Scream For Your Lives! In Praise Of The Communal Nature Of Horror – /Film

Yes, other genres can provide shared thrills; I, to, was in a theater on opening night for the 2021 blockbuster "Spider-Man: No Way Home," also a Castle-like gimmick film wherein characters from five movies, stretching back to 2002, interacted for the first time. The filmmakers were careful to include long pauses in the film's action to accommodate people cheering in the theater, which anecdotally they did. And loudly. But that sort of shared enthusiasm, while certainly providing a party-like atmosphere in a theater, isn't quite the same as screaming. The thrill of seeing three Spider-Men is predicated on the shock of recognition and the exploitation of nostalgia. Horror provides a more emotionally honest, visceral response beyond mere thrill. Fear. Pain. Death. With horror we are facing the things we ordinarily turn away from. And, in sharing them with a crowd, find we have more in common with each other.

Attending horror in groups is, one might even argue, a form of therapy. Horror films, however wicked, bloody, cynical, cheap, exploitative, or lascivious, are, at their core, handling everyday human fears of death, pain, and blood. In watching those things in a theater, and understanding what terrifies us as a whole, we are more closely facing our fears safely in each other's arms, so to speak. Are you afraid of needles? Watch this scene from "Audition." It's uncomfortable, but at least you know it's fictional. Are you afraid of dogs? Have you watched "Cujo?" Are you afraid that your upper-class neighborhood might be secretly having incestuous shunting orgies behind your back? May I point you to Brian Yuzna's 1989 film "Society?"

But, even more basically than that, there is a very basic truth about horror, and this is where William Castle had so much keen insight: Being scared is fun. It's fun to watch monsters in the dark. It's sexy to cling onto a date in abject terror. It's enjoyable to watch other squirm in their seats, only to find that you too are squirming. It's thrilling to get that adrenaline rush that a good, startling horror movie can provide.

We're not just screaming for our lives. We're screaming to feel alive.

See the original post here:
Scream For Your Lives! In Praise Of The Communal Nature Of Horror - /Film