Horror in the USA - What makes the people enjoy it?

Seminar paper from the year 1999 in the subject American Studies - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,3 (A), , language: English, abstract: "e;The Sixth Sense"e;, "e;Sleepy Hollow"e;, "e;Blair Witch Project"e;, "e;The Mummy"e;, "e;Scream I + II"e;, "e;I Know What You Did Last Summer"e;, "e;Deep Blue Sea"e;, "e;Buffy The Vampire Slayer"e; or "e;The X-Files"e; the list seems endless. At the moment, American film directors seem to bend over backwards to produce horror movies and series, one more cruel, more scary and more bloody than the other, and people seem to be wilder about these movies than ever. They rush into the cinemas, go through hell while watching the movies, creep shivering and quivering out of the cinemas again, and they love the whole thing. They come out with the desire to see more of this frightening stuff. Horror and terror have become a media and cultural event. This is a phenomenon which is still very controversial, but more actual than ever, and it does not only occupy scholars but also the fans of the popular genre and people who wonder at it. The most obvious question seems to be, why do these people pay so much money just to be made feel uncomfortable ? - What makes them like that? A question which cannot be answered right away, because it deals with several aspects of the genre horror. It does not only concern the nature of horror itself but also people - the fans -, their psyches, and, of course, society and culture, which have an immense influence on the people and on the development of horror. "e;It's fun to be frightened"e;, says Marc Segal, who teaches a Horror/Fantasy class at anAmerican high school. He meets, talks to and works with many of `passionate' fans every day, and he certainly asks them quite often - at least at the beginning of every new school year - why they have joined the class. The key for where this `fun' may come from and other reasons why people are fascinated with horror will be explained in this paper. In addition, this work will touch another subject, which is also considerable in this respect: horror's impact and effects on the psyche and on social behavior.