Mental Health and Horror Films

Roughly six years ago, after being diagnosed as mentally ill, the world became

simultaneously more and less clear. You realize you’ve been viewing the world not through

rose-colored glasses but some other lens, though you’re grateful for clarity. All of this comes

crashing down on you with labels, medications and “coping mechanisms,” but what do you do

daily to make yourself feel “right” again? Horror was my next best thing to lithium and S.A.

Bradley confirmed it with his book Screaming for Pleasure: How Horror Makes You Happy and

Healthy. “…I wasn’t helpless when I watched a scary movie. I could feel the fear, I could even

scream out loud, and that would be okay. In a time when I feared everything, this was one fear I

could control.” This quote explains the distance between my fear in my head and my fear on

the screen and the sense of power I felt when I had none in my own mind, but I had power over

what I watched and what could frighten me. These minor terrors were welcome distractions

and stepping stones towards personal autonomy.

I want to touch on three films (with the help of Bradley) that I’ve watched that have

struck on mental illness directly and indirectly in the recent years, covering various themes and

topics. Some of these have touched on my own conditions and have opened me to feelings I

had suppressed and others to ideas I think could be detrimental to a wider audience. During

Mental Health Awareness Month, I wanted to address some of the things these films did well in

terms of depicting symptoms of illnesses, how they’ve affected me, and how some things could

have been done better with the subject matter in mind. Horror’s “first kiss” as Bradley calls it is

the brief trauma we all experience from our first viewing of a frightening movie and all of the

emotions that follow. Horror brought me a community, and I was hoping to “laugh as one…cry

as one…and cheer as one,” with you. As all of us that have seen a scary movie have felt this

familiar sense of trauma, so let’s relive some first kisses that are embedded in memory and tell

a story of illness and terror that mimics some realistic, inescapable burdens we may all relate

to. Reader beware, many spoilers ahead.

Smile: Intrusive Thoughts

Smile came straight to the table ready to discuss mental health. Rose Cotter (Sosie

Beacon) is a psychiatrist with a fairly stable life. However, on a decently busy day, a distraught

patient, Laura (Caitlin Stasey), claiming to be followed by a smiling entity visits Rose and,

suddenly, after a frantic, horrifying reaction to something only she can see, Laura stands,

smiling, and ends her life violently. Smile proceeds with the idea that this entity, grinning and

shifting forms, follows a victim for a maximum of about five days before the person succumbs

to it and takes their own life in a brutal fashion in front of an unwilling witness, passing the

curse along through trauma. While this in and of itself is an apt metaphor for the damage of

suicide and the curse that is experiencing a traumatic event, I’m going to take one of the most

controversial aspects of the film and say that in the context I’m discussing it, Smile did an

excellent job mimicking intrusive thoughts through jump scares and misplaced imagery.

Audiences and critics alike gave Smile a scolding for its mile a minute use of jump scares,

taking away from the larger message of the movie, making for nerve frying down time and an

anxious yet predictable watch at the same time. That being said, Bradley counters, “One

person’s sacrilege is another person’s religious experience,” and Smile’s use of this type of scare

and misplaced faces and images perfectly imitates intrusive thoughts. “…images in movies

connected with me more than plot or narrative,” is Bradley’s early experience, parroting my

sentiment of the power of visuals independent of the story. Popping up at any time and

appearing in any possible form, bipolar disorder and PTSD can force hallucinations, words or

feelings into your mind at random times that can shake you and completely uproot you from

your world much like these jump scares imitate. Calling these cinematic images “stingers,”

Bradley says these images can sometimes be so visceral they take us back to a real-life event.

Past traumas, pictures of people that have harmed you, even voices can disrupt your day during

a manic episode or panic attack. I had yet to find a movie as relentless as my own mania until

Smile, and its disruptive style lent itself to that unhinged sensation I’m so familiar with.

“Disordered thinking and thought dysfunction” are terms given to intrusive thoughts,

often paired with trauma, as they are an abnormal thinking pattern characterized by intense

self-blame or even suicidal ideation. With these as chief examples, Smile illustrated what it was

like to be hunted by your own thoughts. When I explained my point of view on Smile, people

were less keen on watching it as a look into my reality, unfortunately. This reminded me of how

Rose couldn’t get anyone to truly take her seriously as well, and that some things are either too

far-fetched or too hard to look at for our loved ones when we are suffering a malady that can’t

be seen, like a bodily illness can be. This is invisible disability, where people either can’t or don’t

want to see the sickness. However, I look back with a strange fondness on Smile knowing that a

piece of media accurately represented the feeling of my own mind short circuiting and

presenting me with depictions and thoughts no person should have to consider, but that I feel

and cope with regularly.

Malignant: BPD Rage

While this may be a controversial pick to compare to mental health, I’ve never seen rage

directed at all the “right’ people portrayed in such a vicious and relatable manner than that of

Gabriel in Malignant. A parasitic twin, Gabriel was cut away at by doctors at a research hospital,

after being abandoned by his mother when he was very young: a traumatizing and infuriating

experience that could easily trigger disorder. Now an adult, roughly late thirties, he is free

thanks to a head wound inflicted by more abuse on his host, allowing him to take control of her

body, his sister Madison’s (Annabelle Wallis) body, and also free to take revenge on those that

tucked him away to be forgotten. This is almost a fantasy for a person with mental illness, to be

free from within your locked head and take a fresh body to begin anew. “I use it better than

you!” Gabriel even declares to Madison of her own body when he’s been shut out. “The

violence in this film defied physics…” says Bradley of Carpenter’s The Thing, and I’d go so far to

say the contortionist, acrobatic blade work of Gabriel is similarly no small thing to behold, and

to imagine yourself that capable, unrestricted from pharmaceuticals and anxiety clouding your

mind, is freeing.

James Wan’s bizarre twin flick actually helped me identify parts of myself and my

condition that had been eating away at me. When I saw his intense resentment, specifically at

his doctors, I felt compelled to root for Gabriel to find his satisfaction. As someone that’s been

bounced from resident to resident, been diagnosed and prescribed too much, and been saddled

with medical debt, you build a burdening resentment towards your doctors and the healthcare

system that you rely on to save you but that also controls you. I have been lied to, abandoned

in twenty-minute sessions that cost more than a dollar a minute to shuffle me to the next

doctor that’s not so caught up in their work to handle me. Rage is an understatement when

those sworn to do no harm continuously harm you emotionally. Gabriel’s violence towards his

doctors and the police enlightened me that I had feelings about myself and my treatment that I

had never acknowledged, and a rage that others might not be able to process that needed to

be processed. I have been hospitalized against my will and an officer at the scene standing next

to my hunched crying body as I clutched a stuffed animal was preparing to cuff me, mercifully,

her partner stopped her, reminding me why Gabriel dispatches law enforcement without a

second thought: they’re only more people to take him away. The doctors in the film that

consistently try to remind themselves that they only helped people reminds me of all the times

I was left without care, or without medicine, asking for help, or on the flip side locked up, and

of all those other patients that fell through the cracks, why Gabriel as one of those that patients

that was sacrificed feels a need to be seen in the most brutal impactful of moments.

BPD has a marker called “BPD rage” that can be characterized as extreme rage states to

rage blackouts. These episodes can last for hours, their intense duration is a characteristic as

well, or even days. Gabriel’s rage seems unending. I’ve yet to see a character with a streak of

anger or vengeance that lasts this intensely or that seems to stem from a disorder depicted in

his childhood. Gabriel also has hallmarks such as being self-serving or manipulative, also

hallmarks of BPD, but his fury trumps all as his motivator. He is an extreme example of

traumatized anger at its most unbelievable and its most relatable in my situation. Years of being

locked away would do this to anyone, especially someone with previous sensitivities. Gabriel is

no mere slasher as he’s been classified in other articles: he’s emotional, brutal, calculating, and

endlessly enraged.

Split: Trauma, Treatment, Dangerous Notions

James McAvoy’s tour de force demonstrating just what a performer’s capable of in Split

showed that Shyamalan still has some stories to offer and that there are actors out there

capable of great feats while portraying the mentally ill. He is “horrible/beautiful” to behold, this

perfect balance of “awestruck” you’re left in, described aptly by Bradley and executed

flawlessly by McAvoy. Kevin Wendell Crumb (McAvoy) suffers from severe trauma that

furthered his intense dissociative identity disorder, a rare disease where many personalities

reside within his body. Even his identities have other illnesses such as diabetes, OCD, and

pedophilia, showing comorbidity, another issue common with BPD and bipolar which are not

uncommonly diagnosed together, along with severe trauma.

His most stable identity, Barry attempts to work with his therapist, Dr. Fletcher (Betty

Buckley) to document his progress. I’m happy to say it seems they had a productive and

communicative relationship as well which is an excellent portrayal of a doctor patient

relationship, no matter how unrealistic the lengths she may go for him. However, it seems

other more problematic identities are taking hold of the “light” or spotlight as they would deem

it when an identity gains control. These personalities believe an all-powerful one amongst them

has been born in Kevin, “The Beast,” and he will soon be coming to judge the impure. I

understand this as a defense mechanism, especially for someone that has spent their life with

no control and spent their childhood being a victim, creating a monster to not only protect

yourself as well as find the evil in others is a foolproof way for an ill and injured person to avoid

being harmed again. Kevin suffers greatly, and while The Beast seems to be the answer for

some his violence and judgments based on pain caused by others, the concept cannot stand

and the film crumbles somewhat in its final hurdle under the weight of the idea that “the

broken” are the saved.

I related to Kevin, especially his trauma, and the idea that a grounding statement so

simple as your own name can not only take you back to the past where the actions that harmed

you were committed, but snap you back to reality. These grounding methods are very real

practices and have roots in cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy. I

was happy to see some true rehabilitation being done, such as having a safe word or a trigger

or name that would help the afflicted ground themselves in reality during a traumatic episode

as most therapists would have set up in place as part of a safety or treatment plan. McAvoy

pulls off the heavy work here slipping between personas and having us believe each one’s

emotions and motives, pulling me in each direction whether it related to me or not. I

understood that his illness was worsened by events beyond his control, just like mine was, and

if people can struggle to understand me, I can struggle to understand his character.

The one truly negative thing I will say about this film is I think it perpetuates some

dangerous ideas about those who have suffered trauma or illness and those that treat it. By the

very fact that I have experienced trauma, I am no more pure or better than any other person

and I don’t expect others to suffer illness or injury to become something “noble.” Similarly, I

don’t view therapists as “the keepers of the broken.” In these horror films, Bradley believes, “…

we suspend our disbelief because we want to believe miracles are still possible.” There are no

miracles, only hard work, as I’ve learned. Therapists are medical professionals, not gods. To

deify what is only a human being with very human capabilities is setting yourself up for failure

when they inevitably can’t cure incurable diseases. Split put lofty labels on the “broken” and

those that “keep” them as being somehow enlightened above those who have not suffered and

I strongly disagree with this premise. Suffering does not make us pure or enlightened and I

don’t fault anyone that’s not had a hard-enough life as being less than myself or others. I

believe the writers and directors missed the mark and could have sowed dangerous seeds of

belief in a false claim.

Conclusions

Watching horror films or reading scary books will not cure my anxieties fears or phobias,

Bradley makes this clear in bold heading as he disclaims his book is not medical. He does an

excellent job of breaking down the differences between fears, phobias and anxieties and their

roots and helped me understand what I might be seeking out when I look for a film: am I

looking to scratch at a particular paralyzing phobia, something beyond a fear? Is there an

anxiety dormant I’m picking at? He’s no doctor but through his appreciation of art he taps into

my psyche. Horror can make an outsider feel more welcome, can help peel away layers of

trauma, and can bring together a crowd of otherwise divided people to cheer on a common,

otherwise deranged, goal. Horror can do all the things that can provide us a meaningful

existence, inclusion, introspection, meaning, socialization, culture, all in a single experience,

with a universal storytelling method.

While I know films like The Babadook and Black Swan might have their names on

people’s lips as titles that belong on a mental health awareness list, I will stick to my guns.

These titles uniquely brought to the forefront symptoms that I don’t usually see presented like

the usual depression, maternal anxiety, insomnia, etc. I have felt seen by these films in ways

that my doctors don’t even recognize and the themes in some of the movies, once explained, so

deeply disturbed some of my friends and family they couldn’t watch. I believe these are

excellent illustrations that helped me look deeper and also serve as excellent forms of

entertainment as standalone films. Enjoy them as a spooky treat or take a closer look at what

might be motivating them and their leads. Horror is its own twisted love language I’ve learned

through this battle. I’ll continue to speak it so long as it makes sense through the garble of

medical jargon that clouds my everyday life, until it’s time to turn back to what makes sense:

the blood, the gore and “the health benefits of a lifetime of watching people die.”

Gabriella Foor, Warped Perspective