February 13, 2025 • 26 mins
Have you ever wondered why horror games and movies are so appealing to certain people? In this episode Eddie and Justin answer this question by exploring the psychology of horror. They also look at horror games being marketed to children. Plus, find out which co-host is a huge weenie when it comes to horror.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Real quick. I just wanted to make a quick shout
out to an old friend, my friend Brett. This week
would have been his thirty fifth birthday and he is
no longer with us. So I wanted to throw out
a rest in peace and say that if anyone is
struggling with addiction the substance abuse in Mental Health Services Administration,
(00:22):
their number is one eight hundred and sixty six to help.
If you need help, reach out. This is Millennial Mental
Health Channel. I'm doctor Justin Romano, a child adolescent psychiatry fellow.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
And I'm Medi Kurio, a licensed clinical therapist. Our podcast
is here because we wanted to start a much need
conversation about mental health.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Our goal is to teach you as much as we
can by sharing our own experiences and interviewing experts in
the mental health field. We will discuss topics like mood disorders,
psychotic disorders, substance use, personality disorders, and many more.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Millennial Mental Health Channel buy Millennials for everyone. We hope
you enjoyed today's episode.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
MHC is a production of Speaker from iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I Heart Mia.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
So switching back to question Eddie, what is your earliest
memory of being scared by a movie.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Before I traumatized myself again. I do just want to
say thank you for sharing that my friend. Rest and
peace to Brett, but thanks for sharing that with the audience.
As I got ready for today, I looked at the
first question. I was like, man, what was the first
time that I was scared by a movie? And I
remembered it almost instantly. Back in the day, with a
couple of my older cousins, we used to go to
(01:36):
my grandma's house a lot, and I remember one time,
maybe maybe getting there a little bit later than them,
and they were watching a movie. And the movie they
were watching was Blade, And if you're not familiar, I mean,
Blade is what is easy of a vampire hunter. He's
like a vampire that hunts back right, something like that.
And I remember watching the movie with them, and because
(01:57):
I was with them, it was just kind of like
not a huge deal, like it kind of it was
what it was. Right fast forward a chunk of time,
I go to my grandma's house and I'm by myself
this time, and I'm just hanging out. I I'm just
gonna put in a movie. I go grab Blade because
I was like, oh, I know this movie. I didn't
know what was at the beginning of the movie. So
we pop it in and it's going and like right
(02:18):
away there's a scene where this like vampire was like
burn and just like rushed into a hospital like freaked
me the fuck out to where I had to like
turn it off, pull it out of the VCR shout
out VCRs, and that was it. I stopped watching it.
I feel like I've re seen it now as an
adult sometime maybe in the last ten years, but that
(02:40):
like fucked me up for a little bit, Like that
was fucking scary, and it's so universal.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
There are so many people who have those types of
memories that were a movie when they were a kid
really scared the hell out of them.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, it got me so yeah, I guess shout out blade.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
It's funny that you mentioned that it started like with
your cousins, because that's exact exactly where mine comes from too.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
What do you got I.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Remember being with my cousins. I was young, I must
have been seven years old or so. They had Jaws
going on the TV, and you know the scene where
the shark comes up crushes the boat in half, like
clamps down on Quint's legs and he just starts screaming,
(03:24):
And I remember being seven years old and being like,
what the hell? This is awful, but ironically enough, like
Jaws is one of my favorite movies ever, and as
I've gotten older, I have come to appreciate how good
of a movie and how well done of a movie
it is. But boy, I was scared for a long time,
(03:48):
and that one really stuck with me too.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
If you haven't guessed yet, our episode is about the
psychology of horror. I think of like, I'm just not
one of those people that we know this. I don't
watch a ton of movie right, so even scary movies
even less right getting ready for today. It made me
think of when I first got into true crime podcasts,
and I remember like Kevy had shown me an episode
of Case File True Crime. Shout out to them, great
(04:13):
one if you're really into like really interesting but also
potentially like fucked up like true crime stories. I remember
we listened to an episode. I was like, oh man,
this is like good shit, like I'm like hooked, and
I started listening to it more and I just remember
for a chunk of time because I wasn't like desensitized.
Yet I would like I felt like the hairs on
the back of my neck were standing up all the time,
(04:34):
like I was like on edge. And I think just
because I don't watch enough scary movies that like I
just would rather avoid because I don't want to. I
would not I would like to not get scared.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
So you didn't like the feeling.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Not my favorite? No, I hate the Oh. I mean,
if we're gonna keep talking about Like one time on
a plane, I was watching one of the Paranormal Activity
ones and I think it was I don't remember which number,
I don't remember how ma they made, but it was
one where there's an Xbox, the one the connect. Remember
that the Xbox three sixty had like a and an
(05:07):
additional thing you connect to it, I like had the camera.
I remember there being something specific about like the connect
was like picked up on like some creepy shit in
the middle of the night. And I remember, like it
gets to the end, everything's like going wild. There's like
all these like scary like I don't know, monsters, whatever,
and then right as it's about to end, the camera
like turns and boom, one of like the scary whatever
(05:29):
it was right right in the middle. Made me jump
in the airplane, like in my seat, so I avoid
especially if I'm by myself. Yeah, I'm playing you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
We base a lot of our topics on this show
off stuff we experienced in real life and stuff that
our patients are going through. And as a child and
adolescent psychiatrist, I have noticed that kids these days are
getting marketed to a lot of horror, especially games. It
feels like now more than ever, kids are getting marketed
(06:04):
to specifically, so movies, shows, games, especially those horror games
are now pretty commonplace. It's not just kids watching adult content.
Because I think it's interesting that both of our stories
were us when we were kids and we were exposed
to something that was more kind of an adult content.
Now these publishers and these media companies are starting to
(06:27):
advertise and make games specifically for kids. Yeah, and I
find that interesting. And we don't really have a ton
of data or studies on it to show whether or
not it's a good thing or a bad thing. And
there's some kind of interesting theories about how it could
potentially be a good thing, but we wanted to talk
about it and give some examples of it.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
I feel like too. Like when you think about it,
like there was something about the I look old enough
to get into like a PG thirteen movie, or I
got into a rated R movie because I was with
like an adult right, or I got this rated I
am for ature game because my parents were with me.
But like, yeah, like to your point, it seems like
a lot of the stuff is just more readily available,
(07:08):
and like you said, geared towards kids, Like there's a
lot of even on TikTok. I've had to do like
the not interested button on any type of like creepy
stuff that comes on like I do not no, thank you,
I'd be watching at night. I'm like, no, I'm not
watching this shit.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I love the visual that you're giving me too, because
like you know, Eddie's big football player.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
You wouldn't think and it's just like not interested. So
a lot of.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
These games are made to be twelve years in older.
Even a lot of the most common horror games for
kids say that they're twelve years and older. But in
my experience, a lot of kids are playing them and
a lot of parents don't know they're supposed to be
twelve years and older, and a lot of kids just
have free access to their tablets and can download whatever
the heck they want, so their friends get recommend it
(08:01):
and they start downloading it and playing it themselves. So
the first one, and this is probably the most popular
game that I want to talk about it is called
Five Nights at Freddy's, where the kids call it FNAFF
for short. Yeah, for five Nights at Freddy's. There are
a total of ten games right now and a movie
(08:22):
that came out last year starring the illustrious Josh Hutchison.
The goal of the game is to survive from midnight
to six ams for five nights in a row, hence
Five Nights at Freddy's. The main threat is homicidal animatronic characters,
so it's essentially like a deranged Chuck e Cheese and
(08:45):
so these animatronics are coming to life and trying to
kill people. There's lots of lore around Five Nights at
Freddie's that stems from a fictional pizza place called Freddie
faz Bear's Pizza. I've had kids come into my office
and straight tell me the lore for like twenty thirty
minutes on this stuff. It's deep. Gameplay typically involves using
(09:09):
tools and managing limited resources to avoid being caught by
these animatronics so you can survive and make it through.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
No, thank you, Ye absolutely not not Eddie's cup of Tea.
I have seen like on like Twitch or kick right,
like the streaming platforms where people will stream themselves playing games.
Like you'll see people who are like streaming themselves playing
games like this and like trying not to scream or
like try not to get like scared. But yeah, no,
(09:38):
thank you. The next one is called Poppies Playtime. You know,
I'm not really familiar with these as someone who still
plays video games. I'm more like into like the sports
ones like mad in college football. But Poppy's Playtime is
the next one, so it's published in twenty twenty one.
I'm kind of similar. It's a survival horror game. The
main plot is that a main character is a retired
(10:00):
employee who was invited back to an abandoned factory, which
is already a no for me. The game revolves around
solving puzzles and using gadgets to get out of the factory.
Reports in the UK of kids recreating the game on
a playground, particularly a character named Huggy Wuggy who hugs
(10:20):
people and whispers sinister things in their ears. Apparently Huggy
Wuggy likes to sing songs about hugging and killing, which
it sounds terrifying. Who doesn't, right, Yeah, And because many
of the characters have soft sounding names like Huggy Wuggy,
they often slip through parental controls. And according to sky News,
(10:43):
there was a report of a three year old trying
to jump out of a window because he got to
the stage where he didn't know the difference between reality
and gaming. He tried to climb up my bedroom window,
saying he would die and come back to life. Tell
me that's what Huggy Wuggy does. Definitely, when you have
more mature content and things in the games, and these
(11:07):
kids are just kind of like being exposed to it
over and over again, it's hard for them to decipher
reality from like what can actually happen and what can't right, Like,
that's yeah, that's super scary, no, thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
There are some other really popular horror games out there.
A couple of the two other big ones are like
Hello Neighbor, and I really like this next one called
Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion that's pretty on the nose in
terms of a title for a game. Oh no, but
these a lot of these games. The biggest horror aspect
(11:41):
are jump scares. And you know, I've even had six
year old kids in my office being like talking about
jump scares, and I'm like, man, how do you know
about all this stuff already? It's because they're playing a
lot of these games.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Do you ever play the Resident Evil franchise back in
the day? Oh yeah, yeah. It's really making me think
of like back in the day on the GameCube. My
cousin and I, I think it was like Resident before
or something like, we played it together. But it had
to be together because I was not playing that shit
by myself because it was way too scared. Even you
(12:15):
know Call Duty and the Zombies right every like Black
Ops version, there's the Zombies game mode. Even that, I
will never play Zombies by myself. I gotta play with
somebody else. Hell though, so.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
What is going on in the brain with horror? And
we got a lot of this information from the scientists
dot com. So they actually did a study in which
they did a functional MRI, which allows us to see
which areas of the brain are actually activating. So you
can watch a horror movie while in an MRI machine,
(12:49):
and it'll show you what areas of the brain are
lighting up. And horror scenes activate multiple areas of the brain,
including the anterior cingulate cortex, the thall us, the visual
processing areas, and most importantly, the amygdala, which is your
fear and emotion center of the brain. The more the
amygdala is activated, the more fear is experienced by that person.
(13:15):
So I think it's pretty fascinating that an art form
is capable of causing such strong emotions and a genuine
fear reaction in the brain, not.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Only in your brain, but like the physical sensations that
come from again fucking spooked. Yeah. Yeah, So horror movies
have been shown to trigger anxiety and cause the services
of sleep. Yeah. That was the other thing is that
I like, I feel like I'm not gonna be able
to sleep, even if I know it's not real. I
think the most recent like horror movie I've ever I've
(13:47):
seen is one of like the Annabel series, and.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I was not like, no creepy dolls, right right, Yeah,
I don't say that too loud.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
You might be listening. Okay, so we know about the
what about the body, right horror movies can cause shivering,
you can get startled, screaming, yes, and an increased heart rate.
These symptoms are from the activation of the sympathetic nervous system,
which is the fight or flight response. And yeah, I
can picture right now when I watch Blade by myself
(14:19):
and I saw that scary ass scene and just like
immediately like heart racing, holy shit, like I gotta I
gotta move, and like jumping out of the seat because
I was scared and I thought I was in danger.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
And that's a lot a lot of people have that
same response too. It's it's not it's not just you,
And so fear is typically seen as kind of a
bad thing. So I'm fascinated why some people love horror
movies and seek it out. We know Eddie's not that guy,
but I've got, you know, other friends who love horror
(14:55):
and analyze it, watch a ton of horror movies that
that that's it's their thing. Why why are people so different?
Some people love it, some people hate it, some people
avoid it. So I was kind of thinking that that
watching horror is kind of a form of play, a
form of practicing almost It helps us be able to
(15:16):
process our fears in the moment, conquer it and handle
it better in the future, especially if it comes up
in real life and after researching it a little bit.
There's actually a name for this, called benign masochism theory.
So horror movies help prepare us for difficult situations in
the future. Some personality types specifically are drawn towards horror
(15:41):
because it provides a sense of thrill and excitement, so
high sensation seekers with low empathy tend to like horror
movies more so people who seek out certain experiences that
get them feeling something. Plus, people with low empathy and
horror movies are also associated with the personality traits of
(16:04):
sadism or try or people who like to hurt other people, psychopathy, narcissism,
and machavellianism.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
That low empathy part of Like someone who like is
into it. I feel like that's what fucks me up
with movies too. I'm not trying to say I have
all this empathy, but I have a hard time when
like sad things happen in movies, I don't want to
watch it. Like what I know is like the typical,
like two friends in a movie and then they get
upset with each other and then they're not friends, and
(16:35):
then I'm just like sad until they're friends. I'm just
not built for this, man, I just can't.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You're not You're just like you're too empathetic because it
sounds like you feel what they're going through and you think, like,
that's awful. I would never want to go through such
a thing. But my buddy who's super into horror, when
he's watching a horror movie, he's like, oh, that's an
awesome kill. Oh that guy died in a way that
his character like. He's very logical about breaking down horror.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Well, other people are more like emotional and empathetic.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah no, thank you. Well, okay, so we're looking at movies, right,
and we're talking about the impacts that like movies can
have on you, like specifically horror. We've talked a little
bit about video games and like the horror video games specifically,
but like, what about like violent video games? Right? This
used to be a really big issue back in the day,
(17:29):
especially when like Grand Theft Auto came out of like
people claiming that like violent video games made people violent.
But I don't know if anyone ever gave me an answer.
So what do you think?
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah, I think the same thing too, like yeah, here
in this a ton growing up, But I never really
got any definitive answers. So the short answer is yes.
We looked at a few different meta analyzes, which I
know we've mentioned on the show a bazillion times before
is a study of studies, so they conglomerate multi studies
(18:00):
into one, and multiple meta analyzes have shown that, yes,
there is an association between playing violent video games and
being violent yourself. The most recent one was from Burkhardt
and Lenhart twenty twenty one and the Journal of Media Psychology,
which looked at twenty one separate studies. There was about fifteen,
(18:22):
eight hundred and thirty six people included in the study
as a whole, and they showed a mild effect size
indicating violent video games increases physically aggressive behavior. So it's
not like huge, it's not like, oh my gosh, you
play violent video games and you're going to be violent.
But that's actually probably about a similar effects size to
like how effective antidepressants are in treating depression of mild
(18:46):
effects size.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, I just remember like when grandt like Grand Theft,
Auto Vice City was exactly like ever Play. Just remembering
that like like my parents were with me when I
rent it from Blockbuster. What I throw back, and I
should remember playing the game and just at some point
being like I probably should not be playing this. I
(19:10):
gotta make sure nobody sees me playing this. This is terrible.
It's just like I'm I'm like running people over and
shit like it was yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, beating up sex workers taking their money, Like you
could do anything you wanted in that game.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
I mean you still can in the newer ones, Like
it's yeah, yeah, that that stuff is wild.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Another thing we like to talk about is celebrities and
pop culture on the show. And I found a good
article on Yahoo Entertainment where that's where I go for
all my entertainment needs, So thank you Yahoo Yahoo talking
about some celebrities and in their favorite horror movies. And
I thought this was kind of interesting too, because they're
(19:49):
not always necessarily ones that you would think of. So
first on the list is seth Rogen, the actor, and
his favorite horror movie was the nineteen eighty version of
the Thing.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
What was the Thing? It was?
Speaker 1 (20:04):
The movie about that Thing? This was Kurt Russell. It
was either eighty six or eighty eight, eighty two, Oh
it was way off eighty two. Yeah, he's like in
the Arctic and they come across this thing and it
can like change shape to look like anything, so that
they're not sure who's the thing, who's not the thing.
(20:25):
It could even like imitate dogs and other things. Pretty creepy.
John Carpenter movie, I believe, who also directed Halloween?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah, yep, man, how do people know this shit?
Speaker 1 (20:38):
I just have a stupid brain for that kind of
stuff movies for some reason.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, I'm on the Wikipedia page. You got it all right.
Other than the date though, who did the cinematography? Oh?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
You know, I have no clue that one.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Dean Kundy.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Oh, good for him.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah, he did a great job.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Dean, My boy, keep it up.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
What else did the article have? We have Charlie Day
and the Shining. Who's Charlie Dayan? Who's the Shine? I
think I'm familiar with the Shining? Is that the one
with the twins they're on like the little bikes or whatever.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Come play with us.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Wasn't what's his face in that movie?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Jack Nicholson?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Jack Nicholson, Oh, Charlie Day, Yeah, I'm familiar with this.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah, he was in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He's
been actually a pretty big actor. Yeah, And Shelley Duval
is in The Shining. We actually live really close to
Estes Park in the Stanley Hotel where Stephen King was
inspired to write The Shining, and so we still go
out there every once.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
In a while.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
And actually just watched The Shining a couple of months ago,
and it's so good. Stanley Kubrick directed, one of the
greatest directors and Jack Nicholson just what a performance.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Love that you see? So yeah, Jack Jack Nicholson one
flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah he's done.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Bam. Was good.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Oh yeah, you got it. And then up next we
have Jordan Peel, who this article actually came out in
like twenty sixteen, and since then he's become one of
the biggest horror directors in the world. Yeah, with movies
like Get Out Us.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
What was the I never saw the newest one. There's
one one here called Monkey Man, but I don't think
that's the one that's what pulled.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Up Yeah, nope, nope, Yeah, that's the one I was
thinking of two Uh huh that it was pretty good.
I like that one. Yeah, I haven't seen it, but
Us was weird.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah, I thought, uh us was like, yeah, it was interesting.
And now I'm wondering, like, why the hell did monkey
Man come up with Geordan Peel? But I see it
right here. He is one of the producers for it.
That's why.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Oh that makes sense, the producer but didn't direct it. Yeah, So,
what would you say, is the scariest movie you've ever seen?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Probably one of those ones, the Annabel ones or see
this one wasn't that scary, but it was like it
was a horror movie and there was a jump scare
at the very end of it. I can't even remember
it was a called, but it was this like a
horror movie that we, like, I think was what I
was living with Ryan and Colby and so stupid. I
(23:22):
think Mari was there too. We got this movie from
like red Box, I think, and it was like these
people went to like the Japanese suicide forest and then
like and they like, I don't even know it, just
stuff happened. People died and it wasn't like crazy, but
like at the end there was a jump scare and
(23:44):
that fucked me up a little bit. But probably one
of the animel movies. Yeah, whichever one I saw. I
don't even.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Know how many are there out there right now.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Too many, I'll tell you that, too many Fords. What
about you? Do you have a Do you have a
like a really scared me a movie?
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Oh yeah, Blair Witch Project. Like when I first watched it,
I'm pretty afraid of getting lost in the woods. So
that was a combination of creepy and getting lost in
the woods. And I even I remember watching it. I
think it was my senior year of college or something,
and i'd been a while since i'd actually seen it,
(24:23):
and I remember like really getting wigged out and being like,
oh crap, I don't like this feel like, because usually
I can get my frontal lobe to activate and be
like I'm in a movie. I'm totally safe, I'm totally calm,
I can keep myself cool. But for some reason that
time I was watching that again, I was like, God,
I would hate to get lost in the woods. This
(24:44):
would sucks so bad.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Well, that was like the whole thing with the paranormal
activity movies, right, they like they felt like it felt
like you're watching like a real life They've confirmed that
it's not real life.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Really, Yeah, found footage film or films or what those
are called.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yeah, so like yeah, those kinds of movies like really
get you when you're like, oh shit, like I'm I
feel like this is real. That's what's scary. Yeah, sure
can be.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Yeah on kind of the last note on this episode
is I was curious because it seems like these are
getting a lot of popularity. The horror games for kids
kind of the main topic of the episode, and I
couldn't really find any specific recommendations from the American Pediatric Association,
the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists. I think
(25:36):
this is still such a new thing and it hasn't
really blown up into anything worse or anything right now,
so there's not really a lot of general recommendations from
medical societies, just kind of blanket statements to avoid violent
video games and media.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Oh well, thanks for having me relive some of my
most pivotal moments growing up in terms of being scared.
I appreciate you all listening to the pop culture episodes
are always fun. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts.
Leave us a five star review. You can leave us
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(26:12):
millennial MHC, that's TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and online at
millennialimgc dot com. Did you ever have the Shamee Cooke
commercials growing up?
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yes, like the jewelry store.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah. You've got a friend in the diamond business. Yeah
yeah yeah. And on that note, you've got a friend
in the mental health business. Don't forget till next time.
Take care of all mentals.
Real quick. I just wanted to make a quick shout
out to an old friend, my friend Brett. This week
would have been his thirty fifth birthday and he is
no longer with us. So I wanted to throw out
a rest in peace and say that if anyone is
struggling with addiction the substance abuse in Mental Health Services Administration,
(00:22):
their number is one eight hundred and sixty six to help.
If you need help, reach out. This is Millennial Mental
Health Channel. I'm doctor Justin Romano, a child adolescent psychiatry fellow.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
And I'm Medi Kurio, a licensed clinical therapist. Our podcast
is here because we wanted to start a much need
conversation about mental health.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Our goal is to teach you as much as we
can by sharing our own experiences and interviewing experts in
the mental health field. We will discuss topics like mood disorders,
psychotic disorders, substance use, personality disorders, and many more.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Millennial Mental Health Channel buy Millennials for everyone. We hope
you enjoyed today's episode.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
MHC is a production of Speaker from iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
I Heart Mia.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
So switching back to question Eddie, what is your earliest
memory of being scared by a movie.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Before I traumatized myself again. I do just want to
say thank you for sharing that my friend. Rest and
peace to Brett, but thanks for sharing that with the audience.
As I got ready for today, I looked at the
first question. I was like, man, what was the first
time that I was scared by a movie? And I
remembered it almost instantly. Back in the day, with a
couple of my older cousins, we used to go to
(01:36):
my grandma's house a lot, and I remember one time,
maybe maybe getting there a little bit later than them,
and they were watching a movie. And the movie they
were watching was Blade, And if you're not familiar, I mean,
Blade is what is easy of a vampire hunter. He's
like a vampire that hunts back right, something like that.
And I remember watching the movie with them, and because
(01:57):
I was with them, it was just kind of like
not a huge deal, like it kind of it was
what it was. Right fast forward a chunk of time,
I go to my grandma's house and I'm by myself
this time, and I'm just hanging out. I I'm just
gonna put in a movie. I go grab Blade because
I was like, oh, I know this movie. I didn't
know what was at the beginning of the movie. So
we pop it in and it's going and like right
(02:18):
away there's a scene where this like vampire was like
burn and just like rushed into a hospital like freaked
me the fuck out to where I had to like
turn it off, pull it out of the VCR shout
out VCRs, and that was it. I stopped watching it.
I feel like I've re seen it now as an
adult sometime maybe in the last ten years, but that
(02:40):
like fucked me up for a little bit, Like that
was fucking scary, and it's so universal.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
There are so many people who have those types of
memories that were a movie when they were a kid
really scared the hell out of them.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, it got me so yeah, I guess shout out blade.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
It's funny that you mentioned that it started like with
your cousins, because that's exact exactly where mine comes from too.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
What do you got I.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Remember being with my cousins. I was young, I must
have been seven years old or so. They had Jaws
going on the TV, and you know the scene where
the shark comes up crushes the boat in half, like
clamps down on Quint's legs and he just starts screaming,
(03:24):
And I remember being seven years old and being like,
what the hell? This is awful, but ironically enough, like
Jaws is one of my favorite movies ever, and as
I've gotten older, I have come to appreciate how good
of a movie and how well done of a movie
it is. But boy, I was scared for a long time,
(03:48):
and that one really stuck with me too.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
If you haven't guessed yet, our episode is about the
psychology of horror. I think of like, I'm just not
one of those people that we know this. I don't
watch a ton of movie right, so even scary movies
even less right getting ready for today. It made me
think of when I first got into true crime podcasts,
and I remember like Kevy had shown me an episode
of Case File True Crime. Shout out to them, great
(04:13):
one if you're really into like really interesting but also
potentially like fucked up like true crime stories. I remember
we listened to an episode. I was like, oh man,
this is like good shit, like I'm like hooked, and
I started listening to it more and I just remember
for a chunk of time because I wasn't like desensitized.
Yet I would like I felt like the hairs on
the back of my neck were standing up all the time,
(04:34):
like I was like on edge. And I think just
because I don't watch enough scary movies that like I
just would rather avoid because I don't want to. I
would not I would like to not get scared.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
So you didn't like the feeling.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Not my favorite? No, I hate the Oh. I mean,
if we're gonna keep talking about Like one time on
a plane, I was watching one of the Paranormal Activity
ones and I think it was I don't remember which number,
I don't remember how ma they made, but it was
one where there's an Xbox, the one the connect. Remember
that the Xbox three sixty had like a and an
(05:07):
additional thing you connect to it, I like had the camera.
I remember there being something specific about like the connect
was like picked up on like some creepy shit in
the middle of the night. And I remember, like it
gets to the end, everything's like going wild. There's like
all these like scary like I don't know, monsters, whatever,
and then right as it's about to end, the camera
like turns and boom, one of like the scary whatever
(05:29):
it was right right in the middle. Made me jump
in the airplane, like in my seat, so I avoid
especially if I'm by myself. Yeah, I'm playing you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
We base a lot of our topics on this show
off stuff we experienced in real life and stuff that
our patients are going through. And as a child and
adolescent psychiatrist, I have noticed that kids these days are
getting marketed to a lot of horror, especially games. It
feels like now more than ever, kids are getting marketed
(06:04):
to specifically, so movies, shows, games, especially those horror games
are now pretty commonplace. It's not just kids watching adult content.
Because I think it's interesting that both of our stories
were us when we were kids and we were exposed
to something that was more kind of an adult content.
Now these publishers and these media companies are starting to
(06:27):
advertise and make games specifically for kids. Yeah, and I
find that interesting. And we don't really have a ton
of data or studies on it to show whether or
not it's a good thing or a bad thing. And
there's some kind of interesting theories about how it could
potentially be a good thing, but we wanted to talk
about it and give some examples of it.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
I feel like too. Like when you think about it,
like there was something about the I look old enough
to get into like a PG thirteen movie, or I
got into a rated R movie because I was with
like an adult right, or I got this rated I
am for ature game because my parents were with me.
But like, yeah, like to your point, it seems like
a lot of the stuff is just more readily available,
(07:08):
and like you said, geared towards kids, Like there's a
lot of even on TikTok. I've had to do like
the not interested button on any type of like creepy
stuff that comes on like I do not no, thank you,
I'd be watching at night. I'm like, no, I'm not
watching this shit.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I love the visual that you're giving me too, because
like you know, Eddie's big football player.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
You wouldn't think and it's just like not interested. So
a lot of.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
These games are made to be twelve years in older.
Even a lot of the most common horror games for
kids say that they're twelve years and older. But in
my experience, a lot of kids are playing them and
a lot of parents don't know they're supposed to be
twelve years and older, and a lot of kids just
have free access to their tablets and can download whatever
the heck they want, so their friends get recommend it
(08:01):
and they start downloading it and playing it themselves. So
the first one, and this is probably the most popular
game that I want to talk about it is called
Five Nights at Freddy's, where the kids call it FNAFF
for short. Yeah, for five Nights at Freddy's. There are
a total of ten games right now and a movie
(08:22):
that came out last year starring the illustrious Josh Hutchison.
The goal of the game is to survive from midnight
to six ams for five nights in a row, hence
Five Nights at Freddy's. The main threat is homicidal animatronic characters,
so it's essentially like a deranged Chuck e Cheese and
(08:45):
so these animatronics are coming to life and trying to
kill people. There's lots of lore around Five Nights at
Freddie's that stems from a fictional pizza place called Freddie
faz Bear's Pizza. I've had kids come into my office
and straight tell me the lore for like twenty thirty
minutes on this stuff. It's deep. Gameplay typically involves using
(09:09):
tools and managing limited resources to avoid being caught by
these animatronics so you can survive and make it through.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
No, thank you, Ye absolutely not not Eddie's cup of Tea.
I have seen like on like Twitch or kick right,
like the streaming platforms where people will stream themselves playing games.
Like you'll see people who are like streaming themselves playing
games like this and like trying not to scream or
like try not to get like scared. But yeah, no,
(09:38):
thank you. The next one is called Poppies Playtime. You know,
I'm not really familiar with these as someone who still
plays video games. I'm more like into like the sports
ones like mad in college football. But Poppy's Playtime is
the next one, so it's published in twenty twenty one.
I'm kind of similar. It's a survival horror game. The
main plot is that a main character is a retired
(10:00):
employee who was invited back to an abandoned factory, which
is already a no for me. The game revolves around
solving puzzles and using gadgets to get out of the factory.
Reports in the UK of kids recreating the game on
a playground, particularly a character named Huggy Wuggy who hugs
(10:20):
people and whispers sinister things in their ears. Apparently Huggy
Wuggy likes to sing songs about hugging and killing, which
it sounds terrifying. Who doesn't, right, Yeah, And because many
of the characters have soft sounding names like Huggy Wuggy,
they often slip through parental controls. And according to sky News,
(10:43):
there was a report of a three year old trying
to jump out of a window because he got to
the stage where he didn't know the difference between reality
and gaming. He tried to climb up my bedroom window,
saying he would die and come back to life. Tell
me that's what Huggy Wuggy does. Definitely, when you have
more mature content and things in the games, and these
(11:07):
kids are just kind of like being exposed to it
over and over again, it's hard for them to decipher
reality from like what can actually happen and what can't right, Like,
that's yeah, that's super scary, no, thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
There are some other really popular horror games out there.
A couple of the two other big ones are like
Hello Neighbor, and I really like this next one called
Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion that's pretty on the nose in
terms of a title for a game. Oh no, but
these a lot of these games. The biggest horror aspect
(11:41):
are jump scares. And you know, I've even had six
year old kids in my office being like talking about
jump scares, and I'm like, man, how do you know
about all this stuff already? It's because they're playing a
lot of these games.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Do you ever play the Resident Evil franchise back in
the day? Oh yeah, yeah. It's really making me think
of like back in the day on the GameCube. My
cousin and I, I think it was like Resident before
or something like, we played it together. But it had
to be together because I was not playing that shit
by myself because it was way too scared. Even you
(12:15):
know Call Duty and the Zombies right every like Black
Ops version, there's the Zombies game mode. Even that, I
will never play Zombies by myself. I gotta play with
somebody else. Hell though, so.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
What is going on in the brain with horror? And
we got a lot of this information from the scientists
dot com. So they actually did a study in which
they did a functional MRI, which allows us to see
which areas of the brain are actually activating. So you
can watch a horror movie while in an MRI machine,
(12:49):
and it'll show you what areas of the brain are
lighting up. And horror scenes activate multiple areas of the brain,
including the anterior cingulate cortex, the thall us, the visual
processing areas, and most importantly, the amygdala, which is your
fear and emotion center of the brain. The more the
amygdala is activated, the more fear is experienced by that person.
(13:15):
So I think it's pretty fascinating that an art form
is capable of causing such strong emotions and a genuine
fear reaction in the brain, not.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Only in your brain, but like the physical sensations that
come from again fucking spooked. Yeah. Yeah, So horror movies
have been shown to trigger anxiety and cause the services
of sleep. Yeah. That was the other thing is that
I like, I feel like I'm not gonna be able
to sleep, even if I know it's not real. I
think the most recent like horror movie I've ever I've
(13:47):
seen is one of like the Annabel series, and.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I was not like, no creepy dolls, right right, Yeah,
I don't say that too loud.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
You might be listening. Okay, so we know about the
what about the body, right horror movies can cause shivering,
you can get startled, screaming, yes, and an increased heart rate.
These symptoms are from the activation of the sympathetic nervous system,
which is the fight or flight response. And yeah, I
can picture right now when I watch Blade by myself
(14:19):
and I saw that scary ass scene and just like
immediately like heart racing, holy shit, like I gotta I
gotta move, and like jumping out of the seat because
I was scared and I thought I was in danger.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
And that's a lot a lot of people have that
same response too. It's it's not it's not just you,
And so fear is typically seen as kind of a
bad thing. So I'm fascinated why some people love horror
movies and seek it out. We know Eddie's not that guy,
but I've got, you know, other friends who love horror
(14:55):
and analyze it, watch a ton of horror movies that
that that's it's their thing. Why why are people so different?
Some people love it, some people hate it, some people
avoid it. So I was kind of thinking that that
watching horror is kind of a form of play, a
form of practicing almost It helps us be able to
(15:16):
process our fears in the moment, conquer it and handle
it better in the future, especially if it comes up
in real life and after researching it a little bit.
There's actually a name for this, called benign masochism theory.
So horror movies help prepare us for difficult situations in
the future. Some personality types specifically are drawn towards horror
(15:41):
because it provides a sense of thrill and excitement, so
high sensation seekers with low empathy tend to like horror
movies more so people who seek out certain experiences that
get them feeling something. Plus, people with low empathy and
horror movies are also associated with the personality traits of
(16:04):
sadism or try or people who like to hurt other people, psychopathy, narcissism,
and machavellianism.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
That low empathy part of Like someone who like is
into it. I feel like that's what fucks me up
with movies too. I'm not trying to say I have
all this empathy, but I have a hard time when
like sad things happen in movies, I don't want to
watch it. Like what I know is like the typical,
like two friends in a movie and then they get
upset with each other and then they're not friends, and
(16:35):
then I'm just like sad until they're friends. I'm just
not built for this, man, I just can't.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
You're not You're just like you're too empathetic because it
sounds like you feel what they're going through and you think, like,
that's awful. I would never want to go through such
a thing. But my buddy who's super into horror, when
he's watching a horror movie, he's like, oh, that's an
awesome kill. Oh that guy died in a way that
his character like. He's very logical about breaking down horror.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Well, other people are more like emotional and empathetic.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah no, thank you. Well, okay, so we're looking at movies, right,
and we're talking about the impacts that like movies can
have on you, like specifically horror. We've talked a little
bit about video games and like the horror video games specifically,
but like, what about like violent video games? Right? This
used to be a really big issue back in the day,
(17:29):
especially when like Grand Theft Auto came out of like
people claiming that like violent video games made people violent.
But I don't know if anyone ever gave me an answer.
So what do you think?
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah, I think the same thing too, like yeah, here
in this a ton growing up, But I never really
got any definitive answers. So the short answer is yes.
We looked at a few different meta analyzes, which I
know we've mentioned on the show a bazillion times before
is a study of studies, so they conglomerate multi studies
(18:00):
into one, and multiple meta analyzes have shown that, yes,
there is an association between playing violent video games and
being violent yourself. The most recent one was from Burkhardt
and Lenhart twenty twenty one and the Journal of Media Psychology,
which looked at twenty one separate studies. There was about fifteen,
(18:22):
eight hundred and thirty six people included in the study
as a whole, and they showed a mild effect size
indicating violent video games increases physically aggressive behavior. So it's
not like huge, it's not like, oh my gosh, you
play violent video games and you're going to be violent.
But that's actually probably about a similar effects size to
like how effective antidepressants are in treating depression of mild
(18:46):
effects size.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, I just remember like when grandt like Grand Theft,
Auto Vice City was exactly like ever Play. Just remembering
that like like my parents were with me when I
rent it from Blockbuster. What I throw back, and I
should remember playing the game and just at some point
being like I probably should not be playing this. I
(19:10):
gotta make sure nobody sees me playing this. This is terrible.
It's just like I'm I'm like running people over and
shit like it was yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, beating up sex workers taking their money, Like you
could do anything you wanted in that game.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
I mean you still can in the newer ones, Like
it's yeah, yeah, that that stuff is wild.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Another thing we like to talk about is celebrities and
pop culture on the show. And I found a good
article on Yahoo Entertainment where that's where I go for
all my entertainment needs, So thank you Yahoo Yahoo talking
about some celebrities and in their favorite horror movies. And
I thought this was kind of interesting too, because they're
(19:49):
not always necessarily ones that you would think of. So
first on the list is seth Rogen, the actor, and
his favorite horror movie was the nineteen eighty version of
the Thing.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
What was the Thing? It was?
Speaker 1 (20:04):
The movie about that Thing? This was Kurt Russell. It
was either eighty six or eighty eight, eighty two, Oh
it was way off eighty two. Yeah, he's like in
the Arctic and they come across this thing and it
can like change shape to look like anything, so that
they're not sure who's the thing, who's not the thing.
(20:25):
It could even like imitate dogs and other things. Pretty creepy.
John Carpenter movie, I believe, who also directed Halloween?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah, yep, man, how do people know this shit?
Speaker 1 (20:38):
I just have a stupid brain for that kind of
stuff movies for some reason.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, I'm on the Wikipedia page. You got it all right.
Other than the date though, who did the cinematography? Oh?
Speaker 1 (20:49):
You know, I have no clue that one.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Dean Kundy.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Oh, good for him.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah, he did a great job.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Dean, My boy, keep it up.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
What else did the article have? We have Charlie Day
and the Shining. Who's Charlie Dayan? Who's the Shine? I
think I'm familiar with the Shining? Is that the one
with the twins they're on like the little bikes or whatever.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Come play with us.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Wasn't what's his face in that movie?
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Jack Nicholson?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Jack Nicholson, Oh, Charlie Day, Yeah, I'm familiar with this.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah, he was in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He's
been actually a pretty big actor. Yeah, And Shelley Duval
is in The Shining. We actually live really close to
Estes Park in the Stanley Hotel where Stephen King was
inspired to write The Shining, and so we still go
out there every once.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
In a while.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
And actually just watched The Shining a couple of months ago,
and it's so good. Stanley Kubrick directed, one of the
greatest directors and Jack Nicholson just what a performance.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Love that you see? So yeah, Jack Jack Nicholson one
flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah he's done.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Bam. Was good.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Oh yeah, you got it. And then up next we
have Jordan Peel, who this article actually came out in
like twenty sixteen, and since then he's become one of
the biggest horror directors in the world. Yeah, with movies
like Get Out Us.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
What was the I never saw the newest one. There's
one one here called Monkey Man, but I don't think
that's the one that's what pulled.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Up Yeah, nope, nope, Yeah, that's the one I was
thinking of two Uh huh that it was pretty good.
I like that one. Yeah, I haven't seen it, but
Us was weird.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah, I thought, uh us was like, yeah, it was interesting.
And now I'm wondering, like, why the hell did monkey
Man come up with Geordan Peel? But I see it
right here. He is one of the producers for it.
That's why.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Oh that makes sense, the producer but didn't direct it. Yeah, So,
what would you say, is the scariest movie you've ever seen?
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Probably one of those ones, the Annabel ones or see
this one wasn't that scary, but it was like it
was a horror movie and there was a jump scare
at the very end of it. I can't even remember
it was a called, but it was this like a
horror movie that we, like, I think was what I
was living with Ryan and Colby and so stupid. I
(23:22):
think Mari was there too. We got this movie from
like red Box, I think, and it was like these
people went to like the Japanese suicide forest and then
like and they like, I don't even know it, just
stuff happened. People died and it wasn't like crazy, but
like at the end there was a jump scare and
(23:44):
that fucked me up a little bit. But probably one
of the animel movies. Yeah, whichever one I saw. I
don't even.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Know how many are there out there right now.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Too many, I'll tell you that, too many Fords. What
about you? Do you have a Do you have a
like a really scared me a movie?
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Oh yeah, Blair Witch Project. Like when I first watched it,
I'm pretty afraid of getting lost in the woods. So
that was a combination of creepy and getting lost in
the woods. And I even I remember watching it. I
think it was my senior year of college or something,
and i'd been a while since i'd actually seen it,
(24:23):
and I remember like really getting wigged out and being like,
oh crap, I don't like this feel like, because usually
I can get my frontal lobe to activate and be
like I'm in a movie. I'm totally safe, I'm totally calm,
I can keep myself cool. But for some reason that
time I was watching that again, I was like, God,
I would hate to get lost in the woods. This
(24:44):
would sucks so bad.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Well, that was like the whole thing with the paranormal
activity movies, right, they like they felt like it felt
like you're watching like a real life They've confirmed that
it's not real life.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Really, Yeah, found footage film or films or what those
are called.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Yeah, so like yeah, those kinds of movies like really
get you when you're like, oh shit, like I'm I
feel like this is real. That's what's scary. Yeah, sure
can be.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
Yeah on kind of the last note on this episode
is I was curious because it seems like these are
getting a lot of popularity. The horror games for kids
kind of the main topic of the episode, and I
couldn't really find any specific recommendations from the American Pediatric Association,
the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists. I think
(25:36):
this is still such a new thing and it hasn't
really blown up into anything worse or anything right now,
so there's not really a lot of general recommendations from
medical societies, just kind of blanket statements to avoid violent
video games and media.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Oh well, thanks for having me relive some of my
most pivotal moments growing up in terms of being scared.
I appreciate you all listening to the pop culture episodes
are always fun. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts.
Leave us a five star review. You can leave us
a comment, like, follow, share, subscribe on social media, and
(26:12):
millennial MHC, that's TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and online at
millennialimgc dot com. Did you ever have the Shamee Cooke
commercials growing up?
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yes, like the jewelry store.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Yeah. You've got a friend in the diamond business. Yeah
yeah yeah. And on that note, you've got a friend
in the mental health business. Don't forget till next time.
Take care of all mentals.
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