Oh The Horror.....

When you tell people you love horror movies, chances are you're going to get one of three responses:

1)Apathy. ex: "Cool, yeah. You watch the game last night?

2) Agreement. ex. "Hell yeah man, Chucky and Leatherface rock! What'd you think of the Nightmare on Elm Street remake?"

3) Disgust. ex: "How can you watch that stuff? It's all about death and blood!

Yeah, let's be honest: that third one is probably the most common response. Sure, everyone has seen The Exorcist, Silence of the Lambs and Alien, but horror as a genre seems to be very niche. I also find that people who enjoy horror movies seem to be judged at times. Bear in mind that the town of Santa Rosa, California refused to let Wes Craven film the first Scream movie in one of their high schools simply because they believed that horror movies were unethical. Even today there are many people against the genre. Why is that? Well, it really is pretty simple. For the most part, horror movies are about people getting murdered. There is also the idea of paying money to be scared that turns people off. Many people prefer to go the movies to escape the horrors of real life. If you go to the movies to escape, why pay to see a movie about a masked madman who kills teenagers? That almost sounds like a real newspaper headline you would shudder over while eating breakfast. Well, here's the thing folks: I love horror movies. React to any of the above responses. I'm here to talk about horror movies, and you're going to sit here and enjoy it. Yes, YOU.

So, the first question: why do I like horror movies? I honestly don't know. I've always felt that people are naturally drawn to things that frighten them. We're all morbidly curious about just what frightens us. For example, I think a number of people are afraid of nightmares. They seem realistic, are down right terrifying and they're unpreventable. You could have the most horrible nightmare tonight and you can't do a damn thing about it. A Nightmare On Elm Street channels this fear and makes it interesting. What if what happens in a nightmare was real? What if a death in a nightmare meant a death in real life? That's the appeal. It's an exaggeration of real life that makes us relate to them and want to watch them. Granted, that does not apply to all horror movies. Alien comes to mind. I don't know about you, but I've never been in a spaceship lightyears from Earth where a vicious alien creature is picking off my crew one by one. Well, Alien has a different appeal in how it is presented and what it represents. One of the great things about that movie is the questions raised. Not everything is answered, no matter how much we want answers (Thanks for nothing Prometheus). The suspense in this movie is insane. The music if foreboding, the lighting dark and moody, the editing tight and menacing. There is simply no room to breathe when the alien creatures gets on board the ship. But Alien goes even beyond that. There is no other way to describe it: Alien is a very sexual movie. The alien itself is meant to be a representation of rape. The facehugging and chestbursting scene are symbolic of the stages (the actual assault and childbirth) while the creature symbolizes the horrendous aftermath and the pain that sexual assault brings. This is hardly very well covered up in the movie. Director Ridley Scott has admitted the sexual overtones in this movie, and I think he was successful in making it clear to the audience what the movie was really about. I think that these overtones really lead to the overall discomfort one gets from watching Alien. That's another appeal of horror movies: creativity. They took something as horrendous as rape and turned it into a movie monster that we can truly hate both for its actions and what it represents. I repeat, horror movie villains are characters we LOVE to hate. People cheer when Jason Voorhees meets his end in one of the endless Friday the 13th sequels, and cheer again when he comes back in the next sequel with no explanation. Watch Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood and watch as Jason gets attacked by Tina and her telekinesis. You can't help but laugh and cheer because you want to see Jason get what he deserves.

There's another thing that appeals to me as a horror fan: it's fun being scared. Yeah, sounds weird, but it really is kind of fun being scared by a movie. I don't know why that is: it's just a different kind of experience. It's almost like an act of rebellion. You know you shouldn't be going to a movie to be scared, but there's just something about that appeals to you. You have your hands on your face about to cover your eyes, but you just can't. I'll give an example, I watched The Collector recently, a pretty terrifying movie. There were so many times when I thought of just shutting it off and forgetting about it, but I simply couldn't do it. I just had to know what happened next and how far the filmmakers would go with the subject matter. And by the way, they went pretty damn far. There's a sense of accomplishment that comes with getting through a movie like that, something that almost brings bragging rights. When the first Paranormal Activity movie came out, I remember a lot of people bragging that they had it made it through the whole thing without leaving. Some of these movies are so crazy, so scary and so intense that it's almost a marathon to make it through them. Have you ever seen the original Halloween on Halloween? I have, and it's terrifying. I was amazed that I got through that, but it gave the movie a whole new atmosphere.

I know not everyone will not like horror movies, but I can't help but love them. I think people should give this genre a chance. I prefer the older horror movies to the newer ones. A lot of them are torture porn splatter flicks, but that's not to say there aren't a lot of good horror movies made today. Supernatural horror is very popular right now, buoyed by the Paranormal Activity series. Give horror movies a chance, and really try and enjoy them. It's worth a shot.