To me, there's a huge difference between King horror and many mindless slasher movies/stories. King's works almost always have moral/physical protagonists fighting against sinister/evil. Often at great sacrifice to achieve victory, or they are offered a chance to sell out.
My general view is that if you cannot handle disturbing or traumatic hypothetical or imaginary scenarios (in movies, books, whatever), you will completely shatter when faced with a REAL horrific or traumatic scenarios. Literature and art allow us to "play" with ideas and emotions, building up a tool box and psychological strength to COPE with the difficulties of life without actually going through them (yet). Certain people and certain classes in America, although not immune to random horrific events happening to them, may have very little risk of having anything traumatic happening to them, and thus see any interest in such things as "weird" or "disturbed". But in reality it's just a survival trait.
@@greyeyed123 I support art, but there's no survival skill for dealing w/a demonic/immortal killer with a meat cleaver.😉 I do worry about desensitization and race to the bottom taking hold. Overestimation of risk: e.g. heart disease likelihood of death vs. physical violence. I think were starting to see it in society that violent acts are becoming more violent and depraved.
@@Alvin-1138 There ARE survival skills in dealing with your fear, coping with anxiety, thinking quickly on your feet when swimming in dread (having an argument about what they SHOULD have done in that scenario to survive), letting your imagination wander afterward to understand a mind different from your own and how you would outwit it, etc. etc. etc. These kind of stories have ALWAYS existed in all cultures, and they do have survival benefits no matter how fanciful the elements in the story are. (I went to the drive in to see EVERYTHING from the time I was very young with my parents. I've gone through many traumatic events throughout childhood, throughout adulthood, and I'm still here and stronger than ever. Coping skills are very good to have. There is nothing you can't get through with coping skills, except a bullet through the heart, silver or not.) FYI, she is right about the research, too.
@@greyeyed123 I'm not sure I agree with that completely because my own experience tells me otherwise. I've never felt comfortable watching horror movies and while I've read the occasional horror novel, that's only because I never found books even hypothetically scary or traumatic, so they just don't affect me in the same way movies do. Meanwhile I'm working at an ER and over the years have seen seriously horrific shit, that I still handle quite fine. So to say that if you can't handle scary art,you can't handle scary real stuff seems like a bit of an overstatement to me. And I'm not saying that it can't have a therapeutic effect by that.
King has said Jack Torrence was loosely based on him, his drinking, and the stay at a hotel in Colorado. He is strange but he manifests it in print constructively.
I don't think THAT is what he admits, exactly. (He's also said he can't remember writing Cujo due to cocaine, so it would be impossible for him to SAY what caused any element of the story, lol.)
Historically In stories, the bad things that happened (murders, almost getting killed or captured) was to be used as warning stories for youngsters growing up…especially girls.
Some people's minds go to the dark side pretty easily and writing horror is a terrific way to exorcise those thoughts -- and make millions, in Stephen King's case. Horror is literally a subset of fantasy. That said, Stephen King witnessed something horrific as a child. It's possible that trauma was the impetus for his writing, but his talent and education gave him the means to use that in his writing. I really agree with Dee Wallace here that it's important for children to learn to face fears in order to overcome them and art is a great way to do that.
I don't know King obvs., but I have a pretty good creep detector and have read most of his published work. He seems honest and mistakes he makes are more just from bad information not bad intent.
Dee is right some reality is far worse than what we see in films😯
To me, there's a huge difference between King horror and many mindless slasher movies/stories. King's works almost always have moral/physical protagonists fighting against sinister/evil. Often at great sacrifice to achieve victory, or they are offered a chance to sell out.
My general view is that if you cannot handle disturbing or traumatic hypothetical or imaginary scenarios (in movies, books, whatever), you will completely shatter when faced with a REAL horrific or traumatic scenarios. Literature and art allow us to "play" with ideas and emotions, building up a tool box and psychological strength to COPE with the difficulties of life without actually going through them (yet). Certain people and certain classes in America, although not immune to random horrific events happening to them, may have very little risk of having anything traumatic happening to them, and thus see any interest in such things as "weird" or "disturbed". But in reality it's just a survival trait.
@@greyeyed123 I support art, but there's no survival skill for dealing w/a demonic/immortal killer with a meat cleaver.😉
I do worry about desensitization and race to the bottom taking hold. Overestimation of risk: e.g. heart disease likelihood of death vs. physical violence. I think were starting to see it in society that violent acts are becoming more violent and depraved.
@@Alvin-1138 There ARE survival skills in dealing with your fear, coping with anxiety, thinking quickly on your feet when swimming in dread (having an argument about what they SHOULD have done in that scenario to survive), letting your imagination wander afterward to understand a mind different from your own and how you would outwit it, etc. etc. etc. These kind of stories have ALWAYS existed in all cultures, and they do have survival benefits no matter how fanciful the elements in the story are. (I went to the drive in to see EVERYTHING from the time I was very young with my parents. I've gone through many traumatic events throughout childhood, throughout adulthood, and I'm still here and stronger than ever. Coping skills are very good to have. There is nothing you can't get through with coping skills, except a bullet through the heart, silver or not.) FYI, she is right about the research, too.
@@greyeyed123 I'm not sure I agree with that completely because my own experience tells me otherwise. I've never felt comfortable watching horror movies and while I've read the occasional horror novel, that's only because I never found books even hypothetically scary or traumatic, so they just don't affect me in the same way movies do. Meanwhile I'm working at an ER and over the years have seen seriously horrific shit, that I still handle quite fine. So to say that if you can't handle scary art,you can't handle scary real stuff seems like a bit of an overstatement to me. And I'm not saying that it can't have a therapeutic effect by that.
"It's just bullshit!" Yeah!
She is great!
King has said Jack Torrence was loosely based on him, his drinking, and the stay at a hotel in Colorado. He is strange but he manifests it in print constructively.
Just as comedy often stems from coping with darkness, so does horror stem from a sense of whimsy.
Stephen king wrote most of very dark stuff on whiskey and cocaine. He admits openly that is what caused the super dark writings.
I don't think THAT is what he admits, exactly. (He's also said he can't remember writing Cujo due to cocaine, so it would be impossible for him to SAY what caused any element of the story, lol.)
Total BS.
So you're saying his classic books like The Shining is bad because they are too dark and it was written while King is alcoholic and drug addict?
Dee Wallace is still cute as a button, she’s aged well. I’m still sad Mikey Myers killed her in the Halloween remake.
Historically In stories, the bad things that happened (murders, almost getting killed or captured) was to be used as warning stories for youngsters growing up…especially girls.
Some people's minds go to the dark side pretty easily and writing horror is a terrific way to exorcise those thoughts -- and make millions, in Stephen King's case. Horror is literally a subset of fantasy.
That said, Stephen King witnessed something horrific as a child. It's possible that trauma was the impetus for his writing, but his talent and education gave him the means to use that in his writing.
I really agree with Dee Wallace here that it's important for children to learn to face fears in order to overcome them and art is a great way to do that.
Steven King really isn't that dark. The plots are dark summarized but page to page there is a lot of humor and humanity.
My mom had me watching Freddy and Jason movies when I was 5.
But his TDS still haunts him.
No such thing. Grow up.
Leroy jenkiiiiiinz....
I don't know King obvs., but I have a pretty good creep detector and have read most of his published work. He seems honest and mistakes he makes are more just from bad information not bad intent.