Thread: Movies and its psychological effect on your mind

Apparently you've also moved out of your manhood.


I jest! I jest!


That's the fun of movies--any story telling medium, really. You don't just feel emotions during the movie, you also feel them afterward. You're just feeling a little let down because you've fixated on scary movies and are worried it makes you a wuss (don't blame the movie, you were like that before).

But think about it: it's the same way for every type of movie. When you've watched an amorous movie, don't you also keep feeling that afterward? Aren't you a little more touchy-feely with your girlfriend? How about movies about injustice (such as the Family Man)? Don't you tend to be a little more riled up about the unfairness of life? Aren't you a little more aware of it for ta time after the movie?

Emotions seldom just cut off, they tend to fade. With a powerful medium like movies, the emotions felt are stronger and last longer.

Short version: you're human.

Yea, i agree. Every movie that you're drawn into has a powerful effect on you. I just find it strange that i feel these emotions when i watch movies alone. I am so used to watching movies with other people that i tend to have little or no emotional effect. Is it because i have my guard up? Don't want to feel like a wuss in front of them? I am sure the same goes for everyone.

Originally Posted by shiznit2169

Yea, i agree. Every movie that you're drawn into has a powerful effect on you. I just find it strange that i feel these emotions when i watch movies alone. I am so used to watching movies with other people that i tend to have little or no emotional effect. Is it because i have my guard up? Don't want to feel like a wuss in front of them? I am sure the same goes for everyone.

I don't think that's it. It more likely that when you're with others they provide distractions that shake you out of the mood the movie put you into faster than if you're alone.

Let's say you just watched one of the scariest movies ever made,say...Julie & Julia, or maybe the new Alec Baldwin movie. If you just go and sit down, the terror of the movie lingers. What happens if, after watching one of those movies, you go out and do some paintball? How long do you think the feelings of terror will last when overshadowed by the harmless fun of shooting and being shot at? Not long, I'd imagine.

When I watch movies about writers or artists it always inspires me to get to writing, good movies are supposed to have that effect on you. You have to feel something or the movie failed, comedies send you out feeling happy and lighthearted; horror movies insert a sense of paranoia. Try watching The Shining on acid that was intense....

I love to watch movies alone, especially Turner Classics, thats one of my Saturday or Sunday rituals to watch one or 2 older movies. Usually when I watch tv I have my lap desk, notebook and pen but when I watch these movies I put them to the side and just get sucked in...

I think being with other people helps the scary part too. I watched Paranormal Activity by myself and then again with my roommates. After I watched it by myself, I was scared and didn't sleep very well. But after I watched it with my room mates, I wasn't scared at all.

What about pumping Iron or rocky 3

Nothing wrong with being scared man. The way I look at it, if a scary movie doesnt scare me, then it was a failure of a film.

Of course then there is the exorcist, which has continued to scare me for 20 years. Evil, evil movie!

i wouldn't say that I get scared after watching a scary movie like you described, but for me, if I see a movie with something gross or wierd in it, the thought of that part of the movie will linger in my mind when I try to go to sleep, and then that's all I can think about in bed, and that freaks me out more than the movie itself.

A couple of examples that kept me awake for many a night, were the part in Robocop 2 with the brain with eyes in the jar, and Event Horizon, the part where the guy is hanging all gutted up. The thought of those parts will just stick in the forefront of my mind when I go to sleep, and then that's usually the end of it, I'll have to get up and watch some porno or something to get my mind off of it.

We are very suggestible creatures. Our brains can perceive anything as real. I think that with talented acting and cinematography there is a significant amount of our perception that believes what it sees in movies, even if, on the very surface of our consciousness we know it is not real.

That sort of "unconscious" belief has very real effects on our behavior at times, like the examples you mentioned.

Having a quality surround sound system while watching a scary movie alone in the dark.....priceless......

There was a part where someone was turning the door knob trying to open the front door....I swear I thought they were trying to get in my door...LOL

Just tonight we watched this Japanese movie, 'Departures', about a guy who gets a job doing this highly ritualistic making up of the dead, it's a very beautiful procedure almost makes me want to have my funeral that way. Anyhow my girlfriend keeps breaking out in tears and we both were cracking up at parts. the thing is the movie is subtitled in English and we still got the emotional impact just from the situations and the characters reactions and facial cues.....also parts of the movie I was writing but the music still cued me in to what was going on which got me thinking about all the directions of attack that movies hit us on and why they can have such a big influence on our emotions...

I 'jump' in a scary movie when something pops out, but typically I take the same approach with scary movies that I take with religion: it's made-up bullshit.

Originally Posted by soxmuscle

I 'jump' in a scary movie when something pops out, but typically I take the same approach with scary movies that I take with religion: it's made-up bullshit.

I once jumped when a creature popped out of my friends popcorn bucket while we were at the theater.....

... well the Avatar movie was said to be making certian people "depressed, suicidal, and having trouble sleeping at night."

Personally no movies scare me or affect my sleeping patterns. They do affect some of my dreams though. I love watching "dawn of the Dead" or "Mad max" when falling asleep on some GABA,... cause I wake up the next morning remembering some weird ass dreams similar to the movies, haha!

Originally Posted by brk_nemesis

... well the Avatar movie was said to be making certian people "depressed, suicidal, and having trouble sleeping at night."

Yeah, the ham-handed moral overtones were bad. Thankfully, I only threw-up.

Originally Posted by DOMS

Yeah, the ham-handed moral overtones were bad. Thankfully, I only threw-up.

lol..actually multiple articles stated that ppl were falling into depression, fueled by elaborate imagination in wanting to be a blue alien, and to live on the fictional planet Pandora. The though of being only Human makes them hate themselves and humanity hence depression/suicide.


My synopsis is they were fucked up in the head before entering the movie and even more when exiting.






ITS......CALLED.....A.......MOVIE.

Originally Posted by brk_nemesis

My synopsis is they were fucked up in the head before entering the movie and even more when exiting.

Let them kill themselves. It'd be a public service.

I agree movies have an affect on people. Everytime I watch a porno I have this strange urge to jack off.

Originally Posted by min0 lee

I once jumped when a creature popped out of my friends popcorn bucket while we were at the theater.....

I didn't mean for it to stiffen that fast after you reached your hand in....

Originally Posted by min0 lee

Having a quality surround sound system while watching a scary movie alone in the dark.....priceless......

There was a part where someone was turning the door knob trying to open the front door....I swear I thought they were trying to get in my door...LOL

amen....been there!!!!

"Scary" movies have never bothers me. It is obvious fiction and most of the time poorly written fiction. The movies that bother me are the ones that depict something horrible and tragic.

Requiem for a Dream put me in a 3 day depression. Other movies like that such as Spun, Seven Pounds, 25th Hour, ect, those movies hit me hard.

The Crying game had a profound effect on my life....

I got over the psychological effects of movies long ago. I guess that's probably because all the new horror movies suck. My first horror movie when I was a kid was Carrie. It gave me nightmares for days. Then I was totally a horror movie kid. I still watch all the horror movie alone or not and they don't affect me anymore.

Originally Posted by bigmoe65

I agree movies have an affect on people. Everytime I watch a porno I have this strange urge to jack off.

ditto

Originally Posted by KelJu

"Scary" movies have never bothers me. It is obvious fiction and most of the time poorly written fiction. The movies that bother me are the ones that depict something horrible and tragic.

Requiem for a Dream put me in a 3 day depression. Other movies like that such as Spun, Seven Pounds, 25th Hour, ect, those movies hit me hard.

Seven pounds was a great one. Especially the very end when the girl was speechless after looking into Will Smith's eyes that the blind man got.

Has anyone seen the Final Destination? If so, how gory is it? I saw the first three and every single time it makes me paranoid after the movie is over. Feels like death is around the corner when i am about to drive, or cook something (electrical wires), or using something dangerous like a saw to cut wood.

Originally Posted by brk_nemesis

lol..actually multiple articles stated that ppl were falling into depression, fueled by elaborate imagination in wanting to be a blue alien, and to live on the fictional planet Pandora. The though of being only Human makes them hate themselves and humanity hence depression/suicide.


My synopsis is they were fucked up in the head before entering the movie and even more when exiting.






ITS......CALLED.....A.......MOVIE.

We should kill them they are taking up space and air..