Masuk Free Press

Spooky season is upon us!

With the beginning of autumn comes many things; the air gets colder, leaves change colors, people find themselves watching Fear Street instead of The Summer I Turned Pretty. Although the actual event is only officially celebrated on one day at the end of the month, the spirit of Halloween is in the air from October 1 through October 31.

One of the most iconic staples of the fall season is horror movies. Always has been, always will be. Regardless of the year, whether it is Smile or The Shining that you are tuning into, the fact remains that in October, people like to be scared. During this eerie month, what is an easier way to do so than by sitting down to binge watch some horror flicks?

Horror movies are a unique film category. They are defined as movies that seek to incite disgust in their audiences, often through the means of physical violence and/or psychological terror. This broad explanation leaves room to add in a range of other genres, including anything from sci-fi to drama. It is this very broadness that allows horror films to appeal to both those looking for a gory thrill and those who view the genre itself as comedy.

Horror movies are a force of unity in this way. No other genre has quite the same level of impact. Take rom-coms, for example. A person might absolutely adore comedies but not be able to stand romances. There is nothing you can do to misinterpret romance movies. No matter who is watching, personal beliefs and experiences aside, the same two characters will always be perceived to be falling in love. Horror, on the other hand? Each individual has their own ideas of what is scary. It is an entirely subjective matter.

From many angles, It Chapter Two is just a fake out comedy that ends as a tragedy. Scream is a satire piece that keeps breaking the fourth wall. Silence of the Lambs is an extended procedural cop show. At the same time, It Chapter Two is a gruesome film about a child murderer that ends in bloodshed and tears. Scream is about a girl whose boyfriend is stalking and attempting to murder her. Silence of the Lambs tells tales of cannibals and men who sew suits of human skin. 

Everyone watches horror movies with a different perspective. There are so many plots to be connected, mysteries to be solved, identities to be revealed. What someone focuses on most in a storyline is what determines how their viewing experience will play out.

For instance, take this example with the movie Scream (1996). 

Alexa Gill, a junior at Masuk, said, “My opinion on Scream is one, it’s terrifying, and two, it’s a horrible movie. The plot just kind of goes on with no real official start or end and that bothers me. I also can’t stand gore, so when people are getting caught in garage doors and I have to visually watch that, it makes me want to throw up.”

This is an understandable angle to take. Watching Tatum, the character in question getting caught in a garage door, die is not a high point of the movie. However, it is not as traumatizing to everyone as it was to Gill. 

Lindsey DuBois, a senior and horror afficionado, said, “Scream is the OG. It’s the first horror movie that got me into horror. Even though they [horror movies] are not all the same, like sometimes I’m wrong when I’m guessing the ending of a whodunnit, they repeat themselves. Even if I’m wrong, it feels comforting in a weird way. A lot of horror directors copy other directors, in a way. They try to recreate some plot of one horror movie. With Scream especially, a lot of people have tried to recreate that level of iconicness.”

DuBois is not wrong in her assessment of this repetition. There are certain cliches that horror movies follow. For some, the false jump scare at the beginning of the movie that warms the audience up for the true fright later on can be a bit too much. Others, like DuBois, find the predictability to be comforting.

Gill and DuBois may not have set out to watch Scream with the same intentions, or even have had the same takeaway from it, but their watches were both memorable. Even for people who do not necessarily enjoy horror movies like Gill, there is still something to be said for the experience of watching a horror movie.

Unifying humanity is not the only thing that horror movies are good for. They are also incredibly inspiring. Watching a bloodied main character narrowly escape their death really brings into perspective how fleeting life is. They make one acutely aware of just how resilient the human psyche can be.

“I think that if someone was trying to kill me, I could take it,” said Taylor Brunelle, a junior and employee of the Edmond Town Hall movie theater. “Or a ghost or a zombie. I could survive.”

Seeing just how easily people can be killed serves as excellent motivation to go out and truly live. Time is a precious commodity that should not be wasted. Nothing makes this more clear than seeing teenagers get ruthlessly disemboweled by a masked killer.

In the end, everyone is entitled to their own opinions. You can cower in fright at seeing Ghostface or make jokes about how easy it would have been for any one of the characters in the franchise to just rip off the mask. The wonder of horror movies is that they are completely up to the viewer’s interpretation. Where other genres have tried to make themselves into something universally appealing, horror is the only one that has managed to come close to this feat. And is that not beautiful?