Tyler and David were watching Slasher
Summer Camp VIII when Tyler hit the pause button on the DVD player and
said, ‘So dude what do you think?”
“Pretty lame”
“Yeh, pretty lame. We’re halfway through the flick and only…what, not
even ten chicks have been slashed and killed so far?”
“Weak.”
“You know what my favorite one was? Slasher
Summer Camp III.”
“Yes! Was that the one where the slasher started using a chain saw?”
“No that was II. Slasher Summer
Camp III was when he started using a Weed Wacker.”
“Yes that was awesome. He really trimmed out the nerds that year. Then
with IV, he started using machines like tree mulchers and those big farm
harvesters. I didn’t like none of that.”
“Remember how scared we were when we watched the first one way back when
we in the third grade?”
“Yes. I had nightmares for weeks.”
“Me too, but you know what? I found a copy of that DVD and watched it a
few weeks ago and it was no big deal. It didn’t scare me at all.”
“You lie.”
“No. For real. I was actually bored by it, and I watched it alone at
night. I can’t believe I was so scared when I watched it for the first time
with you years ago.”
“We were only eight years old. We were dweebs. It didn’t take much to
scare us.”
“I guess not. That slasher only killed three chicks and with each one
you could see it coming a mile away.”
“Which one was your favorite?”
Tyler carefully considered the question, then said, “I’d have to say my
favorite was VI with the cannibalism. Especially when he popped out his
victims’ eyeballs and strung them together in a necklace.”
“Yes. Then he started eating them like hard boiled eggs. I almost
hurled.”
“You hurled on that? That was nothing. Remember when he made half the
kids eat raw broccoli and cauliflower, then killed them and made the other half
eat their intestines? I hurled on that. I hate vegetables!”
Analysis
Horror films present a god topic to see habituation in action over time.
Each year horror films need more suspense, gore, and maniacal behavior in order
to keep attracting and entertaining audiences – especially their target
demographic audience of teenaged boys. Producers of horror film cannot present
the same level of violence and grossness each year and expect to trigger the
same reaction in their audiences because their audiences become habituated. In
this example, Tyler and David were very scared when they viewed the first Slasher Summer Camp film when they were
young boys. But as they watched more blood and gore, they became habituated so
that it took more deaths and more violent forms of death to continue to evoke
the same level of fear. It also took a higher level of grossness to make them
feel nauseous.
