blog 5 : the demonisation of mental illness
The demonisation of mental illness in horror and thriller films In honour of it being the halloween season, I felt it only appropriate to write a post about two of my favourite genres: horror and thriller. However, I couldn't decide on one film to do so instead, I decided on writing about a few that all have something in common. Horror films are made intended to elicit fear or disgust within their audience, whereas thrillers are made to make the audience feel suspense, anxiety, and anticipation. Although, there are a lot of crossovers between these genres in films. As I started watching more films portraying mental illness, I noticed a trend in that many of them were often from either the horror genre, or the thriller genre, and typically, the character who had the mental illness being portrayed was also the antagonist, or the 'bad guy'. I started thinking about how this could negatively impact the way in which mental illness is perceived in society, especially those that ...