Psychological Horror
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Psychological horror is a
subgenre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
of horror and
psychological fiction In literature, psychological fiction (also psychological realism) is a narrative genre that emphasizes interior characterization and motivation to explore the spiritual, emotional, and mental lives of its Character (arts), characters. The mode of ...
with a particular focus on mental, emotional, and psychological states to frighten, disturb, or unsettle its audience. The subgenre frequently overlaps with the related subgenre of
psychological thriller Psychological thriller is a Film genre, genre combining the thriller (genre), thriller and psychological fiction genres. It is commonly used to describe literature or films that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting ...
, and often uses mystery elements and characters with unstable, unreliable, or disturbed psychological states to enhance the
suspense Suspense is a state of anxiety or excitement caused by mysteriousness, uncertainty, doubt, or undecidedness. In a narrative work, suspense is the audience's excited anticipation about the plot or conflict (which may be heightened by a viol ...
, horror, drama, tension, and
paranoia Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety, suspicion, or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of co ...
of the setting and plot and to provide an overall creepy, unpleasant, unsettling, or distressing
atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosph ...
.


Characteristics

Psychological horror usually aims to create discomfort or dread by exposing common or universal psychological and emotional vulnerabilities/fears and revealing the darker parts of the human psyche that most people may repress or deny. This idea is referred to in
analytical psychology Analytical psychology (, sometimes translated as analytic psychology; also Jungian analysis) is a term referring to the psychological practices of Carl Jung. It was designed to distinguish it from Freud's psychoanalytic theories as their ...
as the
archetypal The concept of an archetype ( ) appears in areas relating to behavior, History of psychology#Emergence of German experimental psychology, historical psychology, philosophy and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a stat ...
shadow A shadow is a dark area on a surface where light from a light source is blocked by an object. In contrast, shade occupies the three-dimensional volume behind an object with light in front of it. The cross-section of a shadow is a two-dimensio ...
characteristics: suspicion, distrust, self-doubt, and
paranoia Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety, suspicion, or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of co ...
of others, themselves, and the world. The genre sometimes seeks to challenge or confuse the audience's grasp of the narrative or plot by focusing on characters who are themselves unsure of or doubting their own perceptions of reality or questioning their own sanity. Characters'
perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...
s of their surroundings or situations may indeed be distorted or subject to
delusion A delusion is a fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or some other m ...
s, outside manipulation or
gaslighting Gaslighting is the manipulation of someone into questioning their perception of reality. The term derives from the 1944 film ''Gaslight (1944 film), Gaslight'' and became popular in the mid-2010s. Some mental health experts have expressed c ...
by other characters; emotional disturbances or trauma; and even
hallucination A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the compelling sense of reality. They are distinguishable from several related phenomena, such as dreaming ( REM sleep), which does not involve wakefulness; pse ...
s or
mental disorder A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is ...
s. Additionally, restricting the characters' and audience's view of potential danger through strategic lighting and visual obstructions—like in '' Bird Box''—can heighten suspense and engage the imagination, leaving much of the threat unseen. In many cases, and in a similar way as the overlapping genre of
psychological thriller Psychological thriller is a Film genre, genre combining the thriller (genre), thriller and psychological fiction genres. It is commonly used to describe literature or films that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting ...
, psychological horror may deploy an
unreliable narrator In literature, film, and other such arts, an unreliable narrator is a narrator who cannot be trusted, one whose credibility is compromised. They can be found in a wide range from children to mature characters. While unreliable narrators are al ...
or imply that aspects of the story are being perceived inaccurately by a protagonist, thus confusing or unsettling the audience and setting up an ominous or disturbing overarching tone. In other cases, the narrator or protagonist may be reliable or ostensibly mentally stable but is placed in a situation involving another character or characters who are psychologically, mentally, or emotionally disturbed. Thus, elements of psychological horror focus on mental conflicts. These become important as the characters face perverse situations, sometimes involving the
supernatural Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the Scientific law, laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin 'above, beyond, outside of' + 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanin ...
,
immorality Immorality is the violation of moral laws, norms or standards. It refers to an agent doing or thinking something they know or believe to be wrong. Immorality is normally applied to people or actions, or in a broader sense, it can be applied to ...
,
murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...
, and conspiracies. While other horror media emphasize fantastical situations such as attacks by
monster A monster is a type of imaginary or fictional creature found in literature, folklore, mythology, fiction and religion. They are very often depicted as dangerous and aggressive, with a strange or grotesque appearance that causes Anxiety, terror ...
s, psychological horror tends to keep the monsters hidden and to involve situations more grounded on artistic realism. Plot twists are an often-used device. Characters commonly face internal battles with subconscious desires such as romantic lust and the desire for petty revenge. In contrast, splatter fiction and
monster movie A monster movie, monster film, creature feature or giant monster film is a film that focuses on one or more characters struggling to survive attacks by one or more antagonistic monsters, often abnormally megafauna, large ones. The film may also ...
s often focuses on a bizarre, alien evil to which the average viewer cannot easily relate. However, at times, the psychological horror and splatter subgenres overlap, such as in the French horror film '' High Tension''.


Psychological fascination of psychological horror

Fascination with horror films lies in the unreasonable, irrational, and impossible.
Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology. A prolific author of over 20 books, illustrator, and correspondent, Jung was a c ...
and
Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest pro ...
's theories exemplify humans need to escape the real world and live in a sublime space where anything is possible. Horror allows the watcher to escape mundane conventional life and express the inner workings of their irrational thoughts. H.P. Lovecraft's explanation for the fascination of horror stems more from the lack of understanding of a humans true place and our deep inner instinct we are out of touch with, and the basic insignificance of one's life and the universe at large. Horror forces us to remember. Psychological horror further forces the manifestation of each individual's own personal horror. Our unseen humanity and our most basic human impulses forces us to seek out stimuli to remind us of our true nature and potential. Psychological horror not only elicits fear, anxiety, and disgust but it also has the capacity to foster empathy in audiences. The genre allows audiences to navigate the complexities of human experiences that prompt viewers to connect with characters confronting conflict. Modern research reveals the relationship between empathy and fear or the lack thereof with interest in horror. Research shows that the effects of psychological horror affects females more than males. A current hypothesis for this difference between the genders is that it relates to social expectations and the gender roles we are exposed to during childhood. As a result of the lack of cross-cultural research on the psychological effects of horror, one hypothesis is that individual cultures develop their own unique sense of horror, based in their cultural experiences. Discourse on more of the positive effects of psychological horror also point to it being a vessel for
catharsis Catharsis is from the Ancient Greek word , , meaning "purification" or "cleansing", commonly used to refer to the purification and purgation of thoughts and emotions by way of expressing them. The desired result is an emotional state of renewal an ...
. Much in the same way that a sad song might help a listener through a difficult time by helping them purge their emotions to uncover psychological relief, horror can provide a similar route to cathartic experiences. According to Geraci et al., "Strange things—the monstrous or weird —fascinate us because they evoke quasi-religious dread and desire, but we also pursue that which disturbs us because we desire to control it. Through deliberate exposure to the things we fear, we acclimate ourselves to them." Humans have a tendency to exhibit a cognitive bias called the negativity bias that points to why we are more likely to identify and dwell on negative aspects of our environments than positive ones, even if they both occur in the same magnitude. Evolutionarily, this helps explain why we might be quicker to notice certain stimuli or changes in our environments as threats to our safety rather than beneficial. This negativity bias also helps account for morbid curiosity and why we consume and enjoy horror media. Freud also points to his observations that children seem to repeatedly engage in the same unpleasurable experience in order to overcome it. It is only through and after these adverse experiences that psychological comfort arises.


Tools of psychological horror


Lighting and shadows

Hitchcock's ''
Rear Window ''Rear Window'' is a 1954 American mystery film, mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by John Michael Hayes, based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "After-Dinner Story, It Had to Be Murder". Originally released ...
'' used light and deliberate shadows to incite suspense in the viewer. Suspense is a fundamental part of Hitchcockian horror. The use of shadows through light to cover up information results in a subtle escalation of suspense and horror of what can not be seen. Hitchcock's Rear Window places the main character as the primary information source for the viewer; their confusion is pervasive. The viewer lacks an omniscient understanding of events, resulting in an suspenseful and slow then explosive revelation. Shadows hide events or truths yet to be revealed, sometimes foreshadow events, and notify the viewer to hidden truths, resulting in suspense and the self reflection of known truths by the viewer. Light is used as a metaphor for what we know and can be seen, in the light, and what we do not know and are trying to figure out, what is in the shadows. Half illumination can be used to express a duality of emotions and uncertainty. The use of a burning cigarette or cigar, a tiny light in a sea of darkness is enough to inform the viewer that something or someone is there, but reveals nothing else, manipulating the viewers fears of what could be.


Sound and music

Studies by Thayer and Ellison in the 1980 studied the effects of different types of music layered on top of stressful visual stimuli, they used dermal electromagnetic to capture information about physiological stimulation while watching and listening. They found that with stressful music and
composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography * Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include ...
laid over top stressful images the psychological response was greater than when watching the same visual stimuli with non stressful sound. Music with a positive tone results in viewers perceiving simultaneous visual stimuli as positive, and when negative tones are used viewers perceive visual stimuli as negative or more threatening. They made three
hypotheses A hypothesis (: hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A scientific method, scientific hypothesis must be based on observations and make a testable and reproducible prediction about reality, in a process beginning with an educ ...
and were able to prove two with their research: # The use of equally stressful sounds and music over stressful imagery increased the psychological response in viewers in comparison to the same imagery without sound. # Where sound and music are placed in relation to a stressful visual stimuli affects the psychological response in viewers. This could not be totally proven, as when sound and music are incongruent with visual stimuli the electromagnetic response was heightened without alleviation in moments of non stress. # Sound and music placement can manipulate the viewer into believing a stressful moment is about to happen or has ended, when music is used in opposition to human expectation it can increase stress in the viewer when the expectation the music created doesn't happen visually. When following a character in a movie or show, the music exemplifies the emotion of the character, the viewer feels what the character feels, creating a synergy between character and viewer. The addition of music breathes more depth into emotional response that visual stimuli can not accomplish on its own. Music can subconsciously influence the viewer, further intertwining them emotionally with what they are watching forcing them to feel more deeply whatever emotion they are feeling from watching making it an important piece of psychological horror and its success in inciting emotions in the viewer. While sound design is deliberately crafted in the horror genre to evoke an emotional response, the absence of sound can be equally effective in evoking an emotional response. Soundtracks are utilized to build tension or accent a startling event, like a jump scare. However, in the film ''
A Quiet Place ''A Quiet Place'' is a 2018 American post-apocalyptic horror film directed by John Krasinski. The screenplay was written by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods from a story they conceived, with contributions by Krasinski after he joined the project. T ...
'', much of what builds suspense is the sparse, muted sound design. Films with minimalistic, limited soundtracks leave audiences unable to predict coming scenes and often lead to more pronounced emotional responses when a sound is added. Additionally, the replacement of soundtracks with sound effects highlights the role of noise in the plot of movies, such as ''A Quiet Place'', where the blind extraterrestrial monsters are programmed to attack noise sources.


Novels

The novels '' The Golem'' written by
Gustav Meyrink Gustav Meyrink (19 January 1868 – 4 December 1932) was the pseudonym of Gustav Meyer, an Austrian author, novelist, dramatist, translator, and banker, most famous for his novel ''The Golem (Meyrink novel), The Golem''. He has been described as ...
, '' The Silence of the Lambs'' written by
Thomas Harris William Thomas Harris III (born September 22, 1940) is an American writer. He is the author of a series of suspense novels about Hannibal Lecter. The majority of his works have been adapted into films and television, including '' The Silence o ...
, Robert Bloch novels such as '' Psycho'' and '' American Gothic'',
Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author. Dubbed the "King of Horror", he is widely known for his horror novels and has also explored other genres, among them Thriller (genre), suspense, crime fiction, crime, scienc ...
novels such as '' Carrie'', '' Misery'', '' The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon'', '' The Shining'', and
Koji Suzuki is a Japanese writer, who was born in Hamamatsu and lives in Tokyo. Suzuki is the author of the Ring (novel series), ''Ring'' novels, which have been adapted into other formats, including films, manga, TV series and video games. He has written ...
's novel '' Ring'' are some examples of psychological horror. Shirley Jackson's '' We Have Always Lived in the Castle'' is often viewed as one of the best examples of psychological horror in fiction.


Films

Bill Gibron of
PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, ...
declared a mixed definition of the psychological horror film, ranging from definitions of anything that created a sense of disquiet or apprehension to a film where an audience's mind makes up what was not directly displayed visually. Gibron concluded it as a "clouded gray area between all out splatter and a trip through a cinematic dark ride." Academics and historians have stated different origin periods to the psychological horror film. Historian David J. Skal described '' The Black Cat'' (1934) as "being called the first psychological horror movie in America." Academic Susan Hayward described them as a post-World War II phenomenon and giving examples of psychological horror films as '' Psycho'' (1960) and ''
Peeping Tom Lady Godiva (; died between 1066 and 1086), in Old English , was a late Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who is relatively well documented as the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and a patron of various churches and monasteries. She is mainly remembere ...
'' (1960). Hayward continued that the psychological horror films and slasher films are both interchangeable terms with "horror-thrillers". Hayward said the genre resembled the slasher film with both being "vicious normalizing of
misogyny Misogyny () is hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against Woman, women or girls. It is a form of sexism that can keep women at a lower social status than Man, men, thus maintaining the social roles of patriarchy. Misogyny has been wide ...
". She wrote that in both film genres, the male had a dependence on the female for a sense of identity derived from his difference from her, and often killed them with items like knives or chainsaws.


Video games

Psychological horror video games are a subgenre of
horror video games Survival horror is a Video game genre, subgenre of horror games. Although combat can be part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel less in control than in typical action games through limited ammunition or weapons, health, speed, and visio ...
. While such games may be based on any style of
gameplay Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game. The term applies to both video games and Tabletop game, tabletop games. Gameplay is the connection between the player and the game, the player's overcoming of challenges, and t ...
, they are generally more exploratory and "seek to instigate a sense of doubt about what might really be happening" in the player. '' Phantasmagoria'' (1995), '' D'' (1995), '' Corpse Party'' (1996) and '' Silent Hill'' (1999) are considered some of the first psychological horror games. Sometimes, psychological horror games will simulate crashes, file corruptions, and various other errors, such as the 2017 visual novel ''
Doki Doki Literature Club! ''Doki Doki Literature Club!'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''DDLC'') is a 2017 visual novel video game developed by Team Salvato for Personal computer, personal computers. The story follows a student who reluctantly joins his high school's literat ...
'' Aligning with Freud's observations of children's repeated engagement with unpleasurable experiences, researchers have found that many many people derive similar emotions and experiences when engaging in horror video games. Scary, disturbing, and unsettling characters in horror media tend to be heightened and exaggerated personifications of our actual anxieties and fears. It is human nature to be attracted to things that elicit fear and to seek to overcome those fears as it allows individuals to gain "temporary victory over ourselves." Horror video games elicit a consistent level of anxiety in players and allows them to act on it. To deal with the threat of horror in the game, players are driven to strengthen and protect their characters, and their success translates to both achievement and a cathartic experience having overcome their fears and anxieties. Research also indicates that some players even noted diminshed fear in their real lives after playing horror video games.


See also

* Art horror *
Body horror Body horror, or biological horror, is a subgenre of horror fiction that intentionally showcases grotesque or psychologically disturbing violations of the human body or of another creature. These violations may manifest through aberrant sex, mutat ...
* Conte cruel *
Gothic fiction Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror (primarily in the 20th century), is a literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name of the genre is derived from the Renaissance era use of the word "gothic", as a pejorative to mean me ...
* Hitchcockian *
Horror and terror The distinction between horror and terror is a standard literary and psychological concept applied especially to Gothic and horror fiction. ''Horror'' is the feeling of revulsion that usually follows a frightening sight, sound, or otherwise expe ...
* Horror-of-personality *
Lovecraftian horror Lovecraftian horror, also called cosmic horror or eldritch horror, is a subgenre of horror, fantasy fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is na ...
* Paranoid fiction * Psycho-biddy * Social thriller


References


Bibliography

* * * * {{film genres Film genres Horror fiction Horror genres Thrillers