Paradox in Psychological Horror
The fact that people enjoy psychological horror, in spite of the horrific contents, is ironic. A relationship might exist between people’s intention to conceal their weak-willed nature, and the satisfaction they derive through psychological horror. Researchers across diverse fields, such as psychology, literature, and drama, have investigated this relationship. The aim of this research is to analyze the paradoxical role of psychological horror in weak-willed concealment.
Characteristic bodily reactions to psychological horror lead to the release of opiate endorphins. Exposure to psychological horror is connected by biological functions that substitute pain stress for numbness. An experiment targeting patients with Post Traumatic Stress Disorders, a common source of weak-mindedness, showed that patients may become accustomed to the relief offered by regular movies and look for horror movies to free extra endorphins. This proposes that perhaps weak-willed people have an opioid insufficiency that can be eased by the traumatic spurs caused by psychological horror.
Other researchers contradict the hypothesis that relates psychological horror with weak-willed concealment. People have other motivations for watching movies under the psychological-horror genre. The people that would show peculiar interest in psychological error are soldiers and individuals that have been exposed to trauma. Even if psychological horror is a cause for relief for its audience, this audience does not comprise exclusively of weak-willed people. Thus, the ideal audience for psychological horror will be war veterans, who watch horror movies as a reminder of their past experiences, and not as a source of relief. It is unclear if psychological horror influences opioid release for stress relief or for ordeal recollection. This is obvious because many people, including the weak-willed, carefully read literature and movie reviews to evade any themes that may generate hurtful memories or sad feelings.
Perhaps everyone is seeking an episodic shock to their paranoiac realm and an indirect glimpse of their innermost worries, all enclosed in the luxury of a safe atmosphere. Periodic yielding to this yearning may offer a temporal psychological motivation to weak-willed individuals, making them yearn for more psychological horror. Therefore, the ironical effect of psychological horror becomes the opium of the weak-willed.