I remember there were so many times my mother called for me, she used to make me sit and watch horror movies with her, just because she was so scared. One of them is called, a horror movie named I Know What You Did Last Summer was on TV, my mother asked me to watch it carefully to avoid missing any key plots. On the other hand, she hid herself behind the bedroom door, hands clutching her ears, leaving one eye on the TV screen and kept asking me “what happened next? ” Abstract The film industry has developed many genres of the movie art.
One of them is horror film that invoke strong feelings of the audience typically fear while watching the film on the screen. The production of horror films has a long history of transformation in dependence on the ability of the film technology and constant studies of related psychology topic by the filmmakers. Many factors influence on viewer`s reaction while he or she is watching a horror movie. What is the reason and what are the factors that make horror films so attractive that even can make people feel both love and fear of it at the same time?
I believe it is the experience a person has in mind and the connection between these experience and plot of movie, which I call the psychology of fear, that really contribute to scariness. However there are different voices and I will discuss them in this paper. As a matter of fact, it is known that since 1900`s, the goal of the moving image has been to capture the reality (for instance, famous movie “The Arrival of The Mail Train” directed by Lumiere brothers) and make viewers to experience the reality by sitting in their chairs in the cinema.
Horror movies are meant to remind viewers that monsters or other fictional creatures are not harmful but something real can, and this ‘something’ can be observed in a real life. Thus, it is not accident that movies as “Cujo”, “Psycho”, and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” became classical films. Originally, some of these movies were filmed based on true stories, such as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” has elements based on the prototype of serial murderer Ed Gain (Behind The Bates Motel, 1999). Horror films Film industries, particularly in the United States of America, all enres are popular among people throughout the world. Films with humour, love stories, dramas and other aspects of life are meant to interest a viewer, so that a viewer can experience the feeling he or she wants to experience. All of those genres cause different feelings of the audience. Audiences may laugh, cry or just enjoy watching it after and during the film. The interesting moment is that the secret of popularity of the cinema among people is not the technology itself, but what it can give to the viewers. Looking at the screen they transform the events in the movie to their hearts.
But, along with the development of genres where artists share with the viewers by their positive emotions and deep feelings in scenes, there was also the feeling of fear. The films that included violence and scenes of killings have gradually evolved in the so-called horror films. The aim of such films is to cause any manifestation of the human fear that they saw on the screen. Despite the fantastic elements that can scare people, it is known that successful horror film appears more realistic and its realism comes from the portrait of human psychology and relationships (Clasen, M. 010). In 1896, the first film was shown to the public by Thomas Edison. It started the era of film industry in the world. Not so much time passed, when the horror films were shown at the screens and formally the first horror was shown in 1896, known as “The Haunted Castle” (Maurice Babbis). Such films were represented in different clusters of themes. The darkness and terror were main stimulator of audience’s emotions. Many characters were developed in the beginning of this genre. The first of them were Dracula and Frankenstein.
Many first horror movies were released prior to World War I. Many of them belonged to the German Expressionism. Among them were films that influenced the film industry in Hollywood. The 1950s represented the fiction-fantasy monsters with the fear of alien invasion and radioactive fallout. The new audience was the youth and many characters were developed for them. The period of 1960s brought to the cinemas new type of horror movie such as psychological thriller. We can stand out Alfred Hitchcock as a main author of this genre. Hitchcock delighted in building suspense, presenting impossible choices, hiding the true nature of characters, Hitchcock deliberately attempted to capture and twist the mind of the audience, even as he was twisting the mind of his characters” (Association for Natural Psychology, 2012). The 1970s and 1980s witnessed truly demonic movies popular with teens and children as main characters. For instance, classical psychological thriller “A Clockwork Orange” directed by Stanley Kubrick reflects realistic storytelling without using any fantastic creatures to show frightening manifestation of anger of teenagers.
Today, the horror movies use the latest technology and specific effects of any complexity. Although, as it was mentioned before neither technology nor computer graphics are the earnest of success. “The Blair Witch Project” is a mockumentary (pseudo-documentary) motion picture that with its low budged of $60,000 earned more than $200,000,000 worldwide (Box Office Mojo. The Blair Witch Project). As a matter of fact this movie is an example of a pragmatic proof of the fact that realism is worth to be included in horror movies.
It is impossible to observe any monsters or fiction creatures but the effect of documentary creates greater impact on viewers’ visual experience. The reason why we are human Horror film is a genre of film industry which includes movies that are designed to scare the viewer; to instill a sense of anxiety and uncertainty; to create a tense atmosphere of terror and agony, waiting for something awful. A fundamental feature of horror films is the fear, which is gradually built on the screen by various plot twists, events, images, etc.
Of course this emotional element can be developed against the background of some fantastic events and on the background of psychological actions, other human manifestations, manifestation of the natural disasters, violent demonstrations, human intestines, blood and so on. Fantastic events that do not exist in the real life can usually scare viewer. Although, it is hard to believe that some fantastic monsters can attack a human in the real life, so that it is hard to get scared.
The picture of different disgusting things like internal organs of a life creature(whether it is a human being or an animal) or excrement can provoke a feel of loathing. But, this totally realistic thing that are presented in the horror movie and documentary realism (as in movie “The Blair Witch Project”) is able to take the audience into intimate and strong emotional experience. Producers, screenwriters and directors of the horror films have the task to make such movies as fearful as possible for the audience.
In order to accomplish this mission they spent a lot of time by studying the power of cinematography and psychology topics that involve fear. Over 1/3 of 530 people who were examined reported that a horror film can create an emotional effect and the phobia (Adam Palmer). The experienced writer or director perfectly know how to build the plot, the abilities of the video cameras, the sound of music and other features of the filmmaking that can turn the film in the powerful instrument which can make the great scare influence on the audience.
They know that cinema does have a powerful influence on the mind and consciousness. The first horror movies were meant to scare the audience with the help of non-existent creatures, such as, ghosts, skeletons, witches, and vampires as in movie “The Haunted Castle”(1896) (Horror Films). Later, with the full idea of the new technology as white screen and picture on it, filmmakers started to look for other ways to scare people. The new way was to dig into the psychology of human’s fear and then realism came out on screens.
The pure fear If you want to find out exactly what is the main factors of the fear in the horror films you have to take a closer look to what exactly fear is. It is also important to look at main causes of its origin and research a psycho-physiology of fear. When humans become scared, it is possible to feel it throughout the entire body. To gain a perspective on fear it is necessary that forebrain areas, such as the amygdala, are considered (Adam Palmer). What happens in the human body, when it covers by the fear?
First of all, it activates the sympathetic nervous system that mobilizes energy resources and rearranges activities of all organ systems, preparing them for physical activity (Adam Palmer). Activation of the sympathetic human nervous systems leads to heart palpitations, extends the pupils and inhibits the activity of digestive glands. In parallel, it switches on the endocrine system which emits dangerous situations and throws adrenalin into the blood (The Amygdala and The Emotions). The causes of the fear are often based on the personal experience.
If the child touch the hot iron and would struggle from the pain, he or she may develop a certain fear. In the brain, there are the areas that responsible for the relation to fear (LeDoux, Joseph, 2003). In some way, the fear is a part of the human nature and some of them may be more common than others. For the filmmakers of the horror films the fear is the most interesting mechanisms of emotions in the human brain. They use many tools to find any ways of its implementation and activation in the audience of the cinema.
It is obvious that they use special mechanism or existence template in their films. Let’s do the math Mathematicians from King`s College, London have explained with the help of the language of numbers, why the best horror films such as “Psycho”, “The Exorcist” and “The Blair Witch Project” had and still have such a huge success (Shinning Named Perfect Scary Movie). The participants of the mutual research came up with a complicated formula that shows the right mix of the following things like realism, blood and stress of the story to make a perfect horror film.
Thus, based on this formula, the researchers concluded that the 1980 thriller “Shining” with Jack Nicholson is the perfect film of this genre. Mathematicians spent two weeks watching horror movies. The result is a formula: (es + u + t + s)2 + (tl + f)/2 + (a + dr + fs)/n + sin x – 1 The first part refers to the amount of intense action, is on the rise: the combination of characteristic disturbing music (es), suspense (u), scenes of persecution (cs) and feelings of trapping (t). In “The Shining” all these options are in harmony. In addition, these parameters must be added the shocking footages (s).
But, experts who tried to conclude this formula, based on statistic information, say that the really scary movie should first and foremost be realistic. So, that is why the next part of the formula balances a real life (tl) with fiction (f). The formula also provides a dark color, proper decoration, all of which must be divided by the number of people in the picture. Factor of the blood settled in the latter part of the sum. The mathematician Anna Sigler, who worked on the formula, said that the optimum amount of blood has been shown in “Jaws” – enough to scare, but not so much to cause revulsion in the audience.
Despite the fact that this formula is not official conclusion of the problem about shooting horrors, but based on such researches and statistics conclusions can be made. The main factors that are used by writers and directors of the horror films are suspense, disturbing music, scenes of persecution and feelings of trapping. All these are mixed with the dark colors, proper decoration, blood presence, and the reality of the situation. But, it has to be said that other different factors can influence on a development of a horror movie. In fact, there can be found two main categories of horror movies, based on gender factor.
The first category is movies known as slasher movies, associated to male sexuality symbolism. Another one is associated to female sexuality symbolism (Clover, Carol J, 2002). In fact, these categories symbolize waves of the horror movie genre. For example, so called slasher movies belong to the first wave and the symbol of a male can be found in such movies as “Psycho”, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. The second wave is related to stories of paranormal activity and possession, the stories where protagonist is a woman and can be seen in such movies as “Ring”, “The Exorcist”, and “Poltergeist” (Clover, Carol J, 2002).
So, it can be observed that such factor as gender can influence on the realism in horror movies. The first wave shows that realism is inherent in the movies with the symbolism of rough man`s power. On the other hand it can be observed that movies of the so-called second wave are tended to be gentler with their women in the lead parts. Tricks by filmmakers The suspense is the most frequent method in the horror films that is used by the filmmakers. This is one of the factors that can scare anyone from the audience. The effect of the suspense brings the signal to our brain.
It happens so fast that we cannot control the situation in that short period of time. As a result, the reaction on the suspense of the viewers is fear. We very often get scared in real situations when we face suspense situation. That is why there is no surprise that the method of the suspense is used in the horror films more often than others. In order to make the effect of the suspense, disturbing soundtracks are used in the critical moments. Scientists have discovered a possible cause of the frightening effect of horror films (Adam Palmer).
The filmmakers also bring to the movie their own fears that they faced in the childhood. Like the fear of dark, height, clowns and so on. Their own experiences can be transformed and then put them in the plot of the horror films. Taking a closer look at cultural factor of the horror films in the world, Asian horror films, especially ones from Japan have a rather distinctive style that are very different compare to the ones in North America. In the time, when American classic horror films range from King Kong, Dracula, and other monsters to he psychological thriller the Asia film industry offered to its viewers Japanese horror. In comparison to American film industry, Asian horror provides something different, new, fresh and exciting. One of the differences of Asian horror movies is that they do not present huge amount of blood and gore splashed for audience, but rather focusing on the psychological plot of the story(although most Japanese films have a problem of slow plot progress) (Seek Japan. ). The storyline goes with the characters and settings of the average people.
Trend Central reports, “By incorporating creepy modern urban legends and authentic popular culture fears, Japanese horror flicks focus on the surreal haunting of ordinary people” (Japanese Horror Movies Reflections of Cultural Folklore). The well-known Japanese horror film “The Ring” is a good example of focusing on the twisted plot that comes from the folklore. It is scarier for the viewers, if they do not know whether those folklores are based on the fact or fiction. The Asia filmmakers have great manipulation for creating suspense, which is one of the reasons of their success.
In order to bring something new to the fans of horror films, there were made enough movies by the US film industry in the recent decades with the using of such folklore. Conclusion In conclusion, the industry of production of the horror films in the world along with the technical abilities of the cinema reached the high level. The factors that scare the audience during the watching of the film are mainly related to the human psychology and the psychology of the fear. As a matter of fact there are different factors that can influence viewers while they are watching a horror movie.
Despite the fact that most people are aware of the non-existence of fantastic creatures, yet they still believe in them. That can be explained by the fact that human mind is fascinated by the unknown (Adam Palmer). In spite of this fascinating some experts believe that successful horror usually follows with realism (Clasen. M, 2010). In any case, it cannot be denied that classical horror movies as “Psycho” and “The Blair Witch Project” were shooting with the belief in realism, which is the most frightening factor in the horror movies.
References
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