A Sense of Terror: The First Ten Minutes of "The Shining"
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It's Halloween season, which is one of my favorite movie times of the year. Not only do I like scary movies, but I'm also someone who tends to be stimulation-oriented, and scary movies – or the best of them, at least – function through stimulation. That this isn't a groundbreaking observation should be clear from the language we often use to describe the feeling of watching something of this sort: it puts us on "the edge of our seats" or it's "hair-raising" or "spine-tingling." All of these phrases, and many more, are about physicality. Do these movies actually move us forward in our chairs, or cause reactions in our bodies? Sometimes, yes. But the language here is also metaphorical: they at least make it feel as though our bodies are responding.
A Sense of Terror: The First Ten Minutes of "The Shining"
A Sense of Terror: The First Ten Minutes of…
A Sense of Terror: The First Ten Minutes of "The Shining"
It's Halloween season, which is one of my favorite movie times of the year. Not only do I like scary movies, but I'm also someone who tends to be stimulation-oriented, and scary movies – or the best of them, at least – function through stimulation. That this isn't a groundbreaking observation should be clear from the language we often use to describe the feeling of watching something of this sort: it puts us on "the edge of our seats" or it's "hair-raising" or "spine-tingling." All of these phrases, and many more, are about physicality. Do these movies actually move us forward in our chairs, or cause reactions in our bodies? Sometimes, yes. But the language here is also metaphorical: they at least make it feel as though our bodies are responding.