Scare Me Once, Shame on You

I’d like to dedicate this blog to the scary movie trailers that leave me a little more than slightly disturbed, especially on those late nights when I think a little television will put me to sleep.  Psych,”no sleep for you, one year”!  (Seinfeld reference)   
   

The trailer I have in particular picked out is the one for American Horror Story on FX.  I love that channel but I hate seeing that commercial pop up because it spooks me so much.  It comes on no matter what I’m watching, whether it be a drama or a comedy or whatever other genre that channel has.  Seriously though, I don’t even have to give a specific example because we all have that one trailer in our heads picked out that gives us the willies just thinking about it.  In real life we are shocked when people do these awful things, yet look at what we’re contributing to:  Saw I-VII and other movies with demonic spirits slaughtering innocent families (Paranormal Activity series).  Our wallets show that we actually like to see violence, just not on the news.  I know nobody likes to blame media for any of these psycho attacks that happen in real life but I think we can’t simply ignore that we all feel there has to be at least a slight correlation.  

The things that pop up on “night time t.v.” (I think the earliest time I’ve seen a creepy trailer was 7?)  are just plain awful, in my humble opinion.  Who’s 10 year old do you know goes to bed before “night time television” comes on?  Are those movie trailers what you’d want your child watching?  And we want to say they have no effect on whether or not they’ll be violent?  I don’t want to risk my kids becoming psychopathic killers, or more realistically traumatizing them at the very least.  Or let’s even forget 10 year olds, I’m 20 and I still don’t want to see that stuff.  Here I am watching Wilfred (a comedy show on FX) and next thing I know I’m being bombarded with bloody scenes and demon possessed killers on the loose.  Talk about a mood destroyer, happy to terrified in .6 seconds, that should be the measurement used for how scary trailers are.  It amazes me what’s allowed to be played on public television.  

Now I don’t think watching a trailer will make someone twisted but one can’t watch that stuff over and over again without being affected by it whether they respond positively or negatively to it.  Media can’t be held responsible for how people react to what they put out but I think as a society we can make a statement and say “No, we don’t support this type of behavior.  Therefore, we won’t spend our money on things that glorify, make light of, or potentially influence violence.”  

The fact that these movies are making truckloads of money with essentially the same plot over and over again has to reflect something in our society otherwise they wouldn’t make a dime.  The question is, what exactly causes us to have such an obsession with these movies?  Is it the fact that the plot can be so far fetched that it peaks our curiosity?  I don’t think it can be too far fetched because then it would no longer be scary, I think we have to relate to the story on some level in order to get emotionally invested to become scared.  So then if it’s pure curiosity with this violence that draws us in, then should’t that be a red flag that something might be wrong with what we’re thinking about?  Or is it curiosity because some of these things we feel could never happen in real life so we live out these alternate realities to fulfill some unknown pleasure that comes from seeing these images?  So then is the movie like getting a really in-depth fictional news story about something awful that happened?  I don’t know about anyone else but I’m not one to look through news sites trying to find something tragic, I don’t think enough people enjoy that feeling for them to project that same desire to scary movies.  

I truly believe that society has an obsession with violence, I’m not sure if it’s nature or nurture.  Maybe it’s this primal instinct from our cave man days that’s lacking because our world that we live in is so urbanized that we no longer have that natural encounter with such extreme fear so we seek it elsewhere?  Or perhaps with this recent obsession with the need to be constantly being entertained that we are now having to always push the envelope for what gets us excited.   Just like a serial killer who no longer finds pleasure in killing his victims one way so he progresses to another way  and another way until a regular murder has turned into something inhuman.  I’m just saying I think we have to draw a line somewhere before we end up in a place we thought we’d never be.  

I’d really be interested to hear someone’s response who loves scary movies, especially the ones that are more slasher than spooky, you know just raw violence like the Saw films.  What is it that makes people come back for more?