Loving Horror: A Self-Reflection

Ask any one of my friends and they will tell you that I am a proud horror flick
junkie. My love for the genre is a newfound one, but one that I have been committed
to for a little over four years. I remember watching Sinister with my quirky best
friend, who introduces me to all the decent horror movies of the past decade, with a
bowl of popcorn that had already been devoured before the movie had even shown
its first act. As the opening scene begins, we both squeeze into the soft crevasses of
the couch in anticipation as the first horror scene exposes itself before us. We see a
picture of four people under a tree, a family maybe, lined up in their backyard as if
on death row; all of them having nooses around their necks. A tree branch
mechanism holds the lassos down temporarily loosened on their collars. The family
doesnt fight the ties off their necks or try to escape their fates. They just stand there
with blindfolded eyes as one single branch breaks and falls, broken by some
unknown corrupt force, and pulls the ropes up until the nooses hang the family. We
watch them struggle and I can feel my chest beating hard until the impact of my
heartbeat causes me, like them, to have a loss of breathe. But the scene doesnt end
with the familys terrible and mysterious demise. Out in the corner of my eye I see
something horrifying. I gasp and point at the screen as the family agonizes until they
are still. My friend asks me why I point. I tell her that there, in the background, is a
face, a figure maybe but still a terrifyingly heinous face, staring at us as and I wonder
if he was watching us the entire time. My friend screams and covers her face with a
blanket and I cant stop looking it in the eyes. The movie cuts to black and for a
second I sit there in awe and horror. A new scene starts with a man driving down a
road. As I watch that, I recover from my frightened state and suddenly laugh at my
friend as well as my own seemingly ridiculous fear that now, is terribly pathetic in
hindsight. I believe first impressions are extremely important, especially in movies,
and given this first scene I already knew that I would love the rest of it.
The film ends in a devastating but intense conclusion and my friend and I
leave feeling strangely satisfied. I return home to my calm and safe life of a once
sheltered childhood; there, laying in bed, is where I imagine, in an almost
hallucination, figures from the movie existing in my reality and standing outside my
door. Looking back at it, I feel sincerely perturbed by the thought of myself enjoying
the view of particularly morbid and dismal scenes and yet I do not feel compelled to
stop my behavior and my movie watching habits. Does my enjoyment in the
experience of disturbing images and scenes make me a bad person or immoral for
my enjoyment in these inhumane things?
Susan Sontag says in one of the points of her essay, In Platos Cave, that to
suffer is one thing; another thing is to be living with the photographed images of
suffering, which does not necessarily strengthen conscience and the ability to be
compassionate. She claims that being exposed to images of suffering creates a
disconnection between the viewer and the subject matter, anesthetizing them
until the suffering feels less real. She describes it as almost a loss of humanity, which
is attributed by compassion. This statement is one that I can agree and disagree
upon. It did trouble me when watching the family in the movie struggle. But, my
reasons were not for mourning that my fellow human had died, but hovered on how
strange and mysteriously that they died. I was even more horrified at the demonic
looking figure in the background rather than the tragic and nefarious deaths of
people; people of whom I can relate to. Does my lack of compassion for these people
make me an inhumane person? A person without compassion?
However, Sontag has forgotten a very important part in viewing suffering
and that is an emotional connection. Say that, for instance, a random character dies
at the beginning of a movie. I, as bad as it sounds, would not care enough for that
person to burst out in tears. Although I would say that it was a sad occurrence, I
would not be very despondent. This is because I have nothing latch onto
emotionally. People need emotion to be compassionate. One cannot just bombard
another with scenes of suffering without understanding. The character becomes a
small minute tragedy, similar to a flys death short-lived. But, when given a
character with a story that follows him with context of his life, it makes connections
with audience, making him a character that is enjoyed and loved like a friend. When
this friend suffers, their pain is shared through the audience like the pain of ones
friend is shared with another. I felt the same feelings of compassion with the main
character of Sinister, a husband and father of a loving family who falls victim to the
wrath of supernatural and sinister forces out of the protection of his family. I was
emotionally invested and saddened by his infortunes and troubles.
Even though I still have a bit of humanity left in me, I still feel paranoia
whenever I watch a horror-flick. I think of the possibility that I might have an
obsession with these strange and horrible harbingers in these movies and somehow
bring these characters into my own consciousness; an occurrence that Sigmund
Freud would definitely agree upon. Here, I looked to Robert Scholes writings, more
finely on his idea where it is necessary to recover from the surrender to this text
and that recovery may depend on critical analysis. I bring this idea of analyzing the
content of the movie as well as the context in relation to my feelings in order to deal
with this crisis. I do feel fear when I subconsciously imagine these beings creeping
on me at night and yet I do not feel the need to moderate my viewing of scary
movies. This addiction that I have to these movies do not help my recovery either.
When I try to analyze Sinister, I have to understand the aims of the movie and
eventually come to terms with the reality of the horror and monsters in general.
Horror movies are made to intentionally scare people with these made up stories
and they make money off of their fear. They set up this illusion of fear and horror in
order for the audience to be hooked. For me, it is discarding the illusion and
realizing that these stories arent real. My mind likes to reject this because it is in my
nature to love and romanticize stories and narratives. Those things help people
connect and share experiences. These movies feed off this notion of using narratives
to bring the audience to connecting experience through the silver screen. This is
especially the tactic used by horror moviemakers where the audience experiences
the horror as well as the characters in the movie.
Why is it that I am drawn to the movie theater repeatedly to watch horror
films? I doubt my obsession with the villains of horror movies since I still dreadfully
fear them. But, perhaps when I see those villains, it is not the idea of them that
enamors me, but the feeling of fear. It is the adrenaline rush that keeps me coming
back to it. When I felt my heart pounding while watching the beginning scene, it was
an exhilarating experience. It was so strong that I couldnt remove my eyes from the
screen. It is the same feeling that I would get if I were to go skydiving or cliff
jumping. Yes, there is fear involved, but it is mostly a way of accessing to excitement.
Does this change the fact that I am using these images of suffering for my
own enjoyment? No, it does not. The way I react and use these images makes me a
little bit disturbed and yet I have to remember that they are not real. Perhaps I am a
bad person for using these morbid images in order to experience that adrenaline
rush. But, in all I have to remember reality and balance it with the imaginary and
what is just a story when I watch horror movies. Removing reality would only make
room for even more terrifying imaginary things and one cannot live life that way.
Yet, removing the imaginary side ruins the magic that the movie gives us, which is
the magic of belief and adventure. It may be one full of fear and paranoia, but
excitement nonetheless.











Reflective Commentary:
My choice in the prompt was not one that came easily. The questions that came up
were very abstract and unclear, similar to my thinking towards the problem. I felt
the ideas that I was coming up with were very fragile because they needed to be
supported, these universal feelings, with psychological evidence. I feel like the
hardest area for me was maneuvering around that because I constantly write with
the thought of having shared experiences with the audience, however I do not have
the strong evidence needed to support them other than anecdotal evidence.
Organizing my thoughts was another challenge that I had faced because when my
thoughts come into mind, they all come screaming at me at the same time. But, I
tried my best to be organized and thoughtful with the matter at hand.