My comment about Lamoreux being new didn't have anything to with the fact that I am new also.
It had to do with how he handled the crap that was dished out to him.

Its true - I've personally received two-feet worth of ass-kicking at the hands (er, feet?) of Haunted and still bear the mental and physical scars (as well as a strange sense of longing. . . )

IMO, we all (we, as in society) have an evil streak. It is as old as mans' existance. Most of us don't act out on our evil side because of our sense of morals and values that we had driven into our heads from the time of our conception. I'm sure that we all think evil thought from time to time...things such as "If that fucker says one more thing to me, I'm shoving my knife into his fuckin' chest!" (or could it be just me), anyway, Our ability to judge the morals and values as well as concidering the consequences of our actions keeps most of use from being the next Son of Sam. I do believe, however, that given the right circumstances, even the Pope himself will pull a trigger when it comes right down to it.

Horror movies, for me anyway, is a way to escape reality for a while and ingross myself into something that far surpasses Societies norms. It is shear enjoyment for me to watch something which can occupy my mind and the stresses of my everyday life don't override it.

And besides that...Horror movies are just plain, ol' fashioned fun!

Of course everyone has a deathlust - anybody who says they don't is lying.

Speaking of The Pope, I bet he tells people he doesn't even wank - but of course he'd be lying too, or he'd have the biggest balls in Italy.

Wonder how he copes with wet dreams?

where do you think holy water comes from ?

OK - at the risk of being flamed mercilessly and (again) being accused of being condescending . . .

Over the years of reading horror and lots about horror I've come across a bunch of theories about "why horror?" - the one that most people have suggested here is the "dark side" theory - which is kind of along the lines of Carl Jung and the whole "shadow self" but also similar to Freud and the idea of repression (so the monster is a kind of expression of the desires we've repressed oozing out of our subconcious - so movies and books are kind of like our personal nightmares).

But there are lots of others:
1) Adrenaline rush - horror shocks create a biological pleasure;
2) Rites of passage - I read somewhere this theory that horror movies are popular as "rites of passage" for teenagers (which always kind of made sense to me since I remember first going to horror movies as a pre-teen and it was always with a group and we were all egging each other on).
3) Social Anxiety - we go to horror films/read horror novels as expressions of broader cultural anxieties and problems Andrew Tudor has a great book about this called Monsters and Mad Scientists - also a book by Kendall Phillips called Projected Fears.
4) I read a cool but confusing book by Noel Carroll about how we like horror because its an intellectual puzzle to make sense of monsters - but I'm not sure I entirely understood it.
and, 5) there's also the subculture theory that says people define themselves as "horror fans" and then are attracted to horror stuff because of their self-identification (hmm, sounds familiar?!?!)

So, there are some additional theories - personally I'm not sure why I like horror films - but its an interesting question.

Sure - catharsis.

yeah - catharsis

that really hurts when they stick it in - ouchyyyy

Saves you getting up to go for a piss, though.

:cool:

ahhh - the freedom. . . . :o