Growing up, I was deathly afraid of scary movies. I would dread Halloween every year as the TV would be littered with advertisements for horror films, shielding my eyes or running out of the room. Entering high school, I had yet to grow out of my fear of horror movies, avoiding the subject as a whole. When I turned 14, I began my first job at my local cafe, where I first met my friend of now nearly five years, Kyleigh. Both being in the same grade, we quickly bonded over similar interests or hobbies, except for one. Kyleigh mentioned that she loved horror movies. I vividly recall thinking she was the coolest person alive, and I aspired to have that trait. Unfortunately, I refused to watch horror films alone and it wasn’t until this past year that we formally introduced “Scary Sundays,” where we picked a new scary show to watch. As we have been watching these various films, I have picked up on trends and what actually makes scary movies “scary,” leading me to believe and now attempt to convince you that psychological horror is truly the best genre.
Psychological horror is an art form, not only in standard ways like cinematography or costume design but in how it convinces that viewer to feel exactly what the directors intend you to. In contrast, the true beauty of psychological horror is that it plays into your response to the movie, with which you take on the director’s task and create a sense of fear by yourself. But how can you create an environment where your audience is scared, and then force them to create fear for themselves?
First, let’s discuss the psychology of fear. I used to wonder “Why on earth would anyone want to be intentionally scared?” but, after further research, fear is like a natural drug. According to, Seeker, a division of Discovery, there is a thrill that stems from “the physical and emotional release that follows scary situations.” By viewing a scary movie, you are setting yourself up to have a fight-or-flight response with which adrenaline, endorphins and dopamine follow, flooding your brain with happy chemicals that make you feel good and continue to do it again and again. Psychological horror, on the other hand, shoves the audience into fight-or-flight mode, but never allows the tension to leave as they continue to create scenarios in their heads of what could happen next.
The easiest way to tap into your viewers’ psyche is to force them to do the imagining. For example, The Babadook focuses on two people, a son, Sam, and a mother, Amelia, whose mental illness develops into a horrific monster that begins to haunt her. The interesting thing about the film is that the Babadook is only shown in a couple of scenes, making the movie lack reliance on jump scares. Instead, the movie focuses on, first, investing the audience into wanting to watch the movie. By setting a general storyline, with Sam speaking of terrifying visions and strange things like glass shards ending up in Amelia’s food, we become aware of the presence of some sort of monster to which we can attribute the Babadook. This creates a sense of fear, leaving us waiting for it to appear. Second, the setting of the film is dark and gray, with a home that looks next to abandoned, making each still shot look like something could pop out at any moment, which allows our minds to wander. This is key to psychological horror: enticing us into becoming invested in the storyline and then, when the jump scare never happens, we continue to sit in terror and can never lose the fight-or-flight feeling. Finally, we must become invested in the characters. In The Babadook, one can sympathize with Amelia, a widow who is struggling with helping her son. We want to see her succeed, and yet we watch her go insane and lose her sense of self. By seeing Amelia go through these emotions, the audience is convinced to do the same, being tense when she is and remaining in a constant state of fear. Because of all this, The Babadook is revered as one of the greatest horror films of all time, even with its low budget and lack of gore or jump scares. Instead, the movie does nothing to truly scare you, but rather unsettle you, which is why I adore psychological horror. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have had sleepless nights because of scary movies, and I don’t get giddy when something goes awry in a film. However, I am in awe of the creativity of directors and their ability to, in a sense, hypnotize their audience into being afraid, and never allowing them to let that feeling go, something that is not seen in any other genre. The viewers are forced to continue to imagine what could happen and make it feel as if it could happen to them too. Fear is the strongest human emotion, and to capture and encapsulate it in hundreds of thousands of people is no small feat.