Violence and horror within movies has always been a popular genre and targeted young and old audiences alike, but there is a difference between the realistic horror with films that are based on actual events vs. those of brutal and simply gory effects. Media context provides insight into our culture and because of this, there is an issue between the violence within films and the aggressive behavior will increase. The social cognitive theory advises that because people learn through observation, and this observation would be violence and horror, as a result audiences will react in brutal and hostile ways. However, this cannot be true to the fullest extent in that to some degree it is for entertainment and pure fear.

Because the purpose of making a movie is to appeal to audiences, the blockbuster mentality reveals it is easier and less of a risk to make a movie to scare rather than please people. Most plots of scary movies involve action, good vs. evil, and special effects. One reason for this supposed violence in movies is due to the competition with television in order to upgrade and increase graphic violence. The aggressive cues model is the idea of media portraying certain classes of people as targets of aggression and violence, and as a result, targets these audiences in real life. There is also the issue of catharsis; that watching violence will encourage violent or aggressive behavior. However there is no evidence that proves this is true, other than some anti-social or hate crimes that cannot necessarily be inferred from watching a horror film. Though, experimental research indicates that frustrating people pre-viewing media violence can increase the likelihood of violent behavior.

Naturally, our society is less trusting of our surroundings and more aware of violence and aggression meaning we experience desensitization, the idea that audiences become more accepting of real-world violence because of its presence in films and television. With this, some experts and critics agree that films and television would be easiest to control and restrict in order to enforce less aggressive behaviors in that by not viewing these scenes it will not promote violence in real life.

There are different forms of films, reality such as Fight Club and brutality such as Saw. The fact that the main character does suffer from schizophrenia and is a real illness, infers that crazy people will start a cult and ultimately destroy themselves and hurt others. Saw is the basic idea of a disturbed person brutalizing and decapitating people for mere enjoyment, which is more far-fetched and less realized in real life. However, there are movies such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre that even though is based on real-life events, is not a documented source of reality. The issue of whether to ban these forms of movies is in constant controversy but movie ratings allow for certain audiences to be able to accept the content and trust that viewing these images will not infer or encourage violent, hostile, or brutal actions.