Scary Movies

Reconnecting With the Shadow: You, Me and Horror Films

originally published October 25, 2006

I believe (for the most part) in urban myths, voodoo curses, vampires, angels, aliens and demons. "Unsolved Mysteries" and "America’s Most Wanted" have left significant damaging impressions on my mental psyche. I am terrified of Michael Jackson (closely associated with my fear of clowns), the dark, cockroaches and horror films of all calibers.

Nightmares have plagued me my whole life.

I remember going to see a guidance counselor in the fourth grade about my overzealous imagination. I came in there all nervous since I was one of those very shy, twitchy creatures as a child and said, “I can’t sleep at night because I have really evil thoughts.” That in itself had to have scared the crap out of my frizzy-haired friend at the guidance office; I was pretty darn random (as well as adorable) with my shaky unannounced entrances.

I don’t recall her exact words; all I know is that I missed a lot of class that day and was encouraged to buy a nightlight. What a frickin' idiot. Now I had giant shadows lurking around my walls which were actually worse than the pitch blackness that preceded the nightlight. How could she have possibly thought that the nightlight was a good idea? My parents bought it; maybe she just went for that option because it was easy. Either way, I still hold her accountable for her poor solution to my life-threatening problem.

They always use the word “shy” as an umbrella for kids like me to try and explain all of our strange quirks, but even as a child, I knew it was bullshit. I was scared of everything, dammit, and there was a reason for it. I had constant fears that everyone I loved (including my pet rabbit) would die. When I was in a car or on a bike, I always feared wrecks. I feared fires, storms and being lost. My stepsister used to call me a little rat because I was always cowering. But as it turns out, all of my fears eventually turned out to be justifiable. All of my self-proclaimed prophesies were fulfilled; including the horrendous deaths of Fluffy (white rabbit) and our unnamed squirrel who both became victims of decapitation by doggies.

Licensed psychologist Mary Elizabeth Trent assures me that I am not the only person to attach current fears with childhood incidents. In fact, according to Trent, most people have this relationship with their youth.

“I polled the people in my office about their greatest fears… and almost all of them started with, ‘well as a child I was scared of….’ That’s a lot of the basis behind phobias; something happening as a child,” says Trent. Fear is an emotion we have with us from the very earliest moments of our lives to the last few seconds. As Dr. Tony Whitehead writes in his book, Fears and Phobias, “Not only is fear a very normal emotion, but it is also an essential emotion. To be totally without fear is to be in serious danger.”

So it’s something we all need, but it’s also something that many of us want. Halloween is a tribute to fear, as are haunted houses, novels, roller coasters, music and horror films popular at all times of the year.

“We experience the exact same physical reaction to fear in a movie theatre (fight or flight) as we do in an actual life or death situation,” says Trent.

These fight or flight symptoms are described in Jeffrey Gray’s book, The Psychology of Fear, as including the following physical responses: increased heart rate, contraction of the spleen, release of stored sugars, redistribution of blood to the muscles and brain, dilation of bronchi, dilation of pupils (maybe to increase visual efficiency), and a rise in repair cells called lymphocytes.

All of these characteristics occur within a matter of seconds after the body recognizes fear. It doesn’t matter where or how the fear is felt. It could be on a rollercoaster, in a theatre, or in a hostage situation. Regardless of where this intense fear occurs, it is important to remember that you can’t really be “scared to death,” according to Emory Associate Professor of Psychology, Scott Lilienfeld.

“There are not many related instances between being scared and death. There have been a few anecdotal reports about voodoo deaths where people are convinced that they have been victims of voodoo magic, but other than that, there is no association,” says Lilienfeld.

But even so, why would you get yourself so scared (on purpose) by watching a horror film that you feel like you’re going to have a heart attack? Why are we scared of the things we are scared of? Why do we accept formulaic horror films that follow the same plots and horror elements when we would totally reject this type of approach with a comedy, drama, mystery or romance? Small children, pale skin, roaches, snakes, spiders, closed spaces, decay, hillbillies, demons, hair over the face and/or black hair, mutations, tribal drums, nose bleeds and children’s nursery rhymes are repeated over and over in horror films. Why are we so attracted to these things when they have become so repetitive to us as viewers?

"Carl Jung suggested we all have a dark side. He called it our 'shadow.' Many believe that horror movies appeal to our shadow. By watching horror films we are allowed to have a connection with that part of ourselves in a socially acceptable way," says Trent.

“Some people say it’s a really great way to let us get our shadow out; but research says that more exposure to violence (for a person inclined to violent behavior) can cause violent behavior. I don’t think the typical Joe would be inclined to do something violent after watching a horror film.”

Most of the common fears that everyone has are intertwined with our evolutionary history. “Roaches and spiders are some of the leftover fears from a time when we needed to be afraid of things that might cause us harm,” says Trent.

The same can be said of fears of water, closed spaces, strangers, lightning and snakes.

“Horror movies are more than likely to incorporate these fears,” says Lilienfeld. “These are tapping deeper fears that may be innate to us as a form of survival.” Lilienfeld poses that even the films that depict things that are not real, like vampires, demons, ghosts and zombies, are still loosely connected with our evolutionary pasts. “Those things are probably tapping deeper fears associated with predators. As in our fears of things that can kill us, things that can hurt us and things that can chase us.”

The same can be said of fears of the strange or unusual. Frequent usage of the insane, of tribal elements (like face paint, masks, fires and drumming) and of aliens/fantastic characters can be grouped into this category.

“We tend to be afraid of anything different from us and share a fear of the things we don’t understand. Anything that’s novel/ different can be a threat to us. Our brains adopt a ‘better safe than sorry’ approach,” says Lilienfeld.

Items like clowns and carnie folks can be put into this category as well. “If you take a look at a clown, it’s very close to our requirements of what makes a monster. We’re trained culturally to be afraid of clowns and things not like us,” says Trent.

While some fears are innate, others are developed through cultural interaction, physical environment and genetic predisposition toward anxiety and phobic behavior.

For instance, more religious people may be more terrified of the idea of hell and the horror films that hit upon this fear, according to Virginia McKenna of the Samaritan Counseling Center. McKenna also emphasizes the role that television shows may have on a person’s phobias, anxieties and fears.

“We definitely know that people have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder just from watching 9/11 over and over on the TV. The news can be one of the scariest things to watch. Getting up and watching the news [in the morning] can set the whole day in a stressful pattern,” says McKenna.

Stressful patterns and stressed out people; that sure sounds a lot like America. Some people may turn to The Ring to get their minds off of the monotony of their jobs or to “Tales from the Crypt” reruns to try and invigorate their lives. But at the end of the day, with my mind running a thousand miles a minute, the mere sight of a mouse in the kitchen can send me off the deep end. Forget connecting with the shadow, I’d rather go for a comedy. “The X Files” is about as close as I get to scary, even then, I have to be sure to leave all of the lights on.

Kelly Skinner