![]() Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle is often viewed as one of the best examples of psychological horror in fiction. The novels The Golem written by Gustav Meyrink, The Silence of the Lambs written by Thomas Harris, Robert Bloch novels such as Psycho and American Gothic, Stephen King novels such as Carrie, Misery, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, The Shining, and Koji Suzuki's novel Ring are some examples of psychological horror. However, at times, the psychological horror and splatter subgenres overlap, such as in the French horror film High Tension. In contrast, splatter fiction and monster movies often focuses on a bizarre, alien evil to which the average viewer cannot easily relate. Characters commonly face internal battles with subconscious desires such as romantic lust and the desire for petty revenge. While other horror media emphasize fantastical situations such as attacks by monsters, psychological horror tends to keep the monsters hidden and to involve situations more grounded in artistic realism. These become important as the characters face perverse situations, sometimes involving the supernatural, immorality, murder, and conspiracies. Thus, elements of psychological horror focus on mental conflicts. In other cases, the narrator or protagonist may be reliable or ostensibly mentally stable but is placed in a situation involving another character or characters who are psychologically, mentally, or emotionally disturbed. ![]() In many cases, and in a similar way as the overlapping genre of psychological thriller, psychological horror may deploy an unreliable narrator or imply that aspects of the story are being perceived inaccurately by a protagonist, thus confusing or unsettling the audience and setting up an ominous or disturbing overarching tone. Characters' perceptions of their surroundings or situations may indeed be distorted or subject to delusions, outside manipulation or gaslighting by other characters emotional disturbances or trauma and even hallucinations or mental disorders. The genre sometimes seeks to challenge or confuse the audience's grasp of the narrative or plot by focusing on characters who are themselves unsure of or doubting their own perceptions of reality or questioning their own sanity. This idea is referred to in analytical psychology as the archetypal shadow characteristics: suspicion, distrust, self-doubt, and paranoia of others, themselves, and the world. Psychological horror usually aims to create discomfort or dread by exposing common or universal psychological and emotional vulnerabilities/fears and revealing the darker parts of the human psyche that most people may repress or deny.
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