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A little horror movie never hurt anyone |
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Thursday, 06 September 2007 |
As a child, my favorite movies included “Hellraiser,” “Nightmare On Elm Street,” and the “Friday the 13th” collection.
Today my love for horror movies continues. In fact I just went to see the Rob Zombie remake of the horror classic “Halloween.”
I
have always been looked at in an odd fashion when I share this
information with friends or when they come over to my place and see my
extensive collection of horror movies. I’ve also been made fun of for
being able to pop in movies like “House of 1,000 Corpses” to watch as I
go to sleep at night.
So after all these years, I’ve started to wonder if it’s all that bad to be a horror movie fiend.
Do horror movies really have the ability to alter the minds that watch it?
Can excessive gore and violence have an affect on people in the long
run? And if they can, then why does everybody not suffer from the
effects?
There have been studies done for years by scientists, sociologists and
psychologists about the effects of horror movies on children,
particularly children 5 and under.
In most cases it seems as though scientists believe that children who
watch horror movies, movies with excessive violence, or violent
television shows exhibit violent behaviors in the home.
An example of such a study can be found at Sciencedaily.com in an
article titled “Halloween horror movies may cause emotional problems in
young children.”
In this article, Dr. Daniel S. Schechter, the study’s principal
investigator, states, “There have even been cases of violence in the
home that followed children playing violent video games. Very young
children are unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy.”
To this argument I pose the question of whether it is better to shelter
children from horror movies or if it is better to explain to them that
what they are watching is not real.
It seems that society is just afraid of talking to children and would
prefer to keep them scared of things they do not understand.
Other arguments focus more on the adult generation and question why people want to watch horror movies in the first place.
A study performed by Eduardo Andrade of the University of California at
Berkeley and Joel B. Cohen of the University of Florida raises the idea
that people can experience both positive and negative emotions from a
horror movie.
Before this study, most scientists believed that viewers either felt
excitement from the fear or relief when the threat in the film is
removed. Andrade and Cohen argue that people can feel conflicting
emotions simultaneously.
Andrade and Cohen also state that people who seek out aversive stimuli
are not as affected by its unpleasantness and this fact allows them to
view it in a positive light. Therefore, in theory, if children happen
to be exposed to horror movies but are told they are not real and are
just a form of entertainment, they can view the film as something
positive and not harmful.
I am not persuading parents and guardians to sit children down in front
of a television and give them a stack of horror movies to watch.
Instead I encourage a conversation with kids to explain things instead of simply letting them fear them.
I am also encouraging you to not look at horror movie fanatics, like
myself, as odd or freakish in some way, but just as normal as you.
Just because you like a little blood and gore doesn’t make you a serial killer waiting to strike.
Lindsay Craven, a senior journalism and advertising major from Pilot Mountain, is a lifestyles reporter.
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