I said in my previous post about this article that I was going to write about the age dynamic as it relates to horror movies, but I decided to choose a sexier topic for today: why do people even watch horror in the first place?
The article I am referring to is a terrific article published in the journal Frontiers of Psychology in October 2019, and written by G. Neil Martin. It’s a review of the empirical research that had been conducted to that date about why people watch and enjoy horror movies. Identified variables that factor into why someone chooses to watch and why someone enjoys horror movies include sex, age, personality, and even mental health. In my previous post about this article, I reported on the effect of sex. Today, before I get into the other variables, I am going to report on the general reasons the article collated as to why people choose to watch horror movies in the first place.
Myself and many others agree that there are multiple reasons as to why people choose to watch and why people feel enjoyment from watching horror movies. The literature seems to reflect this diversity as there have been multiple theories proposed to explain it. Some theories apply to most but not all. Other theories apply to some but not most. I don’t believe there is a one-size-fits-all theory because I don’t believe that everyone likes horror movies for the same reasons. Regardless, here are some of the prevailing theories proposed in the research literature.
The Excitation Transfer Theory.
Proposed by D. Zillman in 1980, the excitation transfer theory posits that people engage with thrilling media in order to feel a degree of euphoria when the threat to a protagonist or to order is resolved. The idea is that suspenseful movies build a negative feeling in the viewer that is transferred to a proportionally positive feeling when the conflict is resolved. We desire to feel the tension of suspense and the subsequent rush of resolution. There are supporting research results that have shown people’s enjoyment of suspenseful material is related to the degree of felt suspense as long as there is a resolution.
While I do believe the Excitation Transfer Theory accounts for some people’s enjoyment of horror movies, it obviously does not account for everyone’s. Case in point, the enjoyment of horror movies in which the conflict is not resolved and/or the threat is not conquered.
The Uses and Gratification Theory of Film Consumption.
Proposed by Blumler and Katz in 1974, this theory shifts the perspective from the effect of media on people to the use of media for people. They suggested that people may engage with the stimulation, destruction, chaos, and violence featured in horror movies as a means of gratifying sensation-seeking or thrill-seeking drives. Evidence that has supported this theory are findings that personality traits such as sensation seeking, verbal aggressiveness, and argumentativeness are positively corelated to enjoyment of horror movies. However, the co-relation was not strong enough to predict enjoyment of horror movies consistently.
As with the previous theory, I believe this does explain some people’s draw to and enjoyment of horror movies, but not everyone’s. Anecdotally, I believe this theory would apply most accurately to those people who identify as “gore-hounds” and who generally enjoy splat-stick, splatter-fest, popcorn flicks whose focus is directed more toward body count, gore, and viscera than plot and character development.
The Arousal Theory.
Multiple researchers have proposed the idea that people who enjoy horror movies – or exciting movies in general – enjoy them simply because of the pleasure that comes from the psychological and physiological arousal. This is regardless of the narrative resolution. Many studies, of both horror and lived experiences, have found that experiencing excitement, fear, and suspense in a safe environment can be rewarding. There has been a lot of research conducted that measured marketed elevations in physiological and psychological arousal in people while they watch horror movies specifically, or exciting movies in general.
As with the previous two theories, I believe this one applies to most but not all. There are instances in which people have been quite aroused (non-sexually) by the experience of watching a horror movie and have not enjoyed it.
It seems that neither of these theories alone is sufficient to predict exclusively the reasons why people watch and enjoy horror movies, but I think each of them has merit in explaining why some people watch and enjoy horror movies. What do you think?
Thanks for reading,
Leave a Reply