Why do we like horror movies so much?

Horror movies have been one of the most popular types of movies since they came out. What is its charm?

Wikipedia defines this kind of film as:

From the psychological point of view, the reason why horror movies firmly attract the audience is mainly because it evokes and satisfies many deep psychology of human beings who are both afraid and yearning for fearful things.

Stimulation and satisfaction A psychologist once said, "Everyone has a special psychology of pursuing excitement, and horror movies just satisfy this psychology." Undeniably, there are a lot of violent, bloody and even abnormal supernatural elements in horror movies, which makes it the most easy for viewers to get a sense of excitement and satisfaction.

Throughout the horror films at home and abroad, the objects that cause horror, whether supernatural or scientific fantasy, have a basic feature, that is, mystery, and its essence is people's ignorance of them. This curiosity about the unknown is the most likely to arouse the horror experience. For example, people will feel scared in a strange place, although that place may be safer than their familiar place. Many people watch horror movies while they are afraid, and the horror experience revealed in the movies often leads to their own horror psychological experience. From this perspective, people like to watch horror movies out of the need for horror experience, or even a psychological instinct.

From another point of view, it is precisely because people are ambivalent about the object of terror, that is, fear, trying to approach and understand, overcoming fear, and then facing new fears, this process of eliminating fear becomes a process of acquiring knowledge. So watching horror movies also has its positive side, which not only exercises psychological endurance, but also brings psychological satisfaction.

Decompression can not only stimulate the senses, but also eliminate people's inner depression and pressure when watching horror movies. Therefore, horror movies often become a unique decompression method for people, especially white-collar workers in high-pressure cities. In the process of watching horror movies, people's mental state is often tense, so they will temporarily forget the pressure in their work and life and devote themselves to the film content.

There are many kinds of horror films, including ghost films, horror monster films, abnormal killer films and suspense films. Whether it's the bloody visual effect in Saw or the mysterious ghost story in the East like The Ring of Midnight, there are only two ways to make a horror movie "scary": intuitive and horrible visual effects and weird and tense background music. With the advance of the movie plot and the rendering of the musical atmosphere, the audience's fear is getting stronger and stronger, and the anxiety, anger and resentment in real life are also transferred to the movie together, even screaming in fear, thus producing the pleasure and pleasure of watching movies, achieving the purpose of emotional release and eliminating the negative pressure accumulated in real life.

Humanity and Reflection Whether it is the fear of supernatural power, modern technology and unknown power in western horror films or the fear of ghosts and gods in eastern horror films, the psychological essence of horror films reflects the fear and anxiety of modern people, even the conscious pursuit of fear experience. Under the surface of film narrative, the deep cultural and psychological structure is revealed through the excavation of audio-visual structure and surface story. The fear and anxiety of modern people are manifested in horror movies, so it is the history of human psychological crisis itself.

In horror movies, those seemingly fictional plots often project some problems in the real society, reflect some original intentions of people, and show people's true humanity in an abnormal way. For example, The Shining reveals a man's middle-aged crisis, which comes from the gradual understanding of the nature of a specific alienated society and the confusion of choosing between moral pursuit and interest pursuit. Therefore, this story, which alludes to people's true humanity, not only brings people deep-seated fears, but also meets people's subconscious needs and carries certain social significance.

In a word, from the deep psychology revealed by psychoanalysis, although the purpose of horror movies is to express horror, its purpose is not to deepen the horror psychology of the audience, but to help the audience release psychological pressure, get stimulation and satisfaction through virtual stories and images, and expose and face the real human nature. This is the deep-seated reason why many viewers love watching horror movies, and it is also a normal and healthy psychology of watching movies.

I personally like it very much.

First, relieve stress. People who like watching horror movies very much are family-oriented and unsociable, and need a stimulus to relieve their stress. I like to watch it alone at home.

Second, people who like to watch horror movies all pursue excitement, and if they watch too much, they will become addicted.

Third, I like to challenge my courage to see if I can withstand the impact.

I want to die for fear of death [covering my face]

What is the psychology of people who like to watch horror movies? I don't know why others like watching horror movies, but I can tell you why I used to like watching horror movies.

Before curiosity 18, I like watching horror movies. At that time, I had little experience and limited knowledge, and I was particularly curious about many strange things, such as ghosts and gods, paranormal. As it happens, most horror movies involve these contents, so I'll go and see what happens. Now I firmly believe that there are no ghosts in the world, and I know that everything about ghosts and gods in movies/TV shows is fake, so I have no interest in this horror film, but it was different before. I used to think that ghosts and gods existed. So I will learn about paranormal phenomena by watching movies.

Pretending to be different, I used to be like this: you are afraid of what I like, I am special than you, I am different, and I am secretly proud. Maybe this is a child, immature.

Now I'm not like this. As I grow older, I become more and more timid. I am particularly afraid that a horrible face will pop up suddenly. I'm afraid that the concert will suddenly remind me that my heart will stop beating and I can't stand it.

I've seen some people watch ghost movies just like funny movies, saying and commenting constantly, for example, the means of creating terror is not clever, the makeup is fake, and the protagonist is scared to be funny. This is a very effective "anti-terrorism" method to avoid fear by not getting involved in the plot and atmosphere, but what's the point of watching horror movies like this? Why don't you watch interesting movies?