Nightmare World Essay, Research Paper
Analasys of “Nightmare World”
By Luke Miller
In the essay, “Nightmare World” by Stanley J. Solomon, he talks about how a horror film is a safe place to confront fear and violence that pervades our life. Its the fear in our minds that we have, and it is the fear that we can release by watching a scarey movie. One thing that he doesn’t discuss that I wish that he would have, is how he doesn’t get into any different medias.
Stanley J. Solomon really elaborates very well about how the American scarey movie is a great place to really let our fears out. It is a safe contained atmosphere where nothing physically negitive can happen to you. The scarey movie is really a rarity in todays society if you look in the past, there might not be as many scary movies, but in ratio to todays movies it is a lot higher. Just because therre is a lot more junk on the silver screen today.
The visual images in a scarey movie really represents our fears in our minds. Like the huge shark in Jaws is a evil image that represents fear in our minds. But it is the fears in our minds that needs to be realeased. And that is where the horror film comes into play, giving us a safe enviornment to watch and release those fears. As compared to going out o a boat and trying to get as close as you can to death. For on reason it is a lot cheaper to spend your 6 dollars at a movie theater, compared to hundreds or thousands out on a boat in the unpredictable atomosphere of the ocean.
One person that could really bring out fears that lurk in the Nightmare World of our head, was Alfred Hitchcock. He would use a couple different kinds of danger to scare the veiwer. He would use the kind where the person that is going to get murdered doesn’t even know that it is coming, but yet the veiwer can see it clear as day, and the viewer can almost predict how the victim is going to get murdered. The second type that Alfred Hitchcock was really great at, is where everyone knows that the victim is in trouble including the victim. It is really just a waiting game, as to when and how he/she is going to get killed. In most of these situatoins it is a helpless young attractive female who knows the killer is in her house and is just waiting to get slain. One movie that really portrays this well is the Scream triligy.
On thing that Stanley J. Solomon never got around to in his essay is other forms of media that could be used to get into our own “Nightmare World.” He talks about how only movies can get our endorphons going, but what about a good book? I know that when I get involved in a good book that I totally block out everybody and everything else, just to focus on the book. One thing that a book can do for you, or you do it for yourself, is that with a book you can read the discription of the character, but you get to picture him/her in your own way in your head, which might let you get rid of some of the gears that we might have built up in our heads. Another media that really is just now getting exposed is books on tape. They let you totally relax to a reader which might even be the author, describe the story in his/her own thought and voice. Thus letting you totally relax into the story and hearing it the way that it was ment to be. This method of media would also allow you to release the horrors of your own Nightmare World.
All together many different things contribute factors to our nightmare world. But most importantly, we can release all of these fears in the safe envirnment of our own heads.