Insanity In Stephen King's Why We Crave Horror Movies

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In Stephen King’s “Why We Crave Horror Movies”, King exposes the insanity of mankind to answer the question: why is humanity so drawn to horror film? King adopts a cynical tone to explain how horror movies are the outlet humans use to indulge in their darkest, most socially unacceptable compulsions.
King’s dramatic diction supports his claim that people are compulsively and obsessively drawn to horror films. By using “crave” in the title rather than simply stating “love”, King reveals humanities passion for these movies. Crave is connotated with obsession, desire, and lust. Love is simple and less powerful of a word. Everyone loves things, they love their dogs, they love pizza, or they love weekends without homework. Love is associated with …show more content…
Instead of using love, King writes crave, a word which much more accurately captures the mentally ill way in which people watch horror films. Mankind doesn’t just love horror films, or simply enjoys them, but is manically drawn to them. King writes crave in order to express humanities addiction to horror movies which goes much further than love and borders on mental illness. In this vain, King uses the words “public lynching” and “potential lyncher” to describe the phenomena of the publics addiction to horror movies. Historically, lynching is associated with the American revolutionaries and their hanging of Tories, the KKK, and even the French Revolution. Lynching is linked with a mob mentality and bloodlust, a manic thirst for violence. Lynching has a much more informal connotation than execution. Execution is official and reserved for the government to dole out, while lynching is a frenzy of citizens filled with rage and untapped madness. By using lynching rather than execution, King likens the viewers of horror movies to a crazed mob obsessed with violence. King uses lynching in order to further paint humans as mentally ill and obsessive and in need of an outlet for their craving for

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