Christine Mattschei:
Welcome to The Horror Analysis, a podcast that takes a psychological deep dive into all things horror and macabre. Here are your hosts, Frank Horror, writer, director, filmmaker, and podcaster with a background in counseling psychology, and Dr. Elliott Rotman, a clinical psychologist with a background in acting and the arts.

Frank Horror:
So, today we're going to talk about psychological horror. I mean, it's a pretty broad topic. A lot can be bunched under psychological horror. And again, we've talked about genres blending, where some psychological horrors may have elements of supernatural. They may have body horror elements. They may be slashers. Although, typically I don't think those two go too well together. The way that we would characterize psychological horror would be that the film relies mostly on mental and emotional fear. So, rather than outright violence, rather than throwing monsters at people, it's focused on the character's state of mind throughout the story. And that can be in the form of, in lieu of physical threats.

Frank Horror:
Not to say that they don't exist in psychological horror, they can coexist, but the deeper threat in a psychological horror to a character is the psychological threat of maybe going mad or not trusting reality. There's a sense of paranoia of like, "What am I seeing? Do I believe that this is real and what's happening to me?" The other aspect of it that's important is the story seems to take an exploration through the mind of the protagonists. So, you get a deep dive into psychologically, what's the internal landscape of this character.

Elliott Rotman:
And I think that talking about the... It's really about the internal landscape. And I think a great example of where psychological horror was a master of it was Rod Serling in The Twilight Zone. Because although some of his plays, and they were really plays, were about monsters and other creatures, but it was somebody being left in a situation that seemed normal, that seems benign, and yet none of it connects. Somebody wandering into a town that is completely empty, and yet it seems like it should be populated, but nobody's there. And you don't know where you are. And one of the episodes there seems to be a normal situation, and then at the end, the camera pulls back and it's a bunch of aliens from another world having this whole town in a bell jar.

Frank Horror:
Right. Or the classic Shatner episode. "There's a man on the wing of this plane," and nobody believes him and only he can see it. That's psychological horror.

Elliott Rotman:
That's psychological horror because your reality doesn't match anybody else's.

Frank Horror:
One of my favorites is it was an apocalypse of some sort. It was the end of the world. And this guy, he's this book worm with his glasses.

Elliott Rotman:
Burgess Meredith.

Frank Horror:
Was that Burges Meredith?

Elliott Rotman:
Yeah, from the Batman show.

Frank Horror:
Okay. So, he was into his books and he couldn't wait to start over anew. With the apocalypse everybody's gone. He can finally read. And he looks down and he goes, "Ah, my glasses," because they've broken.

Elliott Rotman:
And he had very bad vision and needed them in order to read. So, that's leaving somebody, talk about an existential crisis of what do I do now? The one thing that I love that gives me meaning isn't there and that's how the audience is left. And that's why that episode has made such an indelible impression, just because of that.

Frank Horror:
And people think of horror and they think, "Oh, well, who's going to die in this or how are you going to kill them?" You don't need those elements to have horror. It could be something as simple as the loss of something that's meaningful to you.

Elliott Rotman:
Right. And that goes to the whole notion of trauma. I mean just moving it out of the realm of movies and books. But the idea by definition, trauma is going through an event that basically severely threatens your sense of safety, your sense of self, your sense of being able to be alive or not alive. And that actually, it's been determined. And with severe PTSD, it changes the brain. It changes how our body processes information, processes stimulation. And so, that's where benign things become horrific.

Frank Horror:
They become threatening.

Elliott Rotman:
They become threatening. So, someone who's been in Afghanistan, been in Iraq and has had IEDs exploded and they've lost people. So, coming into a situation, coming into a downtown urban area on a nice day, but having to walk among crowds. So, what you and I might see is just, "Oh, it's a crowded street. It's a lovely day." They wonder who's hiding explosives under their clothing and it causes incredible anxiety. So, I think an element of psychological horror is that it produces a situation, produces trauma for the person along with incredible anxiety, stress, and as you mentioned, the notion of you can't trust your own reality.

Frank Horror:
I think a good example of that, as I'd mentioned this in a prior episode, was the movie It Follows, where it's a markedly benign stimulus. It's someone that you know or maybe you don't know who is just casually walking towards you, but that person isn't really them. That's the threat. And so, you're always looking for this thing coming to get me. And it's that state of heightened paranoia that you or I walking down the street, we see someone walking towards us, we think nothing of it, but someone in that psychological heightened state with that level of paranoia, something as simple as that can be a threat.

Elliott Rotman:
So, let's look at real life for a moment. And what life has been like for many of us under COVID, where normally you'd walk down the street and if you push pass somebody, you don't think anything of it, until COVID was identified as being airborne, which also makes it very scary. And that it's a germ. You can't see it. But walking down the street, you give somebody a wide girth. Taking walks during the time when that's all there was to do because everything was shut down, people would cross the street just by seeing somebody there. It's not like they're looking strange or they're looking infected, but we didn't know. And what would normally be considered rude, like, "Why would you cross the street to avoid passing someone?" Was people were going, "Thank you."

Elliott Rotman:
So, we were living in that state of paranoia. And to some degree we still are, although things are getting normalized that you consider, "Well, if you're going to a store, you're going to wear a mask." At least for many of us in this country. So, the idea here is that a microbe that we don't understand could literally threaten our lives, creates the sense of paranoia, of anxiety, of angst, and we acted on it. And then that becomes normalized after a while. I mean, when did we ever ask somebody if we're going to meet them to say, "Well, I'd like to meet with you, but have you had all of your vaccines?" It's not a question anybody ever thought to answer. Now we do. Or again, a lot of us do.

Frank Horror:
And in that example, we see someone, but like you said, we can't discern whether they're infected, whether they're a danger to us. There are other examples where we see something or someone and we can't discern whether that's actually real or not. And that's an element of psychological horror.

Elliott Rotman:
Absolutely.

Frank Horror:
I start to question my reality. I question my sanity.

Elliott Rotman:
And a big part of psychological horror is that there's a lack of a sense of safety. We all want to be safe. We all have a certain... We have varying levels of tolerance for danger. But generally we don't want to feel that we are vulnerable to being hurt or worse. I mean, just a benign thing, going back to COVID, a couple weeks ago, I caught a cold and it felt like a cold. And normally it would just be, "It's a cold." After two days, I did an at home COVID test, because the anxiety was such that I just have to have this answered. I don't want to make anybody else sick. So, it was negative and "oh, okay." So, that sense of safety went back because a cold is familiar. COVID can kill you. So, that's a part of psychological horror.

Elliott Rotman:
And it certainly has been the case where you have people who, you get sick, you're going into the hospital and depending on what your physical state is, your vaccine status, you can end up on a ventilator. And that whole notion is a sense of horror. And that someone's put into a coma, a medically induced coma, and they may not come out of it. So, this is where it goes from abstract literature, movies, to how this gets played out in real life.

Frank Horror:
Yeah. That certainly is, the pandemic has been a psychological horror we've all lived through.

Elliott Rotman:
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Frank Horror:
In terms of the mental landscape of losing the sense of reality, that's like madness, that's like going insane. And what's more horrific than that. Think of a panic attack. When a panic attack manifests, it may come in the form of you think you're having a heart attack, you're physically dying, but it may come in the form of, "I feel like I'm losing my mind and I can't get control of it. It's starting to spiral." And I think that psychological horrors can play on that sort of sensation. So, look at the film The Lighthouse that is characterized by these two guys who are stuck in a remote location, on an island, they're tending this lighthouse and there's a change in their perception of time.

Frank Horror:
I think they're only supposed to be there a few days and then it feels like weeks pass. And so, you, the audience and the characters begin to sense something's wrong here. Why am I perceiving this differently? Is someone gaslighting me? They're seeing things or at least the main character is seeing things. They seem supernatural. They seem odd. They seem out of place. And they don't seem like... He's either seeing something supernatural happening or he's losing his mind. And again, that goes back to the question of in a psychological horror, is this really happening or is this me? Am I losing control here?

Elliott Rotman:
And that's the key piece, as you said, it's an internal landscape. And of course, for those in a movie like The Lighthouse, they're isolated, so they don't have any other outside point of reference to say what really is or isn't. And I think in a lot of the films where... Going back to Rosemary's Baby, think about what happens there. There's no violence shown. It's simply that the reality for the protagonist that Mia Farrow played is it starts from a position of these are just concerned, really friendly neighbors to a developing, evolving sense of dread. And to that, she's not sure are they dangerous? Are they not? Can I trust my husband who's supposed to be loving and secure? Is he part of them? But then she's kept isolated and till she finally accepts that there is a reality going on here. This is not what I thought it was. And she was left with a lack of sense of control because she realized she was simply serving this coven of Satanists.

Frank Horror:
And that's a similar dynamic to another psychological horror Misery, in that the protagonist is bed bound, he's isolated, and he's basically serving the will of this crazy woman, who's unpredictable, who can be violent. So, again, there's that lack of control. And it's a chess game between the two. So, it's not about throwing monsters, throwing killers. So, slashers, a slasher film, my analogy for a slasher film is you're getting hit over the head with a hammer. A psychological horror is more of the scalpel. It's those tiny little cuts, but they're much more effective given the right context.

Elliott Rotman:
And in Misery, he, because of an injury, initially ends up in her bed, and it seems like a good deal until he realizes that he is losing all sense of control because she is so unpredictable. And then she disables him. She hobbles him. And he has to fight, literally fight for his life. So, she's frightening because her psyche is so unstable, unpredictable. And he's there having to fight for survival where he can't really move. And it builds the tension. So, when the viewer... It's frightening.

Frank Horror:
The reason that is pulled off so well is the psychological landscape of the characters are built up so much that we know. We've seen Kathy Bates' character be unpredictable. We know that she can be violent. And so, it's that threat, that perceived threat that at any moment, James Caan, who plays the protagonist, may do something in trying to escape, trying to get help, that will piss her off to the point that she's going to murder him. So, I guess what appeals to me about psychological horror, because it is a strong favorite of mine, is that it's more complex. It's a more complex story in terms of the elements involved than just throwing a killer, throwing violence at someone. And as a storyteller myself, I liken creating a story to an illusionist trick.

Frank Horror:
And you have the elements of fiction that you want to weave in there, but as soon as they become apparent, the illusion is ruined. And so, with a slasher, there's not much that you have to put in there, you don't need to develop the motives of the killer. With a psychological horror, you have to build that landscape and add complexity to it, to the point that it's believable, that the viewer, the listener, the reader suspends their disbelief and really gets invested in the psyche and the potential dangers of these characters. And so, I think in terms of appreciating psychological horror, it's a more complex trick. There's more development and richness to this story, because there has to be.

Elliott Rotman:
And it's important that we, as the viewer, identify with a character that we can understand, "Yeah, this would be terrifying. This would be unsettling."

Frank Horror:
Yeah. Character motives are much more than just simply survival. Like in the case of The Twilight Zone episode with the glasses. His motive is clearly established, the character wants to just be left alone, so he can read. And so, we empathize with that. Whether it's something that we would want to do ourselves, we know he desperately wants that. And so, we want that for him.

Elliott Rotman:
And we identify with the irony of the situation.

Frank Horror:
Yeah. Another good one to look at is, and I think this is probably one of the only horror movies that was nominated for an Oscar, correct me if I'm wrong, but Silence of the Lambs. So, while there is a real threat... It's a hunt for a killer who's out there, and while it's a real threat that this killer is murdering people, skinning them, Buffalo Bill, they go to another killer, another sociopathic killer, who's a genius and a psychiatrist, Hannibal Lecter, and they use him to try and find the killer that they're hunting for, the FBI. At the same time, it's a psychological game and that's what makes it such a powerful, psychological horror because you're navigating the mind of a killer to find another one.

Elliott Rotman:
Absolutely. And Anthony Hopkins portrayal of Lecter and what makes it such a sense of angst and threat, in that he's smart, he's manipulative, he can get into your head and that's his power. Not in a supernatural sense, but that he could say things because he's also a psychiatrist, he could say something to another prison mate that could cause him to cut his own throat. And that's who Clarice, the character, is up against. So, she has to work with him and at the same time, hope that he doesn't turn on her.

Frank Horror:
She doesn't completely trust him. And he can say things that make her question whether this is a legitimate lead or is he putting me in danger? And there is the element of psychological horror.

Elliott Rotman:
Right. And the psychological tension there is he is able to get a read on her and make some comment about expensive shoes and a cheap bag, and what this represents in terms of what she's about. She's in a position of power in that she's on the free side of the jail cell, but he can still get to her. And so, I think the psychological horror in that movie is there's the tension that that cat and mouse game between the two of them, but also creating a character, Buffalo Bill, where we don't actually see him doing anything to anyone, other than when he had this young woman in a pit. But it's the idea of what he would do. So, the psychological horror is created for us as an audience of imagining that he would skin someone and then do things with that.

Frank Horror:
Without outright seeing it.

Elliott Rotman:
Without right seeing, it's created it. It's what you don't see. It's what you imagine. Going back to Psycho. So, Psycho, we don't know the big revelation at the end, but the power of the shower scene, it's all implied. We know what's happening. But when you think about how Hitchcock did it is you just see a hand with a knife and Janet Leigh screaming, but you don't see her actually being stabbed and all that's left with... We see blood going down the drain. We have to connect that all. So, in terms of the psychological horror there, it's created in us as the audience. And then it's also in Anthony Perkins character of who and why is he doing this? How is he being tortured?

Frank Horror:
We don't have a clear glimpse into Anthony Perkins character, which is perfectly visualized in a metaphor of the house, the iconic Psycho house sitting up on the hill. And they have shots where there's a light on inside and you see this shadowy kind of figure in the window. That's a metaphor for Anthony Perkins' character. We don't know what's happening in the inside, and we can see something is amiss.

Elliott Rotman:
Right. So, another element I think in psychological horror, as it is in day-to-day life and real life is that when we encounter someone and there's something about them that seems off. There's the expression that eyes are the window to the soul. And generally when there's someone who is threatening, dangerous or disturbed, there is something in their eyes that when you look at someone and it's hard to even describe it clearly, but they're looking through you. There's a deadness to it. We then get distressed. So, a way to create that is if you are surrounded by people or a situation who aren't quite what they seem to be. They seem normal, but they're not.

Elliott Rotman:
The movie Get Out that Jordan Peele made of this young African American guy who goes with his girlfriend to visit her parents. And at first they seem quite open and friendly and then he starts meeting other black people who work for them, who just don't seem all there, that they seem to be controlled. And the question is, how does he get out? How does he not get out? When he recognizes that there's a danger there, but he can't quite identify it. That's his psychological horror, until it's resolved at the end.

Frank Horror:
That he made doubt at first, am I really perceiving this or is this an overreaction?

Elliott Rotman:
Right. But he's crazy in love with this woman. And she's bringing him, it's supposed to be great. And very friendly parents and friendly neighbors, except there's something off. That movie is very much about psychological horror. And it also brings in issues around race and class, but it all combines. We don't really see much of anything.

Frank Horror:
And both of his films are really psychological when you look at it. The film US.

Elliott Rotman:
Right. And there it's this family basically meeting mirror images of themselves, except their images are kind of like their shadow selves. They look off, they look haunted, they speak in an odd way, their eyes are different. And so, it's looking at a representation of you of your dark side.

Frank Horror:
Your shadow.

Elliott Rotman:
Your shadow.

Frank Horror:
It was a gross distortion of themselves, but in a negative way.

Elliott Rotman:
Right. But you have people who are like you, who are also threatening you and who also can harm you. And that's how the tension builds up.

Frank Horror:
And that's any doppelganger film, which you and I have talked about this, doppelganger scare the shit out of me. Just even getting up in the middle of the night in the dark and going to the bathroom and not wanting to look in the mirror because there's always that fear of is that going to be me looking back or is there going to be slightly something off? David Lynch played with that a lot? I think that's probably burrowed right directly into my psyche, because I was raised on David Lynch and absorbed all of his stuff. But he plays around a lot with the sense of identity and doppelgangers, and there's a lot of reality testing of his characters of like, "Is this really happening?"

Elliott Rotman:
Absolutely. And even if we perceive ourselves in an odd light, literally in terms of light versus darkness, so that you look in your mirror and you hope that it's you. Would you like to talk about that, Frank?

Frank Horror:
I mean, so far it's been me, but you know that one time that it's not, I'm going to say, "See, I was right."

Elliott Rotman:
You were right to be afraid. Okay. You see that other face over your shoulder. But again, in psychological horror situations, I think a lot of it goes to taking a normal appearing benign situation and there's a twist in it, so we can't really trust it. And therein lies the power of it. If we decide to give up control in terms of like you go on a roller coaster and you're hundreds of feet up in the air and you get dropped. Something I would never, ever do. Hate that. But there you're giving up control. It's like, "For these seconds or minutes, I'm just going to enjoy it." But if the idea is that you're standing, waiting in mind and suddenly the ground opens up under you, that's terrifying, because our whole sense of safety and integrity goes out the window.

Frank Horror:
So, we would be remiss not to talk about a seminal psychological horror movie, The Shining.

Elliott Rotman:
Absolutely.

Frank Horror:
Speaking of being remote, isolated, that was the entire context of that story. And it had elements of supernatural. Obviously there are ghosts, there is the psychic ability of shining in which Danny Torrance, and I forget the other... The chef there played by Scatman Crothers, I'll never forget that, also had the gift of the shining. And so, despite those supernatural elements, it in its essence was a psychological horror because it's about Jack Nicholson's character... Was it Jack Torrance?

Elliott Rotman:
Yes.

Frank Horror:
And his dissent into madness.

Elliott Rotman:
And I think the tone of it in the movie was also amplified by the way the hotel was shot of just an enormous amount of enormous space, long hallways. I still remember seeing the movie the first time and the aerial shot of this lodge, just creating this sense of isolation. And it was done so brilliantly. It's like, "Oh, okay. These are three people in a place that should hold 300, 500." And the physical space was ominous. So, there was no comfort to be found there.

Frank Horror:
They're tiny in these vast set pieces.

Elliott Rotman:
Yes. It's tiny. That's the way to look at.

Frank Horror:
So, they're insignificant.

Elliott Rotman:
Yep. And then there are these things that appear, the elevator opens and blood pours out. And the son, the little boy really becomes the observer and describer of all this. Shelley Duvall's character just gets upset and screams a lot and really just emphasizes helplessness until she is able to fight back to a degree. But the psychological part is that sense of impending danger, impending doom. What's going to happen to Scatman Crothers? Is he going to save them? Is he going to fail? And then ultimately where Jack Nicholson, where you start wondering is someone who they really seem to be, that he just becomes this absolute mad man and is stalking them for no apparent reason.

Frank Horror:
And add the element of snow, which traps them. That it's an element that it adds to the isolation, adds to the tension because they can't get out. Certainly I know, add snow to my life and my tension goes up. So, it becomes cold and isolated.

Elliott Rotman:
Well, it's cold and isolated and they were on a mountain. And the other thing that snow creates is it mutes sound on the outside, so everything is quiet and all of the energy there is directed to what's happening inside the hotel.

Frank Horror:
Good point.

Elliott Rotman:
And it goes from starting off as isolating, but kind of benevolent, this is a good gig for the family, to where it just becomes malevolent. And we don't know why, except it's happening.

Frank Horror:
We talked about the house in psycho being important as a set piece and being reflective of the character. I think it's the same with The Shining. In dream interpretations, although it's highly subjective, oftentimes the house is seen as the self. And so, the way that the house appears is reflective of the interior landscape of the character.

Elliott Rotman:
And the notion that some people do believe that houses do hold energy. And if something really bad has happened, something violent in a house, that somehow that can remain. I mean, you can debate that all sorts of ways, but I've known people, absolutely rational people who will walk into a house, particularly house hunting, and walking into older houses and go stand in a room and say, "This just feels wrong. I don't want to be here." And it's not like they're having visions or anything else, but there's something in the energy, in the feel of it that they will walk out. And I personally do believe they're people who have that sensitivity that I don't personally, but they're people who do, and it's like, "This is bad. Let's leave." So, all of that creates in terms of the notion of psychological horror is that there is this imbalance, there is this loss of control. And not being able to trust what you see. And that's the power of it.

Speaker 4:
There's a dichotomy, I think, between the reality versus the possible psychological sequelae that the person could be experiencing. Like in this movie, I keep thinking about the character Grady, the bartender.

Frank Horror:
Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
Right. So, is he a spirit or is it really just a auditory, a visual hallucination.

Frank Horror:
Lloyd was the bartender. Grady was the groundskeeper before him that murdered his family. The only reason I know that is because my friend Lloyd. And so, I'll tell him to give me another drink, Lloyd, like he does-

Speaker 4:
Lloyd. That's right.

Frank Horror:
But Grady was the guy before him that murdered his family.

Speaker 4:
Right. Okay. That's right. The previous happening that took place there. The other interesting piece I always thought about, you could talk about Scatman Crothers, the dichotomy between when he was watching the newscast of the weather turning bad, and he's comfortably ensconced at his home, in Florida, sunny Florida. And you get this foreboding sense of why would you want to leave that apartment where you're sitting there enjoying the television. Now you're going to put yourself in harm's way. And so, the whole time you're saying, "Don't do it, don't do it." I don't know.

Frank Horror:
And his trek there, if you remember the film, he's journeying through the snow and it's coming down at him on the windshield. He sees an overturned car, so it's foreshadowing this perilous venture that he's undertaking.

Speaker 4:
And he has to get in the snowcat just to reach the hotel.

Elliott Rotman:
And I think the part there, as you're bringing it up, it's like, but he felt compelled, is that one sort of supernatural element is that he felt this connection to this kid and he was driven to do it.

Frank Horror:
And on that note, I want to thank the listeners for your continued morbid curiosity. And I hope you enjoy our next show, which highlights cosmic horror. So, come back for the next one. The Horror Analysis is a Frank Horror production and is brought to you by Frank Juchniewicz, Elliott Rotman, and William Rizzo. Audio engineering, and the original theme music to The Horror Analysis were provided by William Rizzo. Audio editing provided by Frank Juchniewicz. Sound mastering was provided by David Parsons. The opening credits introduction was voiced by Christine Mattschei. To learn more about our show, visit us online at frankhorror.com