In the essay “Why We Crave Horror Movies” by Stephen Kings, Kings claims with some comical examples that “we're all mentally ill.” In my personally opinion he is absolutely right. Everyone in this world is mentally ill, only the level is different. People's unusual behaviors are the proof of such illness. Kings says that we watch horror movies to “reestablish our feelings of essential normality.” These movies are the source of some kind of fun and extensively help to satisfy the bad within us. The real fun comes from seeing others menaced-sometimes killed. Ultimately, we all do some sort of crazy things in our lives for short term fun or only to show others we are not afraid of doing such things. Kings includes the example of one critics in the essay to reflect the human nature that every person enjoys seeing the pain or distress of others. Once in awhile we all want to thrash out on someone. Watching horror movies or ridding roller coasters may be the good way to let our frustration out through our imagination, rather than any physical action. In this essay, Kings says that “if we are all insane, then sanity becomes a matter of degree.” I feel that this is an excellent way to say that everyone has something special that makes them distinct from others and prevents them to turn into normal. But no one likes to admit that certain things just set them off and make them lose control, but we all have that. The degree of insanity can be used towards judging anyone how normal or crazy he or she is. Person's degree of insanity can vary depending in his or her stressful situation. The insanity leads people “to carve up women like Jack the Ripper,” this is the way we can determine if one needs to be institutionalized or not. People do many odd things in life just to show we are not afraid and we are not scared. Sometimes we do life threatening things just to show others that we can do it or we are able to do it. Kings in the sentence “the potential lyncher is in almost all of us” tries to convince the readers that we all do some crazy things at some point of our lives, some do such every day and some do once in a life, but everyone does it. Kings mentions that there are some emotions: love, friendship, loyalty, kindness; which we learn before we get out of diapers. Eventually, when we show such emotions, society showers us with positive reinforcement. However; there are some anticivilization emotions which do not go away. Here he introduces the example of “sick” jokes. Kings nicely says that “if we share a brotherhood of man, then we also share an insanity of man. None of which is intended as a defense of either the sick joke or insanity but merely as an explanation of the best horror films.” At the end of the essay Kings clearly says that mythic horror movie has a dirty job to do and it deliberately appeals to all that is worst in us. However; horror movies serve as a valuable social purpose. Some people including Kings like them intensely whereas some people are shy and want to way from horror movies. It should not bother anyone. The only thing we all need is love.
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