Representations of death in the movie horror

Abstract

The problem that served as an excuse for writing this article is of interest both for modern philosophy and for psychology. In the way members of modern society perceive horror films, cognitive attitudes toward life and death are refracted. The influence of film horror as an element of mass culture is subject to a wide audience. Despite mass thanatophobia, scenes of violence and death in cinema horror are of interest to viewers. The purpose of the study is to analyze the effect of the cinema-horror on consciousness through screen images of death. Methods and approaches: comparative, semiotic, sociophenomenological, psychoanalytic. Death as a result of violent actions of a monster (monsters) or irresistible supernatural dark forces is an indispensable element of a movie horror. Despite the horror and disgust that can cause certain scenes from horror films, they attract a certain part of the mass audience. This can be explained by the unconscious attraction to death, the desire to compensate for the fear of one's own withdrawal, the craving for the unknown and the mysterious, the desire to escape from the monotonous and boring routine and routine. The presence of death on the screen can unobtrusively contribute to the formation of a more adequate attitude to this phenomenon, consisting in its acceptance as natural and inevitable.