‘HORROR FILMS’…….. this genre brings in viewers from all
over the world and from every caste of life. Recently the craze for horror
movies is in high among every age group. Starting from a youth to eighty years old
are all equally driven towards this genre, even children below fifteen are also
showing interest towards this genre.
As we all know every coin have two sides, similarly along
with entertainment this genre also leave bad impact in our mind especially in a
developing mind, like mainly on children within age fifteen but it can also
create negative impact on a human between ages thirty because after thirties a
human brain can be called as matured brain.
Horror films, when done well and with less reliance
on horrifying special effects, can be extremely potent film forms, tapping into
our dream states and the horror of the irrational and unknown, and the horror
within man himself. The best horror films only imply or suggest the horror in
subtle ways, rather than blatantly displaying it. In horror films, the
irrational forces of chaos or horror invariably need to be defeated, and often
these films end with a return to normalcy and victory over the monstrous.
We can easily assume that by watching these kinds of genre
will leave an effect over the psychological status of adult human being along
with children.
To emphasis this I am sharing an old interview taken by me on this topic of Dr. Sanjay Sen,
MBBS (Cal), DPM(Dublin), MRCPsych (London), CCST (UK), Consultant psychiatrist.
This was mainly focused on the impact of this genre in a child’s mind.
The brain of a child
develops in every fraction of time; therefore they easily can create an
imaginative, supernatural world around them. A child’s brain get stimulated
when he/she witness something new or something unusual or the things which use
to create a sudden shock over them. And then they start imagining about them,
this deep imagination of theirs use to draw them away from the truth and force
them to believe the unreal imagination of theirs to be true. Now it depends on
the film that the impact will be negative or positive on a child. The horror
films which contain slaughtering someone’s head with sword, chopping out of
hands, dripping down of blood from face or any violence and cruelty can effect
negatively upon a child’s brain while a positive effect can also shadow over a child’s brain if the movie is more
about mythological horror stories.
Particular
objects that effects negatively on a child’s mind……….
Previously, horror films does not use to affect a child like now a
days, because the presentation of a horror movie was a lot fantasising and
mythology based but now a days each and every horror films contain violence,
aggression and cruelty this particular things effect upon a child’s mind
negatively and can also make them traumatic.
Age
group which imbibe the negative effect of horror genre easily……..
Aggression and violence are always being modelled by human being
maximum time at any age. Likewise a child use to model violence and cruelty
from a horror genre, which helps to develop negative impact upon their mind.
Sometimes there can be a genetic role also. So, any aged child within the
period of their brain development can imbibe negative effect easily.
After doing
a survey I got to know that many children suffered from short term trauma after
watching horror genres, so can this short term trauma ever covert into any big
psychological problem in future?
Yes, it obviously can. The main emotional developments of a child
start from the age of 4 and continue till adolescent. All the emotional
behaviours (like how much a person will become nervous, how much a person will
become tension prone, whether a person will became pessimist or optimist, how
much emotional warmth one will have, how to behave in a critical situations and
how to deal with it..etc.etc) depends upon the rate of development at that
time. Therefore, if at that period of we expose a child to negative events, the
child will absorb negative effect due to which for that instant of time they
may suffer from short term trauma but it will stay imbedded in their mind
forever which may lead to serious psychological problem in future.
Necessity
of parental guidance for a child……
Super vision of parents is necessary while a child is watching
horror genre; they
should guide what is good to watch n what is not. The CDs,
DVDs and all those stuffs that contain those violent horror movies should keep
out of reach from their children’s.
