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Psychological horror

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The Black Cat(1934) is being called the first psychological horror film in America

Psychological horroris asubgenreofhorrorandpsychological fictionwith a particular focus on mental, emotional, andpsychological statesto frighten, disturb, or unsettle its audience. The subgenre frequently overlaps with the related subgenre ofpsychological thriller,and often usesmysteryelements and characters with unstable, unreliable, or disturbed psychological states to enhance thesuspense,horror, drama, tension, andparanoiaof the setting and plot and to provide an overall creepy, unpleasant, unsettling, or distressingatmosphere.

Characteristics

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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.[citation needed]This idea is referred to inanalytical psychologyas thearchetypalshadowcharacteristics:suspicion,distrust,self-doubt,andparanoiaof 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 ownsanity.Characters'perceptionsof their surroundings or situations may indeed be distorted or subject todelusions,outside manipulation orgaslightingby other characters;emotional disturbancesor trauma; and evenhallucinationsormental disorders.In many cases, and in a similar way as the overlapping genre ofpsychological thriller,psychological horror may deploy anunreliable narratoror 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 thesupernatural,immorality,murder,andconspiracies.While other horror media emphasize fantastical situations such as attacks bymonsters,psychological horror tends to keep the monsters hidden and to involve situations more grounded onartistic realism.

Plot twistsare 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 fictionandmonster moviesoften 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 filmHigh Tension.[1]

Psychological fascination of psychological horror

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Fascination with horror films lies in the unreasonable, irrational, and impossible.JungandNietzsche'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 ones life and the universe at large. Horror forces us to remember. Psychological horror further forces the manifestation of each individuals 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.[2]

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.[3]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.[4]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.

Tools of psychological horror

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Lighting and shadows

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Hitchcock'sRear Windowused light and deliberate shadows to incite suspense in the viewer. Suspense is a fundamental part ofHitchcockianhorror. 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 anomniscientunderstanding 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.[5]

Sound and music

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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 andcompositionlaid over top stressful images the psychological response was greater than when watching the same visual stimuli with non stressful sound.[6]Music with a positive tones 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 threehypothesesand were able to prove two with their research: 1. 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. 2. Where sound and music are placed in relation to a stressful visual stimuli effects the psychological response in viewers. This could not be totally proven, as when sound and music are incongruent with visual stimuli theelectromagnetic responsewas heightened without alleviation in moments of non stress. 3. 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.[6]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.[7]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 the use of full orchestras is a common use in the entire horror genre, when music is not playing sounds from actions in film, as well as the lack of all sound and score are also used as tools to incite psychological horror and emphasize emotion.[8]

Novels

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The novelsThe Golemwritten byGustav Meyrink,The Silence of the Lambswritten byThomas Harris,Robert Bloch novels such asPsychoandAmerican Gothic,Stephen Kingnovels such asCarrie,Misery,The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon,The Shining,andKoji Suzuki's novelRingare some examples of psychological horror.Shirley Jackson'sWe Have Always Lived in the Castleis often viewed as one of the best examples of psychological horror in fiction.

Films

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Bill Gibron ofPopMattersdeclared 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."[9]

Academics and historians have stated different origin periods to the psychological horror film. HistorianDavid J. SkaldescribedThe Black Cat(1934) as "being called the first psychological horror movie in America."[10] Academic Susan Hayward described them as a post-World War II phenomenon and giving examples of psychological horror films asPsycho(1960) andPeeping Tom(1960).[11]

Video games

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See also:Psychological horror game

Psychological horror video games are a subgenre ofhorror video games.While such games may be based on any style ofgameplay,they are generally more exploratory and "seek to instigate a sense of doubt about what might really be happening" in the player.[12][13]Phantasmagoria(1995),[12]D(1995),[14]Corpse Party(1996)[15][16]andSilent Hill(1999)[17]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 novelDoki Doki Literature Club![18]

See also

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References

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  1. ^"Psychoanalytic theory in times of terror".Journal of Analytical Psychology.4(48): 407. September 2003.
  2. ^Hauke, Christopher (2015-10-26)."Horror films and the attack on rationality".Journal of Analytical Psychology.60(5): 736–740.doi:10.1111/1468-5922.12181.ISSN0021-8774.PMID26499301.
  3. ^Martin, G. Neil (2019-10-18)."(Why) Do You Like Scary Movies? A Review of the Empirical Research on Psychological Responses to Horror Films".Frontiers in Psychology.10:2298.doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02298.ISSN1664-1078.PMC6813198.PMID31681095.
  4. ^Lin, Carolyn A.; Xu, Zhan (2017-10-02)."Watching TV Series with Horror Content: Audience Attributes, Motivations, Involvement and Enjoyment".Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media.61(4): 638–657.doi:10.1080/08838151.2017.1375503.ISSN0883-8151.S2CID149437842.
  5. ^Bradley, Devon (2022)."The Best Things Happen in the Dark".Mise-en-scène: The Journal of Film & Visual Narration.7(2): 26–29.ISSN2369-5056.Archivedfrom the original on 2023-04-26.Retrieved2023-04-26.
  6. ^abMeinel, Larina Sue; Bullerjahn, Claudia (2022-02-14)."More horror due to specific music placement? Effects of film music on psychophysiological responses to a horror film".Psychology of Music.50(6): 1837–1852.doi:10.1177/03057356211073478.ISSN0305-7356.S2CID246843004.
  7. ^Deutsch, Stephen (2010-07-01)."<I>Psycho</I> and the orchestration of anxiety".The Soundtrack.3(1): 53–66.doi:10.1386/st.3.1.53_1.ISSN1751-4193.
  8. ^Smith, Eleanor Katie.Music, madness & memory: Victorian constructions of madness & musical horror tropes in contemporary film & television.OCLC1255875757.
  9. ^Gibron 2013.
  10. ^Skal 2001,p. 180.
  11. ^Hayward 2001,pp. 188–189.
  12. ^abPerron, Bernard (2009). "Games of Fear: A Multi-Faceted Historical Account of the Horror Genre in Video Games". In Perron, Bernard (ed.).Horror Video Games: Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play.McFarland & Company.pp. 26–45.ISBN978-0786441976.
  13. ^Krzywinska, Tanya (2009). "Reanimating H.P. Lovecraft: The Ludic Paradox ofCall of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth".In Perron, Bernard (ed.).Horror Video Games: Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play.McFarland & Company.pp. 267–288.ISBN978-0786441976.
  14. ^Kurl, Daniel (11 April 2019)."The" D Trilogy "Was Weird, Wild, and Truly One-of-a-Kind".Bloody Disgusting.Archivedfrom the original on 7 November 2020.Retrieved24 December2020.
  15. ^Fahey, Mike (October 31, 2011)."Paranoia, Madness, Suicide and Cannibalism; Who Says 16-Bit Can't Be Scary?".Kotaku.Archivedfrom the original on 18 June 2012.Retrieved12 June2012.
  16. ^Mortensen, Torill Elvira; Linderoth, Jonas; Brown, Ashley ML (June 5, 2015). "14: Sonic Descents – Musical Dark Play in Survival and Psychological Horror".The Dark Side of Game Play: Controversial Issues in Playful Environments.Routledge. p. 226.ISBN9781317574460.Retrieved4 May2017.
  17. ^Fahs, Travis (30 October 2009)."IGN Presents the History of Survival Horror".IGN.IGN Entertainment, Inc. p. 5.Archivedfrom the original on 29 June 2010.Retrieved9 June2011.
  18. ^Rose, Victoria (October 22, 2017)."Doki Doki Literature Club is an uncontrollably horrific visual novel".Polygon.Archivedfrom the original on October 23, 2017.RetrievedMay 10,2020.

Bibliography

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