How I Turned Horror Into Hope: Therapy via Horror Film
From a young age I had been subjected to horror films. The first I personally remember is Gore Verbinski’s The Ring. I remember feeling this myriad of emotion while watching a mother shove her own daughter down a well. I could not understand why anyone would do that to a child. It was not until rewatch after rewatch after rewatch, that I had come to understand.
I am someone who has spent my whole life feeling suicidal. My father committed suicide at the age of nineteen and that weighed on me for as long as I can remember. Much like the mother in The Ring, I had felt what he had done was a heinous act toward his child, even as I had considered suicide myself.
Growing up, my mother would show me anything and everything horrifying. I have seen more horror films than I can count. This was the first step toward finding solace in the scary, coping with the macabre. When my youngest sister was born, she suddenly lost any and all interest in horror despite the fact my interest was piqued more than ever. I felt a bit betrayed by this. My mother was the one to bring me a copy of My Bloody Valentine 3D and a portable DVD player when I was in the hospital. Nevertheless, I allowed my own interests to flourish and blossom.
As a young teenager, I was heavily into the vampire shtick that was consuming the globe. I too, felt moved by Edward Cullen and the rest of the vampire clan. Despite being the furthest thing from horror, Twilight managed to create an interest in everything vampire in me. From The Lost Boys to Fright Night to Interview With The Vampire, I could not have been more hooked with the genre. I didn’t have any friends and was moving around a lot at the time, so I simply imagined I had these vampire friends that could follow me anywhere. I was horribly depressed (even for an eleven year old.) Looking back, I find it so odd that it was the undead that made me feel the most alive.
By the time 2014 rolled around, I had left my childhood home and all my family behind, moved to Virginia, was homeless in Florida, bounced around New York, moved back to said childhood home, and then moved again. I was hardly 14 by the time my family settled. It was around this time that The Babadook had come out and it was a real game changer for me. Not only was it the first time I had been truly scared since that initial watch of The Ring, but I truly felt seen in the most cathartic way upon each and every rewatch. As people who have seen the film would know, the protagonist’s son, Samuel, had a history of breakdowns and a lack of understanding from his mother. Growing up, I regularly had anxiety attacks that I could not control. I would hyperventilate and scream and cry and puke. It looked like a scene out of The Exorcist. Seriously. Unfortunately, my mother, much like the protagonist, did not understand either. My mother would film me and laugh and yell at me when I struggled to breathe. I felt like there was something wrong with me. When watching The Babadook I felt seen because Samuel had an illness plaguing him from a young age, too. No one could see it, he could not explain it, but it was there. This moment was the first time I ever felt seen in my childhood trauma by a film. Anxiety attacks and fears I still do not feel comfortable talking about to my mother to this day, splayed out, complete with a monster that still gives me the heebie jeebies.
Fast forward a few years, I am in college, employed at a cinema, and dealt with years of bullying, but I am somewhat happy. I have a boyfriend that I love and I am studying English. Mentally, I am weak due to post-graduation stress, the worry of my relationship collapsing, and the general anxieties that plagued my life. It was at this time that my boyfriend became incredibly distant, uncaring, and would leave a few weeks later. I felt miserable. I felt alone and wanted to die. I sat through my classes without participating. I spent my days at work counting the minutes until I could sleep. My obsession with movies faltered.
Fast forward one more year, a little movie by the title of Midsommar releases. Intrigued by the imagery, I convinced my sister to see the film with me. I have never felt so seen by a film in my life. Absolutely, the single most cathartic experience I have ever had while watching anything. As I type this the soundtrack buzzes through my brain. I had seen it five times within the first two weeks of release. Two of those being back to back nights and another two being back to back showings. I was a woman going through the roughest time possible and my boyfriend decided to become distant and passive aggressive when I needed him most. While I would never put my boyfriend in a bear suit; I felt relief, agony, and unbridled joy watching that final scene.
In the past five years my grandmother has actually joined a cult. I am not quite sure how to put it nicely, so I will say a cult. She has convinced herself that she is a Starseed, Blue-Ray alien sent by God to help lead those deemed worthy into the fifth dimension. Upon doing so, she will be given no less than 25 million dollars a month as payment for her sacrifice. I do not think it needs to be said that our relationship has since been strained.
This relationship is where Hereditary comes into play. I am a massive fan of Ari Aster and will most likely watch anything he releases due to the fact his work resonates with me. The relationship between my grandmother and I was much like that of Charlie and her grandmother’s. She was often around, I was her pet, and she had little regard for my other sister. I always felt the relationship was never perfect, but the more my grandmother drifted from reality, the more I felt like I was going insane myself. Hereditary gave me the strength to learn to say no to her and cut her out of my life before my own metaphorical death, decapitation, and post-mortem tomfoolery.
Fast forward once more with me. The year is 2020, the pandemic is beginning, I have no job, and I have no idea how long we’ll be confined to our homes. My sister and I unshelve every single horror movie we can find. Every new release, every old one we can find on a “Top 10 Most Disturbing Horror Films” list. We watched them all. However, watching them was actually the least rewarding part of this pandemic binge. The most rewarding being that I learned there is an entire community of people like me. People that find solace watching horrible things happen to teenage characters that are less than plot heavy. I learned I was not alone and it wasn’t just because I watched US in my apartment a bit too late at night.
The first film I have a distinct memory of watching during the pandemic is The Lodge. This was the first time since the pandemic began that I forgot my constant anxieties that I would catch a mystery disease and die at the age of 20. My apartment was freezing, it was 2 in the morning, and I witnessed this nightmare of isolation and frozen tundra unfold in front of me. It felt horrifying to think that in a few weeks time I could be murdered by the people in my own home, but I felt so encapsulated by the film it didn’t even matter.
The Lighthouse was a film I had seen a few times prior to the beginning of 2020, but it became incredibly important to me during those first few months. In January, I had prompted another rewatch and posted on my social media asking to discuss it. It was at this time that my boyfriend and I got back in touch and reconnected. Yes, over The Lighthouse. Just a few months later, rewatches became less a dark comedy and steak jokes, but instead a way to express frustration and anger during this time of cabin fever. It made me feel better about the situation at hand because I realized it was not unique to the pandemic. People have been trapped inside with each other for thousands of years. I never thought Willem Dafoe would provide me solace in some of my weakest moments.
As the death toll around the world rose, I thought a lot of my own mortality and what would come of it. It was not too long after that Suspiria (2018) would dance its way into my life. The first two hours were this bewitching, entrancing experience. The colors, the score, Tilda Swinton. The last half an hour, however, brought me to tears. As Dakota Johnson’s character, Susie, is revealed to be Mother Suspiriorum and provides the kiss of death to the followers of Markos before paying a visit to Klemperer, I began to sob. I wondered how the characters felt, what it was like to know the person you loved the most died and you had no awareness of it. To see Susie transform from a new student, to a mother goddess. I still feel moved every time I think of that scene.
In short, horror movies can and always will be bloody, disgusting, gory bats out of hell. That fact is simply unavoidable. Horror is overlooked by many critics, moviewatchers, and those too squeamish to see a decapitated head or two. I will never judge those who cannot handle horror, but I will always feel some form of pity for those who cannot understand that behind the special effects and the scares, that there is a real heart behind these films. Horror is a main reason as to why I am still alive today and I will always be thankful to it for that.
