Movies have been growing increasingly more explicit for years. Horror films are no longer based on a cleverly written script with lots of twists and turns, but rather how graphic and twisted the images are throughout the movie. Horror films are appealing to viewers for various reasons. In fact, according to some film critics, “good” horror films have particular characteristics. Maggie McCutcheon in “Too Disturbing, Too Shocking,” According to Olson, people particularly enjoy experiencing the end of their fear and terror. Once the fear and terror have ended, people feel better. And, according to Stephen King in “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” horror films can help us confront our fears, and help us deal with the “bad side” of ourselves. Given the wide variety of characteristics “good “horror films have, this paper will address two specific characteristics of horror films. One characteristic is visual images/suggestions that symbolize our fears. Another characteristic is vitality or strength of source of horror. In order to analyze the characteristics of horror films, I viewed Poltergeist, an early 1980s film about a family being haunted by earthbound spirits, and I also read four definitive articles about horror films.
One characteristic of a good horror films is visual images/suggestions that symbolize our fears. Stanley J. Solomon in “The Nightmare World” claims the cinema of horror concretizes this nightmare world- our abstract fears of destruction and death. The Midnight visits of vampires, the laboratory induced reincarnations, the skull deformities, the murders in the fog - these visual images of the genre may be the symbols of our fears rather than the psychological source of them, but the terror without a body is terror deprived of a means of menacing us. The movie Poltergeist certainly has this characteristic. Examples of visual images from the movie is a scary clown that looks mean , sitting in the chair and has the ability to move , goes