Psychological Horror
Psychological Horror Genres of psychological horror are stories or movies that fall under the view of horror that include a few essential elements: a villain or one seen as evil to create an initial story line. The foil is the next element; a foil is a person who tries to stop the villain from going through with the evil plan or plot.
These two elements naturally lead to conflict between the two persons or groups and then from this conflict – suspense, the last element is added. Suspense is important to keep the reader interested and to keep the story line going. When psychology is added to a story, the definition of horror is changed completely. There are still those few essential elements above but there is also a few more added. The story now has something to do with the mind and how it works, and there is really no definition for that. The mind and its inner workings are still a mystery to us and that mystery of the mind adds to the suspense and therefore the idea of psychology and horror are able to go together and become one.
With Poems such as the Haunted Well by Dolores Faye Thorn and Fair Jessica by Bobette Bryan further illustrating the diabolical places that the mind can go for example:
“Jessica, Fair Jessica
Is buried just below
Spewing, seeping, rotting, reeking
Into the earth so slow.” (Bryan)
Allowing the mind to explore the avenues of the writer of the poem and the pivotal moment when the reader realizes that the killer is the one who has written the poem making the skin crawl, exposing this genre of horror at its core.
Also with movies like The Shining which takes an old hotel and simply by telling some interesting facts of the old place it allows the lonely inhabitants minds to race and eventually go to the “Red rum” delusions that transport characters from normal everyday people to psychopathic killers.
Works Cited
Bryan, Bobette. "Fair Jessica." Underworld Tales Magazine...it May Scare You to Death. 1998. Web.
These two elements naturally lead to conflict between the two persons or groups and then from this conflict – suspense, the last element is added. Suspense is important to keep the reader interested and to keep the story line going. When psychology is added to a story, the definition of horror is changed completely. There are still those few essential elements above but there is also a few more added. The story now has something to do with the mind and how it works, and there is really no definition for that. The mind and its inner workings are still a mystery to us and that mystery of the mind adds to the suspense and therefore the idea of psychology and horror are able to go together and become one.
With Poems such as the Haunted Well by Dolores Faye Thorn and Fair Jessica by Bobette Bryan further illustrating the diabolical places that the mind can go for example:
“Jessica, Fair Jessica
Is buried just below
Spewing, seeping, rotting, reeking
Into the earth so slow.” (Bryan)
Allowing the mind to explore the avenues of the writer of the poem and the pivotal moment when the reader realizes that the killer is the one who has written the poem making the skin crawl, exposing this genre of horror at its core.
Also with movies like The Shining which takes an old hotel and simply by telling some interesting facts of the old place it allows the lonely inhabitants minds to race and eventually go to the “Red rum” delusions that transport characters from normal everyday people to psychopathic killers.
Works Cited
Bryan, Bobette. "Fair Jessica." Underworld Tales Magazine...it May Scare You to Death. 1998. Web.