When thinking about horror you may think about monsters, gore, or scary locations. But sometimes you can be scared by something that isn’t exactly real. Scaring you mentally is a big accomplishment that movies strive for and can even be more terrifying than being jump-scared.
To learn more about this topic we can look at common movies that we can recognize as psychological horror and “normal” horror movies. We can look at the Scream movies to understand the gore, jumpscare, and more brutal side of horror. These types of movies often include a killer, weapon, blood, guts, more than one main character or a group of friends. Normal horror is trying to get you excited or your blood pumping, not necessarily scared.
Psychological horror is a different story. These movies often include 1 main character that has some kind of mental illness, a monster or entity, can often include real life issues, addresses the problem and builds up over the course of the story. Midsommar and Hereditary are both very well made movies that contain main characters with mental illnesses and personal issues. While Midsommar shines light on abusive relationships and cults, hereditary is about a family being haunted by an immortal demon. Both main characters in the movies are being surrounded in uncomfortable and stressful situations. They are not in immediate danger but yet the lingering sign of death is always there. ¨These films prompt viewers to question who can and cannot be trusted. This distrust extends beyond the characters on screen, prompting viewers to reconsider their assumptions about safety and loyalty, both in the film and in their own lives. (Travers 24)¨ This psychologist states how psychological horror can trick your mind into thinking people can't be trusted.
Psychological horror is much more scary to most people because sometimes things in movies are real. We know that monsters and wild crazy serial killers aren't real. So we can dissociate thoughts about being slain while we are sleeping. But when drug addiction and abusive relationships are brought up we can’t ignore it because they are real. Mental illnesses that make us see things that aren't really there are terrifying. Illnesses like Schizophrenia where your own mind plays tricks on you are a popular component in psychological horror movies since there is a lot of creative liberty that can be taken.
Featured photo courtesy of WickedHorror.com
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