The Return of the Repressed

Freud, a psychodynamic psychologist, believed that mental illness and other such abnormalities stemmed from our unconscious mind. He believed this consisted of mostly childhood memories, which the ego had to repress in order to conceal our true desires, which cannot be expressed in our society. The ego also protects itself in this way as memories in the unconscious mind do not cause immediate upset or suffering to the individual.

However Freud believes that it is these repressed memories and desires that cause abnormalities at a later date if the ego (the gatekeeper to the unconscious mind) uses defence mechanisms to ensure they remain repressed. These defence mechanisms can be dangerous in themselves. Projection is one way in which the ego tries to resolve internal conflict and preserve repressed memories; this involves projecting your feelings for someone who has hurt you in the past on to somebody else.

Mental illnesses can form from what lurks in the unconscious as pathological defence mechanisms can lead to a very unstable individual. Also repressed memories tend to reappear in behaviour or memories.

Freud’s ideas are a good basis for horror for many reasons. Firstly, a history of the antagonist can be built up which often provokes mixed emotions within the audience; empathy combined with fear and disgust. This makes the plot richer and more complex, however if the history of the repressed memories is unveiled near the beginning of the narrative structure it can be too predictable and the preferred reading can be too certain. I believe 'Halloween' is, in this day and age, guilty of this, however in it's time Slasher movies were groundbreaking and therefore its conventions were less predictable to the audience.

On the hand, 'the return of the repressed' can make for a rather ambiguous reading, as one of the main pathological defence mechanisms is distortion of reality. This can be conveyed in such a way to make the line between reality and imagination blurred for the audience as well as the antagonist. 'The Shining' is a good example of this as Stephen King successfully creates an ambiguous plot, which could be reduced to merely mental deterioration caused by repressed memories, however there are indications of there being visions based in reality not in the characters minds.

It could be argued that horror's consistent popularity since it's beginins in early literarute, is due to Fraud's ideas. He believs humans repress their primitive desires from a young age as they would not be accepted within our society. In which case, horror may be so widely enjoyed as it gives the audience a chance to recall those repressed desires and project them on to characters in the film. They may identify with the "evil" and live out some of their primitive desires via that character. However, I believe more commonly the audience identifies with the "hero" such as Carol Clover's theory of males and females identifying with the "final girl". This could either conflict with the idea of horror being an outlet for early repressed desires, or it could suggest that the audience are unleashing repressed desires via the "hero's" violence in overcoming the "evil". It has been said that the "final girl" often becomes monsterous herself, which could connote that evil lies inside us all, such as Freaud suggests.