When I see movies about paranormal activities, or monsters, or ghosts, it attracts my attention because that doesn’t happen in real life. However, the feelings, emotions, and connections we make to those movies are humanity. The creators of those kind of movies exaggerate scenes drastically and show us that we humans are not like that. It’s like the more we watch those movies, like it or not we’d believe the things that happen in movies begin happening in real life. A couple years ago I was deeply preoccupied with horror movies with my friends. Not thinking about what time it was, we would watch them all night. But the next couple days I would get scared when it was dark in my room, and think about those movies I had watched. But then I realized that the monsters, ghosts, zombies, and other paranormal beings were not real. As a species we have evolved with emotions and feelings, and mistakes and successes. That’s what being human all is about and how we feel through these movies. Although that’s what being human is about, these movies make it seem like we are all evil and have no humanity.
Being human or having humanity is what makes you have those feelings or emotions. With my own experiences I know that we all feel loneliness and a fear of alienation. I have dealt with anxiety and depression through the past year and I always felt alone with no one to talk to. I know that these are all things we feel but not necessarily fear. I don’t think that people who have anxiety really fear being alone sometimes. Other people however, can have a fear of being alienated and alone. How do we react when we feel these emotions of loneliness? Well for me, I did not have a problem with being by myself because I am more of an introvert; staying home with my family and being with people you actually care about was more important to me than hanging out with people who will come and go. So in fact, having emotions like loneliness and a feeling alienated is what we all feel, it is just shown in different ways.
All of the emotions I have of anxiety or fear of loneliness is shown through movies like Insidious. There are three sequels to that movie. It is my favorite horror movie of all time, even though it makes me cringe every time I watch it. When it shows how the little boy in that movie is stuck in his dream and he can’t get out because he’s trapped by this scary monster inside that possesses him, his dad has to go into the little boy’s head to get him out. It’s like being trapped in a small pitch black room with no one, having so much fear not knowing what’s going to happen next. And that is fearing the unknown.
Is it natural to fear the unknown, things that are different or things that are perceived as unattractive or strange? Like I said before, how that I’d watch horror movies and get scared for believing something was there when it wasn’t. This is kind of the same because I think that it is natural to fear the thought of something not being there because it is all in your head. Although you shouldn’t believe everything you see, people do. And even though scary things can seem scary, fearing that more than how it actually is, is all in your head. So when I watch movies, I actually make the movie scarier than it actually is because when I get scared, I scream. Like when I watched the movie “Mama” I was with a couple of my friends and my heart was beating really fast because it showed a little girl walking into a room watching a chair rocking back and forth, and you turn around then see the monster behind you. Even before seeing the monster, walking into a room with a chair rocking back and forth with no one sitting on it can still be a little scary when you don’t know what is going to happen.
Scary movies have been around for a long time, and so many people underestimate them and like to start watching those movies thinking that it won’t be scary. But through these movies, we show humanity of all people with the feelings we can’t overcome. In movies like “Insidious” and “Mama”, not only does it feature gruesome stories or creatures, it naturally brings out the humanity of others. Even though the movies we see about paranormal activities, or monsters, or ghosts may not seem real, the feelings, emotions, and connections that we have with these movies is the most real thing of all.