The Dark Obsession - The Psychology Behind Our Love For Hate Stories

Why are we increasingly becoming so smitten with watching dark content on screen

- Niraj Kakade

Movies are becoming darker, not just visually but tonally too. Gone are the days when Amitabh Bachchan would punch bad guys two feet away from their faces, still managing to send them somersaulting through time and space. Today, the angry young man prefers killing the baddies with an axe alone, while two dozen men and their guns sing in the background.

Violence in movies isn't new to Hindi cinema. Who doesn't remember Rekha feeding villains to an alligator in 1988's Khoon Bhari Maang or Manoj Bajpayee stabbing someone in broad daylight in 2012's Gangs of Wasseypur? However, violent movies are a new sub-genre slowly emerging in today's culture, exemplified by Sandeep Reddy Vanga's Animal, which is either discussed as an avant-garde piece of storytelling or something problematic, signalling potentially worse developments to come.

While intellectual debates rage on both sides, similar to a Jedi-Sith MUN conference, it's the average viewer in the middle who is likely the most impressionable. "I was quite appalled," says Alaokika Motwani, a psychotherapist based in Mumbai and Goa, sharing her initial thoughts on Animal.

She adds, "But one aspect to consider is whether it's a creative license for someone, a projection of how they feel?" Motwani further explains, "Will someone become a serial killer if serial killer movies are popular? The other aspect is, how are people in general reacting to it?" The general audience seems to be gravitating towards heavier, more violent movies.