As new innovations in horror films continue to emerge, audiences are beginning to grow accustomed to images of gore and death. With directors like Jordan Peele and Ari Aster revolutionizing the genre, horror films are more popular than ever, thus making blood and guts a normal occurance on the big screen.
Gore is morphing from a taboo topic into something viewers have come to expect, especially in horror films. Crime scenes, disembodied heads, violent murders, all of these things are the new normal. People are watching characters in films get their heads split open from the comfort of their living rooms and not thinking twice about how abnormal that would’ve seemed less than 10 years ago.
A fourth year student at Sonoma State University, Nicole Jester, said, “I am able to tell when the films are fake, however over the years filmmakers have gotten better at making it seem real. However, I am very sensitive to blood when I see it in person, but I have become enthralled in the thrilling violence horror films bring.”
Jester is a horror fanatic and would consider it to be one of her favorite genres. The genre seems to have built an almost cult following over the past few years, and nobody seems to mind the gore much anymore.
Society is so used to seeing demonic activity, brutal murders, and blood on the big screen that people are not reflecting on how this exposure affects themselves. Desensitization is a scary thing because people are no longer reacting to violence and gore as once before.
An anonymous student said, “When I was younger, I was very fearful of the gore and demonic activity typically shown in this genre of film, but when growing up my friends would force me to watch horror.”
This student also explained that they felt peer pressured into liking these films, because all of their friends liked horror movies. They said, “I no longer think twice about the film after it’s over, it does not scare me anymore.”
Some films in the genre take gore to an almost comical level, and that’s another factor that contributes to desensitization. If the blood and guts aspect of a film is so over the top that it’s borderline laughable, people no longer take the concept seriously and wouldn’t blink twice at a disemboweled body on the screen in their living room.
Second year student Serena Hayes was very excited for the new Scream movie to come out, because this series is her favorite. She said, “I want to be a mortician, and I attribute my fascination with forensic science to horror films because of all of the dead bodies I’ve seen.”
She understands that these movies are not real, but the interest with dead bodies emerged nonetheless. Hayes said, “I know I am desensitized because of the comfort I feel working in this profession of how normal death has become from these films.”
People often do not think twice when they pass a bad car wreck or hear about a murder, because horror films have made it so common. It is too easy nowadays for people to consume violent media because of how prevalent society makes it, even college students are realizing this at a young age, early on in life.
