Justification in Horror Movies

One theme that has continuously come up during my research is that of justification and the monster/killer as an object of pity. While watching horror movies, look at who is killed first and who survives. There is a moral code that, to a certain extent, dictates which characters survive.
Glenn Walters is quick to point out that chaste girls are among the least likely characters to be killed during horror movies. Our own popular culture notices this to. The popular website “ Texts from Last Night” features this quote, “(219):I'm in a trailer park. But I'm not scared. The virgin always lives.” Though sex has become a much less taboo topic in recent years, our culture still encourages girls to remain virgins.
Wilson even draws attention to a theory known as the dispositional alignment theory, which hypothesizes that a person’s reactions to an event during a horror film can be traced back to the feelings they have for the person involved. If a viewer thinks the character deserves punishment, they will look at the violence in a much more positive light.
Robin Wood also notes this phenomenon saying, “Few horror films have totally unsympathetic Monsters” (Wood, 1985: 205). Saw, for example, features Jigsaw, a man who is choosing to kill people he thinks don’t appreciate life. It is revealed in the second film that Jigsaw is also dying from advanced brain cancer. The audience is able to sympathize when they realize that, despite the horrors he has committed, this man is going to die. His choice of victims also makes him more sympathetic. He is not killing “innocent” people. Instead, Jigsaw kills a man who cheats on his wife, a drug dealer, and a rapist just to name a few.
Though audiences are still afraid of killers such as Jigsaw, they understand his motivations. Identifying with the killer and feeling a sense of justification in the violence committed seems to correlate in some way with higher viewer satisfaction.

Works Cited
Walters, Glenn D. "Understanding the Popular Appeal of Horror Cinema: An Integrated-Interactive Model." Journal of Media Psychology 9.2 (2004).

Woods, Robin. "An Introduction to the American Horror Film." Movies & Methods (1985).