortable feelings. On the one hand, they do it in order to prove that they do not have fear for anything. While on the other hand, they watch horror movies for the sake of satisfying their desires: to thirst for the curiosity of the unknown, to crave the thrill of adrenaline rush, and to seek the sense of relief at the end.
Horror movies are able to satisfy the basic human emotion of curiosity. Human beings are naturally curious bout the unknown that people are not aware of or familiar with, and the unknown really is the root of all fear. In his essay, “The Critique of Pure Horror”, Jason Zinoman writes that “The horror is rooted in the unknown, but this strangeness also sparks curiosity and fascination” (31). Horror films are all based on curiosity, trying to find the unknown. Indeed, the unknown which excites curiosity, is a common component in horror movies. As a general rule, audiences are curiosity to the unknown—they do not know how the plot is planned for the entire movie or have a clue what is going to happen next in the movie. According to Zinoman, “Horror plots are often constructed to emphasize the mystery...