Watching extreme violence to feel alive?

I asked this before and didn't get any answers...So I'll give more details.
Does anyone know what it's called when someone watches really unrealistic extremely violent movies (like way too much blood coming out of someone/disturbing rape scenes of cutting girls up/etc..) to feel emotion?
The person I know that's like that is mentally challenged and seems empty. He against violence in real life but deeply loves watching extremely violent movies because it's the only way for him to feel emotion. Kind of like an "Emo" kid cutting themselves to feel alive, he needs to watch the violence instead and if anything isn't about violence he's not interested.
I'm really curious to hear more about this. Any help would be great. Thank you.

He doesn't want attention or to stand out. He wants everyone to think like he does.

I think there are many reasons for such behavior. One I think you have already figured out and that is when you compare it to self abuse, cutting and the like. I know a girl going through this right now and have even asked a question on Y! answers to try to learn more. In her case it was explained to me that she is trying to swamp out the emotional distress she is experiencing. That was from some things in the past which were never resolved, basically childhood abuse she suffered from her older brother. Basically she is trying to not to feel the emotional pain that her memories are now causing her. She is in therapy but I don't know if it will help. She has to actually get to the point where she could discuss this openly with anyone. She has to get to the point where she doesn't have to avoid her emotional pain. And that seems to me an impossible task as things stand now.

In your friends case where he mentally challenged, he might be using the intensity of the violence he views to get his thoughts away from the pain he feels by being dealt less than a good hand in life. He may be mentally challenged but that will not stop him from noticing that he has problems that others don't. That others have more fun and enjoyment than he will ever have.

We all feel this to some extent. So-in-so was born with much more affluence than I and is having an easy fun life and I am struggling just to pay my rent. All of us develop ways of coping with this.

I think sometimes it is little more than a sense of (black)humor in the ridiculous aspects of some writers' imaginations. Silence of the Lambs, the Chain saw killer or Jason. In many cases this is just marketed to us in a benign manner and we take it in.

Steven King once made the statement, "It's fun to be scared" and some of the violence evidently fills that little market niche.

A source of energy? Many use anger as a source of energy. Like Walter Matheu's statement in the "Bad News bears" when he did something stupid just to get the kids mad at him. To this responded, "They play better when they're mad."
I think my Dad used to watch the news to get riled up a little and then he would go mow the lawn. The anger just gave him enough energy to get busy on a chore or two. I think he even admitted this aspect once to me.

I just caught your phrase, "cutting themselves to feel alive" and that is true also in many cases. I worked at a rehab center for handicapped children and although I just kept the wheelchairs running, my supervisor was a psychologist and he said that was true of the "behavior" clientle that we had. Head banging, biting their lip and things like that. Mentally they were not capable of being amazed with normal activities, math, science, star gazing, train watching etc. So they ended up in kind of an emotional dead end and just wanted to feel anything, even pain would do.

A friend of mine once told me an amusing story. Seems he was living in an apartment and an older gal was overhead and played her tv a little loud. On Sunday morning she would watch a church service and he would hear her say "amen" several time. Following the church service some pro wrestling came on and he could hear her hollering, "KILL HIM! KILL THE BUM!!" He said it really cracked him up. She was old and I guess she just wanted to feel some excitement.

Once in a while I'll watch such drivel and for a long time didn't know why. Later I figured it was just a change from all the sameness that you get in sports and news and re-runs.

Where you observe your friend is seemingly empty, my best stab at an answer would be that he is just trying to fill that void. It really doesn't sound too bad as he is not acting it out or seems he does not approve of it in real everyday life.

I read some true crime horror stuff in the past, seriel killers and stuff and I think mostly out of curiosity. Later I could not and still can't read the true stuff but could still maybe take a Koontz book or some other imaginaery novel. When I read the true stuff it is just more than I can take. The pure fiction well, it never really happened did it? That's what I say to myself all the time I'm reading it.

Does your friend have any other activities that he likes to do? Sometimes we dish out repeated structured activity and this wears off and ends up eventually serving no pupose. I used to feel it could make things worse. Variety is the spice of life they say.

Well, I hope you get more answers this time, maybe the experts know if there is a specific name for such behavior but I can't remember ever hearing it.

Thanks for an interesting question.

PS my spell checker is hung up so there may be spelling errors.

I think it is an attention getter for this person.

Well, what kind of feelings does he get in watching the violence? If he has issues with the ability to feel emotions he should look into therapy on why that is he can't feel any other way. Something happened to his emotional maturity or development somewhere along the line, whether he was born that way or something happened to deaden his feelings. Either way, it should be explored in therapy so he can somehow reconnect to his feelings. Did he used to feel something more easily when he was younger? Hard to say what is what, sounds like a psychological thing to me so he should get himself to a psychologist.