midnight rain

This is definitely true, at least for mainstream horror. I think that, on some level, all humans enjoy seeing murder and gore. I don't know much about psychology, but I'd probably place it in a similar category to erotica. Not that we'll all get turned on by violence or anything like that, but we are fascinated by death and gore and blood, and you do have to wonder why.

I think The Sopranos did a good job of showing lots of violence and then questioning why the viewer enjoys it and wants more. Example being when

and at the end everyone is hoping Melfi will tell Tony what happened so he can exact revenge on the 'employee of the month'. Then, when she doesn't, we're left sitting and wondering why we'd want something like that to happen anyways.


Ok now that I've verged off topic, let me just say that I consider horror similar to erotica. We don't come to get a good story, we come to satiate our need for violence. Or the more shallow of us, at least.

I like horror that's violent when it's done right and sadly don't see it too often these days. Movies mentioned in this thread like Audition, Black Christmas, and The Shining are all great and have more going on then gratuitous violence, though.