No doubt about it, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a good ol’ slasher flick. But, nothing gets under the skin like the very real themes of grief and trauma, something that has increasingly begun to influence horror films over the past few years.
Mike Flanagan and Ari Aster know that this is a true statement, and their projects stand out as poster children for grief and trauma inspired horror. Sure, some people think Hereditary is “boring”, but I don’t think that’s true. It’s an uncomfortable storyline, dealing with the horrific death of a child and the grief and trauma it inflicts on the remaining family members. That’s not a fun theme to explore, so I think a lot of people just can’t deal.
In reality, ANYONE would be living real life horror if they had to deal with what poor Annie (Toni Collette) had to face. And let’s just recognize the sheer magnificence of Collette’s performance in Hereditary, I have never felt so much like I was in someone else’s skin than I did while watching that film.
Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House series explored the effects of grief and trauma on each surviving member of the Crain family: Hugh Crain and his five children. Each of them struggled throughout their lives, thanks to living for a short time in the crazy haunted Hill House. Of course, the loss of Olivia Crane in such a horrible way played its part in their personal struggles as well.
So, now let’s look at some more horror films that used grief and trauma to not only frighten us, but also break our hearts.
Rebecca Hall was a tour de force in The Night House, a moody, very dark slow burn of a horror flick. She played Beth, who recently lost her husband Owen to suicide; a suicide she did not see coming. Anyone who has lost a family member to suicide completely gets Beth’s reactions after her husband’s death.
She becomes obsessed with going through his belongings, she drinks too much, and she tries desperately to put on a brave face…but deep inside, she is unraveling.
Then there is Owen’s strange suicide note, which she is trying to figure out. “You were right, there is nothing. Nothing is after you. You’re safe now.” It seems that Beth had had been clinically dead for four minutes after a car accident years earlier, and when she came to, she declared that there was “nothing” after she died. Owen tried to persuade her otherwise.
One night, Beth discovers a photograph of a woman who looks a lot like her. Was her husband having an affair? And what’s the deal with the house she finds across the lake? It looks exactly like a reverse image of the home she and Owen shared.
When she discovers a shocking truth about the husband she thought she knew so well, she (and the viewer) think it’s the most terrible thing that could happen. But the full truth is even more terrifying. That’s all you’re going to get from me regarding the plot, The Night House has to be seen in order to appreciate the pitch black final discovery.
The Night House can be seen on HBO Max.
The Changeling is an 80s classic, and it’s a ghost story that definitely withstands the test of time. At its heart is a man so heavily affected by grief and trauma that he steps away from his successful life as a composer in New York City in an effort to heal.
George C. Scott gives a heartfelt performance as John Russell, the composer. The grief and trauma he is experiencing stems from the deaths of his wife and young daughter, which he witnessed. When the family’s car broke down, John stepped into a nearby phone booth to call for help, and was watching his wife and child play in the snow. Therefore, he was watching when a car and truck collision resulted in their deaths.
John escapes to Seattle to recover from the tragedy, and rents a large historical mansion from Claire (Trish Van Devere), who tells him it has been unoccupied for the past 12 years. The troubles start right away, as John begins to hear a banging noise in the mornings. One night, he discovers the water faucets in the house are on, and sees a small boy drowned in a bathtub.
The discovery of a hidden, boarded up room in the attic starts John and Claire on a mission to discover exactly who is the ghost haunting the mansion. At first they believe it’s the ghost of a little girl who was killed in a car accident on the property (thus tapping into John’s grief over his own daughter), but a séance proves otherwise.
The Changeling includes two of my favorite scenes in supernatural horror films. The first involves a red ball found by John in a box of his things. It belonged to his daughter, and he tearfully drives to a bridge and throws the ball into the water. Shortly after returning home, he hears a noise on the stairs, and sees the red ball bouncing down the steps…and it’s wet.
The other iconic scene is of the séance, where it’s discovered that the ghost child is actually a little boy named Joseph. That scene still has the power to raise goosebumps every time I watch it.
As the mystery of Joseph begins to unravel, John’s grief and trauma begin to transform, and he becomes more determined to help the child rest in peace. The Changeling can currently be streamed on Tubi.
Inside is usually discussed when the subject of French Extremity Films comes up. There is no doubt, it’s not a film for the weak of stomach due to the sensitive subject matter and the massive amount of blood. But like many French Extremities, it also has an emotional center.
It’s Christmas Eve, and only four months earlier, the very pregnant Sarah was in a car accident that killed her husband. She and her unborn child survived, but the grief and trauma she suffered have affected her greatly. There is no joy evident when she talks to her mother about the upcoming birth of her baby. In fact, she won’t even let Mom come over that night, and asks her boss to take her to the hospital the next day for her scheduled delivery.
Really, all Sarah wants is to spend a quiet, depressed evening alone. Those plans are interrupted by a knock at the door, and a strange woman asks to use her phone. Sarah tells her no, that her husband is sleeping and can’t be disturbed, and her suspicions are confirmed when the woman knows that Sarah’s husband is dead.
When the stranger won’t leave, Sarah calls the police, but the woman is gone when they arrive. They look around, and promise to send a patrol car by periodically through the night. A look through some photos Sarah took recently shows that the stranger has been following her.
Sarah awakens during the night to find the woman holding scissors to her pregnant belly, and, shockingly, she slashes Sarah with the scissors before she can get away and lock herself in the bathroom. This strange woman states that she intends to keep Sarah’s baby…after removing it forcibly from her body.
What follows is a tense, very bloody standoff, and this stranger means business. She manages to slaughter a few people who attempt to check on Sarah, and the two women inflict considerable damage on one another before the film ends. We also find out exactly why the stranger is so consumed with taking Sarah’s unborn child, and the reason is actually pretty heartbreaking.
If you want to watch Inside, you can see the original French version on Tubi. There is also an American remake, but most fans agree that it is inferior to its predecessor.
The original Halloween was a way above-average slasher flick, but Halloween (2018) took Laurie Strode’s story to a new level by addressing the grief and trauma she is still suffering forty years later. Her best friends were murdered, and she was nearly killed herself by the masked Michael Myers.
In the years since, Laurie’s life has been a disaster. She drinks too much, she is so paranoid that her house is pretty much booby trapped, and she is heavily armed. She has become estranged from her daughter Karen, who was taken away from her when she was still a child. The only family member she is even remotely close to is her granddaughter Allyson.
As she soon finds out, all of her fears are founded. Michael escapes while being transferred from the psychiatric hospital to a maximum security prison. When the prison bus crashes, Michael murders a motorist and his young son, then steals their truck to return to Haddonfield.
Of course, he falls back on his old bad habits, murdering innocent people while on his search for Laurie. During the course of the night, Laurie, Karen and Allyson work together to outwit, outrun and ultimately do away with Michael, which brings them closer as a family in a weird way.
Like them, love them, or hate them, the “final” Halloween trilogy saw Laurie working through her grief and trauma, freeing herself in the process.
Halloween (2018), Halloween Ends and Halloween Kills can be streamed and/or rented on various streaming platforms.
Censor takes us back to 1980s Great Britain, during the height of the “Video Nasties” craze. The British Board of Film Classification is responsible for reviewing controversial films (usual of the horror genre), deciding whether or not said films should be cut or banned altogether.
Enid (Niamh Algar) is one of those reviewers, and she takes her job very seriously. She even looks prim and proper, with her buttoned up blouses and scholarly glasses. But Enid’s past is a bit tragic. When she was a child, her sister Nina disappeared, and as a way of coping with the resulting grief and trauma, Enid has convinced herself that Nina is still alive. When her parents tell her they are going to have Nina declared legally dead, Enid’s sanity begins to unravel.
Things get worse when a man butchers his wife and children, then blames a violent film he had recently watched. It comes out that Enid was one of the reviewers who had approved said film. Enid is both embarrassed and horrified at that revelation, and her sense of reality begins to slip even more.
The final straw comes when a mysterious director specifically requests that Enid review his film, called Don’t Go In the Church. As she watches the movie, Enid flashes back to memories of the night her sister disappeared, and she begins to believe that the lead actress is actually Nina.
Don’t be misled by this synopsis, there is a lot more mystery and some pretty brutal and bloody death scenes to come during the final third of Censor. But Enid is definitely one of those characters who makes you feel for her, even when she makes some bad personal decisions.
Censor can be seen on Hulu, or it can be rented on a variety of streaming platforms.
Incident in a Ghostland (sometimes known simply as Ghostland) is a film steeped in grief and trauma. It opens with Colleen and her two teenage daughters as they travel to check out the home Colleen has just inherited. During the trip, Beth reads an article about some recent home invasions, in which all family members except the daughters were killed.
Though the three do not realize it, they are being followed by two people driving a candy truck. These two individuals will become known to us as Fat Man and Candy Truck Woman, and they are bad news.
Shortly after Colleen and her daughters start settling into their new house, the bad guys break in and all hell breaks loose. Vera ends up being sexually assaulted as Beth tries to run and hide, but thankfully Colleen manages to somehow kill both of the intruders.
Then we cut to 16 years later and discover that Beth is a very successful writer who has written a novel about the home invasion titled Incident in a Ghostland. She has a husband and child, and seems to be doing very well for herself.
Things take a turn when she gets a call from her sister, pleading with her to come back to the house she still shares with their mother. We get the sense that Vera is suffering from trauma-induced mental illness and is delusional.
When Beth returns to the house, her mother tells her that Vera has been unable to move on since that horrible night, and she has basically barricaded herself in the basement. Beth starts to have bad dreams, and begins to wonder if her sister’s crazy claims that Fat Man and Candy Truck Woman are still somehow alive and trying to get to both girls might be true.
But, as we soon discover, things are not as they seem, and the grief and trauma the two girls are experiencing has led them both into a strange reality. To say more would be to spoil the film, because the twists and turns are so unexpected.
Incident in a Ghostland is very violent and some of the content is hard to watch, so be prepared. It is currently available on Netflix.