Emotions serve as an overarching theme in the essay, particularly the more specific emotion of fear. King addresses the difference between “good” and “bad” emotions and how horror movies allow people to experience negative emotions in an imaginary world instead of letting them run rampant in the real world, thus letting inherent “insanity” briefly run free in a controlled setting.

He describes the emotions that polite society allows, such as love and kindness, and how these good emotions are what society and people are supposed to strive for: “When we exhibit these emotions, society showers us with positive reinforcement” (Paragraph 10). On the other hand, “anticivilization,” or “bad,” emotions will always exist and, King posits, require frequent exercise to keep the “dark side” of humanity sated. Otherwise, the danger is that these dark emotions might escape into the real world. He doesn’t name these anticivilization emotions but instead uses a vignette to illustrate them:

When, as children, we hug our rotten little puke of a sister and give her a kiss, all the aunts and uncles smile and twit and cry. But if we deliberately slam the rotten little puke of a sister’s fingers in the door, sanctions follow—angry remonstrance from parents, aunts, and uncles; instead of a chocolate-covered graham cracker, a spanking (Paragraph 10).