Thrillers: What is fear?

 What is fear?

Fear comes from ideas of monsters we created and what kind of societal concepts they represent. Each monster that has become famous in film depicts a societal fear we have (or have had) of one specific type of person or problem we face. Therefore, these 'monsters' we created are very present in thrillers and horrors because of what they represent and how that connects to us as people in stories.

Why do we watch scary movies?

It doesn't always seem to make sense as to why we watch scary movies when they terrify us so much, some people argue that we want to see things we know we will never experience, but I believe that we watch scary movies because it feeds the side of our personalities that quietly want this type of horrifying fantasy to be a reality - as it aids our interest or because we don't experience many primitive, instinctive fears in this modern day compared to in the past.

5 explanations as to why we watch scary movies

My take on the theories

I agree the most with David J. Skal's theory that horror films are a reflection of societal fears we have experienced over time, meaning we all find them scary because we have experienced something similar to these monsters at some point in each of our generations. For example, the youngest generation as of 2021 may have a slight fear of zombie films because of the rise of pandemic caution and awareness over the past two years.

What are we afraid of as a society?

Here are some examples of fears we have universally as a society and how filmmakers have incorporated them into their films to create thrillers. We came up with these ideas as a class and listed things that scared us then looked for films that these fears appear in.

Fears

- Privacy (The Truman Show)

- Clowns (It)

- Heights (Vertigo)

- Disease (The Walking Dead/Zombieland)

- Snakes (Anaconda)

- The dark (Lights Out)

- Sharks (Jaws)

- Being alone (Inside Out)

Filmmakers use common fears such as these to recreate the ideas or fantasies seen in nightmares or history, so that people can escape using them and find a sense of peace because they know that these stories are fiction. People will always want to see films like these because they enjoy being scared, as, in a modern world, we don't experience a lot of these fears, especially in a position of safety or privilege.