Argument Analysis 7- "Why We Crave Horror Movies"

Although I completely disagree with Stephen King I do admire his style of writing in this argument. He uses a great amount of humor and narcissistic sarcasm that really appeal to a reader and make it easy to understand his point of view. Through his use of grimy, creepy, yet vivid visuals that are so typically Stephen King, the reader has the opportunity to connect to him through the use of imagination.

Stephen King immediately draws us in with his attention-grabbing first line of "I think we're all mentally ill" (King). He uses distinct character descriptions of people we all know that allow us to correlate with his claim. I never though that I would have anything in common with master horror writer Stephen King but he even grabs my attention in the first paragraph. I believe his thesis is his first line- the reason we crave horror movies is that we are all mentally ill. He states what is wrong with society and then proceeds to explain why this is the reason for our horror movie craze. King is excellent at not following a typical argumentative template but rather, states the problem, poses the question why, and then answers with visuals and everyday applications.

King uses supporting evidence by explaining the degrees of our insanity and that we are not all Jack the Ripper. We are simply humans with fears and we try and prove that we can face these fears by sitting in a dark room and watching a movie. This is where King's use of voice and style come into play. By convincing the audience that we have varying degrees of insanity and a want to "re-establish our feelings of essential normality," he justifies the reason for society's want to see horror movies. He plays it off as simply wanting to go have fun even if it is a distorted and sick type of fun. Horror movies are a peaceful way to release this emotion that would otherwise make us end up in a prison cell.

King uses the metaphor of an alligator pit as the excuse for watching these movies- if we feed the alligators it keeps them at bay and they don't want to escape. Same with these violent inclinations that we apparently house in our brain- if we feed the violence on occasion those violent tendencies aren't released.