What Horror Fans Understand About Trauma and Healing

Can horror movies actually help us heal?

In this special crossover episode with Horror Heals, Corey sits down for a conversation that might surprise Family Twist listeners. While one podcast explores DNA surprises, adoption, and identity, and the other celebrates horror, both are ultimately about the same thing: how people make sense of difficult experiences and find connection through storytelling.

Whether you've never watched a horror movie in your life or you're a lifelong fan, this episode explores why scary stories resonate so deeply with so many people. From grief and trauma to anxiety and resilience, horror can offer something unexpected: comfort, catharsis, and community.

If you've ever found healing in an unlikely place, this conversation is for you.

And if you enjoy what you hear, check out Horror Heals, where Corey and Kendall welcome actors, filmmakers, authors, therapists, and fellow horror fans every Friday to explore why horror is good for our mental wellness.

About Horror Heals

Hosted by Corey and Kendall Stulce, Horror Heals explores the surprising connection between horror and mental wellness. Through conversations with guests from inside and outside the horror world, the show examines how fear, grief, trauma, and resilience are reflected in the stories we love—and why so many people find comfort in the macabre.

Transcript

Corey 0:00

Hey everyone, we've got something a little different for you this week. Today's episode is a crossover with our other podcast, Horror Heals. Now, before you think, hey, I'm not a horror fan, stick with us. Horror Heals isn't really about blood and jump scares, it's about why so many people turn to horror stories to process grief, trauma, anxiety, and the things that make us human. Honestly, those things overlap a lot with what we talk about here at Family Twist. So we thought this conversation belonged in both worlds. We're glad you're here. Let's jump on in Hello Jamie. Welcome to the Horror Heels Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Glad to be here.

Corey 0:36

Jamie was on the Family Twist podcast. And it was just interesting, during that conversation, and Kendall and I were both on there, somehow we got onto the topic of horror movies and horror conventions, and we had no idea that Jamie is a horror fan and goes to horror events and things like that. So we thought, well, what a great crossover episode. So sort of just kick us off, since we're going to be referencing both podcasts, can you talk a little bit about your DNA surprise first?

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Sure. So a few years ago, I discovered that I was a donor-conceived person, which was a surprise for me. And it led to a bit of a journey of trying to figure out, I mean, who my biological relatives were, but also kind of a journey of identity and figuring out myself too. And, you know, I think that a lot of people who have these misattributed parentage situations, you know, spent a long time in their lives feeling maybe a little different or like not quite a good sense of fit, sometimes in their families and sometimes in their wider communities. Understanding more about my DNA surprise, I think helped me. It gave me some context for understanding myself a little bit more and realizing that some of the things that, I don't know, that maybe felt a little off, like it wasn't, it wasn't just me. Like I think that there's some some reasons behind that. So yeah, it's been a bit of a journey for me and met a lot of great people along the way. It was great to meet uh you and others at the Untangling Our Roots conference that we just had a few months ago. And it's really opened up a lot of avenues for me to talk about my experiences and hopefully find a wider platform so people know that this stuff goes on.

Corey 2:22

It's definitely been helpful in our relationship because Kendall's had sort of a roller coaster experience with finding his birth family. And on like a Saturday, when he's having a particularly difficult internal thing going on with the fact that his birth mother refuses any kind of contact after eight years, he'll say, you know, find us something, a good, scary movie to watch tonight. I could take my mind off it. So when you had this discovery going on, was horror something that you leaned on?

SPEAKER_00 2:50

I feel like it's always been something I've leaned on. I've always been a bit of an anxious person. I think even as a young child, that anxiety was there. I have high trait anxiety, I guess we would say. So, I mean, it's a little bit ironic that, you know, why turn to things that are meant to scare me? And it's like, you know, they're meant to scare me. I'm attracted to it. And I really believe that horror and scary things, it just provides this sort of target that I can project my anxieties on. And it makes it a little bit more understandable, right? It's not so diffuse and free-floating the way that generalized anxiety can be. It's like, well, why am I scared? Well, because this is scary, right? I'm watching something scary. This is terrifying, actually. But am I safe, right? Am I okay? Like, this isn't real, this is fake. So there's this relief embedded in this kind of you know anxiety-provoking experience and allows me to kind of immerse in something fictional. And that allows me some, I think, space from some of the irrational anxieties that that I've I've had throughout my day. So certainly I think it's been helpful in kind of processing things with my DNA surprise journey. But even before that, I mean, it's you know, it's hard for me to watch other things sometimes. It's like I always just want that. If it's not like creepy, if I'm not gonna be creeped out at least a little bit, like why even bother?

Corey 4:16

Do you think you would enjoy donor conception themed horror movies?

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Man, I never thought about that, but there really should be one because it is. It's like a weird, creepy journey. I think at the very least, like you gotta make a psychological thriller out of that stuff because it all like there's all of those things that cross over, right? I mean, psychological thrillers are all about like questioning yourself and your identity and what's really real and what's not, and are you being gaslit? And so I think that that would be a very ripe thing to include in a genre. So somebody needs to get on that right now.

Corey 4:54

Has your love of and appreciation of horror kind of seeped into your work?

SPEAKER_00 4:59

I I think so, well, first of all, I'm I'm a psychologist, so uh I spend a lot of time thinking about why people do what they do and think the way they think and like the things that they like. And I think a lot of psychologists probably like at least partially started their journey that direction because they wonder why they are the way that they are and like the things that they like. So, you know, it's definitely not the only thing. But I've always, you know, it's funny, like when you really like scary things, and it's funny the reactions that people have to you sometimes. Like, you know, sometimes people are like, oh yeah, I like that too. But then when they find out you really like it, they're like, oh, well, what's wrong with you? So while I enjoyed it, I probably always wondered, like deep down, like, man, does that does that mean that there's something wrong with me? Or does that mean there's something wrong? So I I think that being a psychologist has helped me in a lot of ways put some context to these kind of antiphical things, like things it's like, wow, like, you know, I'm in in general, I'm a very empathic person, right? I'm a therapist. Like, you know, I care a lot about others. I don't like to see people get hurt in real life. Like, that's not something I enjoy at all. It's something that, you know, moves me deeply in my everyday life. So understanding why exploring some of this darkness in kind of like a safer context, I think even as a form of exposure therapy, because like as a therapist, I hear horror stories all the time, right? Only they're real life. Like it's really awful stuff that's happened to people. So I think that consuming horror has allowed me to learn to tolerate like kind of more intense anxiety and be able to hold that and be okay through that. So I would, I might even argue that you know, kind of consuming this genre has helped me be a better therapist in some ways because it's helped me overcome some of my like hypersensitivities that I've that I've always had.

Corey 7:07

Well, let's go back at the very beginning. What were the first bits of horror that popped into your world?

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Yeah, so well, ironically, the reason I was introduced to the horror genre very early was because of my birth certificate father. It's probably like one of the only positive legacies I associate with him. Like we weren't particularly close or anything. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but we weren't like we weren't super close. But he had a few genres that he really enjoyed watching on TV. He would watch movies, and I didn't, I didn't like all the stuff that he liked. But when when he watched horror things, I was very, very attracted to it. And I mean, we're probably talking like, I mean, pretty young, like probably when I was, you know, five or six years old, I was wandering in and catching him watching these things. And I just I wanted to be there with him. I wanted to watch it. And I think my my mom was probably not super happy about that, but it was two against one, right? He liked it and I liked it, and we both wanted to watch it. So she kind of gave up that battle. So it, you know, maybe that's one of the reasons why it stuck. Maybe it was kind of like this connecting thing for me and this person who I otherwise didn't have a lot in common with. But man, some of the things that that he watched that I remember clearly from my early days, Nightmare and Elm Street franchise, probably one of my earliest exposures. Absolutely loved Freddy Krueger. I remember watching The Fly and like the body horror and like the creepiness of that. I remember watching the Alien franchise too, and that kind of like veered into sci-fi. And I mean, man, like I would have nightmares and things about these things, but it's still, I still wanted to watch it. Like there was something that kept on pulling me back. So those were probably my earliest exposures, and it stuck. Like when I was old enough to like read horror. Like, I mean, I started with the Christopher Pike and like the R.L. Stein and then progressed pretty early. Like I was probably reading Stephen King and like when I was 12 or 13 years old. Both watching and and reading scary stuff was an important part of my my formative life. Like my formative years were really embedded in in reading and watching this stuff and and enjoying it. Like it really became kind of part of my my personality, I think.

Corey 9:40

Do you think the horror genre, the the movies and the books influenced you wanted to get into psychology?

SPEAKER_00 9:47

I think that the nature of the genre is to explore the psyche deeply, right? Like I mean, to really get into why these things are happening and what the characters are experiencing on this very deep, dark level. So I mean, maybe kind of chicken or the egg there. Like maybe I was already kind of interested in that. And I think another thing too is just my when I talk about these formative years. So I'm growing up in the 80s and 90s. And I don't even know how true this is or not, but my memory of TV and films and like even news reporting from that period of time is that everything was very kind of sterile, everything was very kind of morally uncomplicated. Like everybody like had this kind of curated way of looking and speaking. Like people weren't very different from each other. And I I mean, I think that part of me like believed that like, well, the way that people are portrayed, like that's that's normal, right? But it also didn't feel like me. Like it it almost felt like dishonest, how uncomplicated everything was in the way everything was portrayed. So I think consuming horror, like it felt a little bit more honest in some ways, like looking into the fact that there's this dark side. There's a dark side of people, there's a dark side of communities, there's a dark side of society. And that really got my mind working because it's like it was so different than the other things that were out there that were probably more demographically appropriate for me to be consuming. It didn't feel like it fit quite as much. Because I think in that very sort of sterile, you know, very whitewashed world, it just didn't feel like there was necessarily a place for like a little weirdo like me. So horror let me be weird, right? Like there's like those are the main characters. Like you didn't want to be cool and popular in a horror film, right? You'd probably die faster that way.

Corey 11:59

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

So uh I do think that my interest in psychology and my really wanting to delve deeply into kind of the depths of the psyche and like what sort of what lives under there, under the surface of like what is portrayed on the outside. I feel like that intrigued me quite a bit. And it still does as an adult professional. Like I feel like a lot of the work that I do is looking at kind of the dark sides of humanity and understanding that in the context of the whole person. I mean, like Sigmund Freud says, you know, everybody has the capacity for evil, right? So the difference between people is like your ability to kind of put the brakes on that, right? And sort of, you know, develop that nice strong ego and super ego to keep all that in check. But underneath it all, there is a lot of like dark stuff under the surface. So it makes me feel better, I guess, to think that that exists in everybody in some ways, and we can harness it in certain ways. So horror becomes like a sublimation of that.

Corey 13:07

So I started going to comic book conventions when I was a young teenager, and they were, you know, fuck great, you know, love comic books. But then when I started going to horror-specific conventions, specifically the ones on in California, it was a different vibe. It was a very like inclusive like comic cons can sometimes feel a little bit like there's just attitude around, you know, that just like the vibe isn't the greatest. Don't get that with the horror conventions at all. And then three years ago, going to the untangling our roots, it was the same kind of vibe. It was, you know, and it's total two totally different audiences, you know. Uh sure there's some crossover, but you've got your you know, your horror fans on one side, and it's every walk of life, every demographic, every age. And then you go to the other side, and it's, you know, people who are donor-conceived and DNA surprises and adoptees. And if you're open to it, you're gonna meet strangers and have conversations and and make new friends by the end of the weekend. I and I feel that's kind of crosses over to both of those. How do you think?

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Yeah, and I hadn't thought about that before. And I honestly I haven't like spent a lot of my life going to cons and things like that to be able to sort of compare and contrast. But I mean, you're right, the ones that I've been there, like it's a very accepting place, and I mean a very connected place. It's like, yeah, like it's like these are weirdos like me, right? These are people who like the strange and unusual. It's like, you know, Beetlejuice, right? Like I myself am strange and unusual. So when I see other people who embrace that about themselves, like it's almost an automatic in. And yeah. And I bring my kids too, right? They like it and like they feel like they're they fit there in this kind of space where you know it's it's probably not considered necessarily age appropriate, but it can be. Like these are family events. I mean, people are there to just enjoy the genre and enjoy each other. So you're right that both of those spaces seem to be remarkably accepting places in a world that does not always feel that way.

Corey 15:10

Yeah. Yeah, I think when I first started going to the horror cons and I was seeing like little little kids, you know, dressed up and stuff. I'm like, well, this is a little strange. Are they are they watching these movies? But then you see these families and it's like this is what they're bonding over. Like this is what their kid is going to remember for the rest of their life, you know, being dressed up as Chucky at four years old, you know, and it's just it's, you know, it's charming and heartwarming at the same time. Like it's not, they're not bad parents. It's just like they're this is what they're into. The kid loves it too, you know. Who knows if they're letting them watch the really gory stuff, but it's, you know, this is what they're bonding over as a family.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Yeah. And I I think it's very important for children to develop their own identities and interests, but also like if there is something that the family kind of mutually enjoys, those are amazing memories. It's like I remember going to these places with my family, and it was so fun and exciting, and I got to see cool things, and everybody was having a good time and happy. And so, and I do, I keep an eye on my kids and make sure that they're cool with everything that's kind of going on, you know. I'm not not trying to traumatize my my kids or traumatize anybody here. But I I think in general, like, I mean, kids do they they do like they like seeing their parents enjoy things. And when their parents are happy and relaxed and having a good time, like the kids are probably gonna be relaxed and happy and having a good time too. So it does, it's like this connecting opportunity in a lot of different ways.

Corey 16:41

Yeah, definitely. Well, and it's a little bit different than like let's see your parents are really into antiquing and they're taking you to antique stores every weekend. Well, you know, there's not a whole lot for kids there, but you go to a horror convention and there's a lot of sensory things happening all over the world. They couldn't possibly be bored, you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Yeah, not boring at all.

Corey 17:01

What was the first thing that you exposed your kids to in relation to horror?

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Well, I remember my daughter specifically, I have an older daughter, she's 14, and I have a son who's almost eight. My daughter likes it more than he does. I think that my son is more like horror-light. He'll watch a few things, but not taking him to no haunted houses anytime soon. Like people are gonna jump out at him. But she likes that kind of stuff. So I remember thinking, like, okay, you like this. Like, what are some good like PG 13 like things that have the creepy vibe, but maybe not like the gore, like you know, the things that it's like, wow, I don't want like this to live rent-free in your head for too long. Right. So I feel like poltergeist was a good one. Like, I feel like that was a good kind of opener to paranormal, creepy, like sort of things. I remember Monster House was was one, all right. That's animated, but I mean has some creepy vibes to it as well. Yeah. So kind of started there. And we did end up building up my daughter at this point. She probably has seen most of the classics, right? Like, I like to share the classic. And the funny thing is, like, I mean, so for her, a lot of the classics, like, and these are things that were made maybe like in the 80s or the 90s, it looks so fake to her because she's used to like these like hyper-realistic like effects and the things that she watches. So she's not even scared. Like, she thinks it's like funny. I remember like watching Nightmare on Elm Street with her, like the original with Johnny Depp, and like there's that scene where he gets sucked into the bed, right? Right. And then like it sprays the blood out. And I remember her watching, and this is probably when she was like, you know, nine years old, and being like, there's not that much blood in the human body. Like, she was just so like, she's like, that doesn't even look realistic. Like, there's not that much blood that can come out from this person. So it's in just like these things that I felt that were really like scary for me when I was a young person. I mean, she was just looking at it completely different. So she's watched quite a few of the classics. I do, like, I put a little bit of a cap on some of like some of it's just I feel like a little too gory, maybe, maybe a little too close to like real life or something. Real life, I mean, gross stuff that happens in real life. Yeah, that's no fun. But yeah, like paranormal, supernatural, love it all. Love it all.

Corey 19:27

And will she go to haunts with you?

SPEAKER_00 19:30

She probably wants to go more than I do. And I like I'm I'm very much like I will go to a haunt, but like don't touch me, right? Like, don't throw stuff on me or anything. Like, okay, Chris out. Uh so she's really like she's ready to go. And I've taken her to like Six Flags Freight Fest, and I just took her and a group of her friends to the East Coast Haunters Convention that was just a few weeks ago. It was her birthday trip. And yeah, I mean, they were advertising all the haunts, and we were thinking about maybe making it like a little bit of like a road trip to go to all these haunts that we collected information about. So she's all for it. And I've taught her too. Like, I mean, it's funny how she takes on my characteristics. Like when I get scared, like I laugh. Like, I just like that's my automatic reaction. So she sees the humor in it too. Like, rather than like be scared, like you might scream, but then you laugh, and then we're all just having a good time, like fun for us all.

Corey 20:29

Well, what a cool thing to bond over to. Yeah. Or her friends come into it too.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

I'm so glad that I have a buddy to to kind of enjoy these things with.

Corey 20:37

Are her were her friends into the haunt stuff too?

SPEAKER_00 20:40

I think that they were intrigued, maybe not quite as much as we are. I I think you know, being a super fan of horror, like that kind of puts it into like this sort of other level. It's like, this is fun. Like, you guys like this a lot. Well, yeah. We like decorating the yard, we like our animatronics. Like, that's that that's a lot of fun for us.

Corey 21:00

So the last question that we always ask on this podcast is who is your favorite final person in a horror movie? The one who survives.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

Oh, I feel like I am gonna go with a more contemporary, more contemporary thing. I like Sienna from the Terrifier franchises. I I like her evolution. And I mean, I like evolutions in general from a person who is kind of like, you know, repressed and sort of held back and like afraid to kind of be who they are, and through combating these forces that they don't understand. They they really find themselves and they become very powerful and like are able to own that. So I'm hoping to see a lot more of Sienna. I hope she sticks around. I know the Terrifier franchise is not particularly known for, you know, keeping people around just because, right? I mean, they're they're happy to do some surprise. Rising kills, but I'm hoping that she shows up in the upcoming releases that we have on that.

Corey 22:06

It's a two-part question then. Do you think that Sienna is going to survive part four, which is supposedly the last one, but you know, they always say that? And do you think her brother's still alive? Because we don't see her brother die in Terrifier 3.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

I hate to even speculate because I think that the whole point of the Terrifier franchise is to subvert expectations. I think that she'll stick around in one form or another. I feel like they feel like they've hit this good note. Like the chemistry between her and art is good to play with. So I think that they'll find some way to keep that around. I think the brother's dead. I think the brother's gotta be. I mean, he tangled with art the clown, and he doesn't have no special powers or nothing. So I mean, if you're tangling with art, you're probably gonna die unless you're Sienna. Like she she's got these these powers going on. So I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna go. She sticks around. I think the brother's dead. I I think he's dead, but I I will be happy to be proved wrong.

Corey 23:08

Well, it'll be interesting to see what happens. And you know, like they can always say this is the final one, but it kind of depends on the box office and the demand and everything else. So we'll see. I don't think it's gonna be the last we see of art.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

It better not be, like, I think appeals to me in the same way that Freddie Krueger appeals to me. Like he's funny. Like, I like a good joke. Like, I like if you're gonna kill me, be funny about it, and at least like do put on a show and like you know, make it fun for everybody. So yeah, I feel like art has brought back some of that joy for me of like the killer that like he's a little cheeky, right? Like he'll make it fun for you to watch.

Corey 23:46

And we haven't had a new horror icon for a long time, and like art is just exploded, he's everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Yeah, and I've introduced art to a few of my personal friends. I'm like, if you like the old classic stuff, I feel like you're gonna like this. And some of them have actually like developed like the new obsession with it and will go to the cons with me now, and I'm like, it's a great way to join with people. Of course. What is your favorite classic movie slash character slash franchise, and your favorite contemporary movie slash franchise slash character?

Corey 24:24

I think the Exorcist is probably our classic. We have an Exorcist display on our breakfast nook, you know, with original art and and Linda Blair autographs and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Um amazing.

Corey 24:37

And while I I don't really love Exorcist 2, I love Exorcist 3, even though it has very little to do with the very first one. I just think it's such a well-done movie. Contemporary-wise, I think I've got to go with Hereditary. It's it's disturbing, it's haunting, you know. And are we are you pretty familiar with Hereditary?

SPEAKER_00 24:59

I am, yes. Well, I watched it once.

Corey 25:01

This popped in my head the other day, and I'm and I I always gotta remind myself, like Corey, it's a movie. But I'm like, after the accident happens with the sister, like, wouldn't there be an investigation? Wouldn't police be involved? I get it, it's a two-hour movie.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

We have a well-developed suspension of disbelief when it's just things.

Corey 25:18

You know, here it is, however, many years later, and I've probably seen it five times, and I'm like, and it's just that just popped into my head. And of course, there's a lot of other things happening in that movie that are a little bit more over the top than did the police come, you know, and investigate.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

When we they come out with something that is that it feels new and it feels fresh and it feels unique, I think that that's very refreshing because I mean, I think that those of us who has followed the genre for a long time, there is a lot of just sort of repetition and following tropes and doing things exactly the same way. And it can, I mean, it can get a little boring when you when you feel like you can predict exactly what's gonna happen. So whenever they uh offer this opportunity to subvert expectations like, wow, I have not seen that before, then that is very exciting for me.

Corey 26:04

Yeah. And I do think we are in in, you know, either the beginning or the middle of a new golden age of horror where we're getting a lot of that. And people are, you know, respecting low-budget indie horror and they're doing amazing things with storytelling, which means that the studios have to pay attention because they know that people will come and show up. You can make a $10 million horror movie and nurse 40-50 million who wouldn't want to do that, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:28

I recently we might have even talked about that, the the cabin in the woods. Um that was another one that I felt was very fresh and unexpected, and merge this kind of like, you know, sort of paranormal horror with this kind of like slick scientific sort of like bent that I really liked. Yeah, come up with some fresh ideas. Throw them at me because I I feel like the public is hungry for it. Like those of us who like kind of thing. We want the new interesting characters that it's like you you almost root for the antagonist in a way because they're so interesting. We just want to see more of it.

Corey 27:02

Yeah. Or with that movie in particular, like taking the tropes and turning them on their head, like taking you've got the stereotypical characters or whatever, but here's where we're throwing in some twists.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Yes. Yeah, love the twists. So I hope that they keep on coming.

Corey 27:16

Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing with us. And thank you for your love of horror.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Yeah, thank you too. It's always fun to talk about it. And whenever you find like another person who's willing to talk about it as much as you want to, I think that that's a wonderful thing in our lives. A wonderful thing in our lives.

Corey 27:34

Thanks for joining us on this special crossover episode. One thing Kendall and I have learned from doing both Family Twist and Horror Heals is that healing can come from unexpected places. Sometimes it's a conversation with a newly discovered sibling, and sometimes it's a movie that helped you through a difficult chapter. Both podcasts are really about people making sense of their stories. So if you enjoyed today's conversation, we hope you'll check out horror heals. New episodes drop every Tuesday, and you'll hear from actors, filmmakers, therapists, authors, and horror fans talking about the surprising way scary stories have helped them through real life. We'd love to have you over there too. And here on Family Twist, we'll be back next week with another story because, as we always say, Family Secrets are the ultimate plot twist. The Family Twist Podcast is presented by SAP Fair Marketing Communications and produced by Mosaic Multimedia LLC.