This article looks at why so many people enjoy seeing even horrific violence on screen, most extremely in what are labeled as slasher films, and what types of people are attracted to them.

Some people are more likely to enjoy violent media than others. Being male, aggressive and having less empathy all make you more likely to enjoy watching screen violence. There are also certain personality traits associated liking violent media. Extroverted people, who seek excitement, and people who are more open to aesthetic experiences, like watching violent movies more.

Conversely, people high in agreeableness – characterised by humility and sympathy for others – tend to like violent media less.
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More recent research, derived from studies of horror films, suggests there may be three categories of people who enjoy watching violence, each with their own reasons.

One group has been dubbed “adrenaline junkies”. These sensation seekers want new and intense experiences, and are more likely to get a rush from watching violence. Part of this group may be people who like seeing others suffer. Sadists feel other people’s pain more than normal, and enjoy it.

Another group enjoys watching violence because they feel they learn something from it. In horror studies, such people are called “white knucklers”. Like adrenaline junkies, they feel intense emotions from watching horror. But they dislike these emotions. They tolerate it because they feel it helps them learn something about how to survive.
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A final group seems to get both sets of benefits. They enjoy the sensations generated by watching violence and feel they learn something. In the horror genre, such people have been called “dark copers”.

It turns out that getting a lot of blood and gore in scenes in films is very difficult for the filmmakers.

[Director Kevin Greutert] recalled that while shooting “Saw VI,” he and his special effects crews would often spend hours in a day setting up a single gory scene. Rubber limbs, blood-filled squibs and blood tubes are attached to actors who rehearse reactions of agony and terror; gallons of (fake) blood are pumped through hoses so they can be sprayed at precisely the right moment.

“Whenever you have to do a gore shot more than once, this usually involves cleaning up the set, replacing the actor’s bloody wardrobe and washing their hair and body off, re-rigging the special effects, and cleaning blood off the camera lens,” Greutert explained. “Sometimes the schedule doesn’t allow for any of this. The pressure to get it right is tremendous.”
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“Perhaps part of the ecstasy I feel when it all goes right is just professional responsibility and the desire to not waste other people’s time and money,” Greutert explained. “But who can argue with the spectacle of seeing someone realistically decapitated with a chainsaw before your very eyes, and knowing that you orchestrated this modern blood sacrifice, and it will be shared with millions?”

I can argue with it. I have no wish to see “someone realistically decapitated with a chainsaw”, thank you very much. Not only does it not appeal to me, I feel revulsed.

Oddly enough, violence does not seem to be necessary for enjoyment.

There are reasons to reconsider how much we like watching violence per se. For example, in one study researchers showed two groups of people the 1993 movie, The Fugitive. One group were shown an unedited movie, while another saw a version with all violence edited out. Despite this, both groups liked the film equally.

This finding has been supported by other studies which have also found that removing graphic violence from a film does not make people like it less. There is even evidence that people enjoy non-violent versions of films more than violent versions.

There are suggestions that watching horror films may actually soothe people’s anxiety.

“The paradox of horror is a very old puzzle,” says Mark Miller, a research fellow at Monash University in Australia and the University of Toronto. “Even Aristotle spoke about how weird it is that we’re set up to evade and to avoid dangerous, disgusting, harmful, horrible things. Yet we feel magnetised to be in spaces where we’re in touch with disgusting, horrible, noxious or horrifying things.”

Over the past 10 years, psychologists have finally begun to resolve this enigma. Some evidence indicates that horror stories tap into key processes of the brain that help us deal with uncertainty. The latest results suggest these fictional tales of terror may even bring some serious psychological benefits – including reducing the anxiety we feel about events out in the real world. They are a salve for our worries.

I am definitely in the group that is averse to graphic violence. Before I watch anything, I research to see what kind of content it contains. If it indicates that there will be gore and horror, I will give it a miss. I can tolerate a little bit of violence (it is pretty much unavoidable these days) but if it looks like there will be a lot of it, then that too is a disqualifier. I am squeamish when it comes to seeing other people in pain. Even when it looks like someone is merely going to get an injection, I look away. Oddly enough, I have no problems with getting injections myself, it is seeing others get them that bothers me. I may have got this from my father. I recall how once he had to accompany his granddaughter to the doctor to get a series of rabies injections because she had been bitten by a stray dog. While my eight-year old niece was perfectly able to cope with the injections without any problem and was very stoic, he had to leave the room while it happened.

But it seems like I am in the minority. There seems a huge audience for slasher films and TV shows that feature lots of horror and gore. Especially leading up to the Halloween, we get inundated with promos for films that emphasize the horror and gore. I skip all of them. Needlessly to say, this means that I also avoid all medical and hospital dramas because of the obligatory scenes in operating rooms. I also go nowhere near hugely popular shows like Game of Thrones and Squid Game because of their reputations for violence and gore. I even used to avoid The Simpsons Halloween specials, and those are cartoons.