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Old 04-13-2020, 03:23 AM
gogogo gogogo is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2020
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Lightbulb Why Do We Watch Horror Movies? (Complete Psychological Reasons)

These reasons I list here are my own deductions:

1. Horror movies make us feel alive through confronting us with deadly situations. Facing fatal events that horror movies bring, breaks the numbness and routine boredom of daily life. The people who were traumatised(who have gone through bad things) or people with strong addictions(alcohol, sex, video games…) become so insensitive to their own emotions that almost only extreme situations that horror movies can provide can give them the stimulation they need to feel something, to feel alive.

2. Seeing people that are going through horrible events which are worse than what we have gone through in our lives, provides us relative feeling of safety and luck.

3. Although we make empathy with victims during the movies, deeply and selfishly knowing that offenders in the movies can never reach out and touch us from screen, gives comfort and relaxes us till the end of the movie.

4. Horror movies tell us that we are not the only ones that very bad things happen to, or we are not the only one that makes big mistakes, thus we are not alone in this cruel world.

5. In case the similar terrible things that happen in horror movies happen to us, we get information by watching victims about how to handle pressure, stress and deadly threats in order to survive or live better.

6. Knowing that there is always a survivor after terrible events the characters face, makes us imagine ourselves to be that “victor” survivor, and see the filled portion of the glass and get confidence.

7. Since we think that we solve mysteries by learning about how the dangers and threats work, we feel safe against similar threats in case those happen to us. If we know how a dangerous mechanism works, we can take precautions and save ourselves if we got caught.

8. Horror movies will definitely carry at least one trace of the traumas we have experienced in our lives before, so they are subconscious warnings to us about not to repeat the same mistakes again.

9. Although it is impossible for us to help those who are in trouble in the screen, we genuinely want to help the victims dying. Feeling the responsibility to help the victims, but simultaneously knowing the fact that there is nothing you can do about it, releases us from the burden of responsibilities. This is very powerful relaxation since people are generally very stressed under the burden of responsibilities in daily life.

10. Some people are just curious about foreign feelings, the feelings that they have never felt before, that can be taboo or too wild and brutal to feel, so horror movies have ability to provide these emotions, therefore feed the curiosity.

11. Some of those who empathize with the aggressor, go to the dark side out of cowardice. They are generally miserable in real life and use horror movie villains to feel powerful. They use “if you want to get protected from the darkness, become the darkness, and join it" logic. They will generally feel sadistic superiority over victims(self-pleasuring). These types of people will oftenly watch serial killers and torture.

12. Some people choose to watch horror movies although they are very scared and disturbed by them in order to punish themselves for anything bad they have done, which can indicate some level of remorse, in the past. This condition is different from but similar to the ones who watch torture porn or BDSM, and enjoy empathising with the submissive in them, in a way that this type of horror watchers feel disturbed and scared more than they feel enjoyment, while watchers(submissive ones) of torture porn or BDSM will feel more enjoyment than pain. This act can be done both conscious or unconscious.

13. There are people who geniunely like causing pain and harm. They have sadistic personalities, which make them connect with the offenders in the horror movies. These people are similar to the ones who watch torture porn and BDSM for empathising with dommes.

14. Due to Stockholm Syndrome, some can enjoy being brutally victimised, enjoy being overly submissive and carry sharp masochistic tendencies; thus, enjoy empathising with the dying victims, establish deep connection(sort of one-sided love) with the killers concurrently, to feel safe(weird, artificial), although the victims generally end up getting killed.

15. People want to believe that there is more to the world. They look for even a tiny sign that life does not end after death. Horror movies give us some glimpses about what could happen after death. Furthermore, horror movies introduces us for many other supernatural or mysterious mechanics(from mind of a psychopath to the boogeyman or gates of hell, etc.) that stimulates our “curiosity.”

I hate torture movies. I don’t watch horror movies like Saw.

Last edited by gogogo; 04-27-2020 at 01:15 AM. Reason: Fixing grammar and punctuation
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