Psychological Appeal of Movie Monsters

An Exploration of Possibility Space

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.220502.057How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Entertainment; Monster movies; Pretense; Communication; Media

Abstract

As the popularity of monster movies kept rising in recent decades, the significance of this specific movie genre starts to reveal. This paper addresses the distal cause that underlies the psychological appeal of movie monsters. The cultural connection and realistic reflection of monster movies were investigated through surveying 36 subjects from a film history class and interviewing 10 representative samples selected from the survey subjects. The conclusion of this study is monster movies, resembling chase play, are a form of pretended predation. Engaging in such activities gives humans the ability to explore possibility spaces, predict future threats, and prepare creatively for possible dangers they can face in reality, allowing them to passively learn strategies to deal with dangerous situations in a controlled environment, increasing the survivability of individual or group while facing threats. This study found a positive correlation between how accurately monster movies reflect the audiences’ realistic concerns and the level of enjoyment reported by the audiences. As a direct representation of predation, the visual impacts of monster movies exceed other forms of pretense, evoking the audiences’ emotional reactions more effectively and possessing a higher level of appeal. This study provides evidence to the theory of evolutionary pedagogy and provides insights into the essence of entertainment as an economic and cultural pillar of human civilization.

Copyright

© 2022 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Zizhao Wang
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/05/14
TI  - Psychological Appeal of Movie Monsters
BT  - Proceedings of the 2022 International Conference on Comprehensive Art and Cultural Communication (CACC 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 282
EP  - 286
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.220502.057
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.220502.057
ID  - Wang2022
ER  -