Horror movies have undoubtedly left their mark on adolescent culture. Most teens nowadays can attest to ignoring the “eighteen plus” ratings on some of their Halloween favorites (a recent study showing that 95 percent of adolescents ages 13-16 watch slashers), while most adults persist in insisting that horrors, particularly slashers, are ultimately damaging to the youth. After all, one cannot deny the countless copycat killers mimicking their favorite gruesome on-screen killing. But are these movies many of us hold near and dear to our heart ultimately as damaging as many critics claim?
Whilst violent movies are relatively new, horror stories in general can be traced back to humanity’s earliest days. Folklore, cautionary tales, and religious texts often told stories of the malevolent and terrifying. Cinema was a major revival of the genre. As the early 20th century horror was more abstract, its villain often coinciding with famous monsters or psychosis, the slasher genre marked a new development. The slasher format is simple: a group of people (usually teens), are pursued incessantly by a (usually anonymous) killer before being picked off one by one by every method imaginable, from chainsaws to knitting needles. However, what is not so simple are the apparent societal repercussions this subgenre has had.
There have not just been a couple of one-off killings mirroring the movies we know and love. Instead,we have seen these patterns emerge time and time again. The Scream franchise has influenced many such murders, including an instance of two boys boasting about how the movies inspired them to murder their classmate; another man donned the killer’s famous mask and robes when killing a fifteen year old girl. Two tweens’ nearly fatally attacked a twelve year old girl after being inspired by the fictional entity Slender Man. Two ten year olds brutally murdered a two year old after allegedly being inspired by the Chucky movies. There are simply too many instances of killers copying the slasher movies to disregard claims that violence in media leads to murder in real life.
In fact, a significant amount of studies draw lines between trends of violence in media and its reflection on the youth; however, not enough results have been generated to signify one clear answer or another. Overall the issue of horror movie-induced violence continues to create divides within the scientific community, although many creatives argue otherwise.
“Real life causes this, fake life does not cause it. The reason for a lot of these movies is the culture that we live in, the events that have gone on in our world. Censorship never works, you cannot destroy an idea. You can hide, you can try to cover it up, but you can’t destroy it, it will be there and it will bubble up again.”
John Carpenter, director of “Halloween”
Whilst one must note John Carpenter’s Halloween inspired a copycat double homicide in 2012, his point still comes across. Violence has always been present in humanity, and the fact that many people are only now beginning to source entertainment from the emotion does not change that fact. Yet when examining slasher films’ target audience, primarily impressionable teens, and the numerous crimes committed in the name of such movies, it is hard to make an argument for them. The issue simply draws back to a critical question the world has been facing since the beginning of storytelling: to what extent should our media and entertainment reflect the dark parts of society?
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