The genre of horror movies appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, and since then have been an essential part of movie culture. Undoubtedly, it is one of the most provocative and contradictory styles, but at the same time it has a lot of supporters and dedicated fans. In his article “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” Steven King, generally recognized modern King of Horror, explains possible reasons of why horror movies are so popular, and suggests that we crave for them in order to take out our negative emotions and keep humanity. The aim of this work is to analyze King’s article and to evaluate his ways of persuasion. Besides that writing about horrors, King states questions about relationship between society and human nature. For him, horror movies are the way to express negative feelings distinctive for every human. However, he forgets that there is plenty of other ways to do this, and horrors are far from being the most popular one.
In “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” King uses persuasive method of writing and a lot of symbols to support his opinion. For example, illustrating how society reacts on one or another emotions, King shows us a sister. He writes, “When, as children, we hug our rotten little puke of a sister and give her a kiss, all the aunts and uncles smile and twit and cry . . . But if we deliberately slam the rotten little puke of a sister’s fingers in the door, sanctions follow” (King 2). The sister’s example is life and easy to imagine; it supports King’s idea about negative emotions being rejected by society and the world we live in. As distinct from adults, children usually do not control their emotions and behave the way they want having positive or negative reaction from their parents. They demonstrate human nature, and, thus, King’s example is very persuasive. With its using, his idea becomes closer to life and appeals to some kind of combination between logic, cause we got so used to societal norms that cannot even imagine reaction on behave towards the sister to be different from the one in the example, emotion, cause emotions demonstrated by one people find feedback in another ones, and ethics, which means universal morale and behave principles that cannot be easily broken.
In my opinion, the imagery of King’s article primarily appeals to ethics. Besides that talking about horrors, the author brings up the issues of balance between human nature and societal morale. He states, “I think that we’re all mentally ill” (King, 1). This is a claim rooted in dark side of humanity and its conflict with society. In such conditions, horror movies become legal socially acceptable way of expressing worst human feelings and emotions. “It is morbidity unchained, our most base instincts let free, our nastiest fantasies realized” (King, 2). King is very persuasive, but I cannot completely agree with him. I am convinced that society does not accept negative emotions, and horror movies are the way to express them, what is a physical need of every human. However, King forgets that horrors are not the only way, and even not the most spread. Lots of people do not like such movies, afraid to watch them, or find them boring or stupid, and prefer another way to express their emotions. There is no single mention about this in the article.
“Why We Crave Horror Movies” is written in casual style. King develops his points very logically; after every opinion on something he immediately explains it and supports with an amount of life and literary examples. One of the rhetorical techniques he uses to persuade readers is pathos. King appeals to human need in expressing his or her emotions. Lots of symbols and specific examples he uses in his article paint a picture close to reality. It is done with an instance of a sister mentioned above, and also with an exhibit of a “sick” joke (King 2). All these work well making an article more persuasive than it could have been.
In conclusion, it is worth saying that King’s article is very persuasive. He grabs attention with catchy phrases, uses a lot of examples to illustrate his thoughts, and logically moves from tenuous reasons of craving horror movies to the deeper ones. King makes his article closer to reality addressing it to everybody, and at the end convincing that horrors are the way to express negative emotions without hurting other people. However, he forgets that most people do not support such movies, and prefer another ways to do this. Thus, King’s article is one-sided.
Works Cited
King, S. “Why We Crave Horror Movies.” Westga.edu. Westga, n.d. Accessed 3 Mar 2016. DOC.
