Sometimes it’s easier to face the demons — and deep-rooted fears — in our head through watching fictional monsters battle humans on-screen. We know those monsters aren’t real. Even if Nightmare of Elm Street‘s Freddy Krueger‘s blood-soaked revenge plans sends chills down our spines, there’s an inherent safety built into watching scary movies. We can hit pause whenever needed. And, what’s more interesting, is that beneath the fear, there’s a vicarious joy in watching someone beat unstoppable foes. There’s hope. There’s resilience.
It’s no wonder that plenty of horror fans use scary movies to cope with external and internal stressors. Horror fans tune into the bloodbath for the promise of survival as much as we do for its fun. Director Jonathan Barkan grew fascinated with the links between horror and mental health and how and why so many horror fans find solace in the creepiest of runtimes. Mental Health & Horror: A Documentary brings together voices from all over the horror community — from diehard fans to horror critics and creators to mental health professionals — to examine the healing power of scary movies. Produced by Andrew Hawkins and executive produced by David Lawson Jr., the upcoming documentary breaks down stigmas around mental health and the horror community. In an exclusive interview with CBR, Barkan discussed the film’s structure, its “pinch-me” interview moments, and his overall hope for the project at large.
CBR: I was just reading Mental Health & Horror: A Documentary‘s mission statement and wanted to read it aloud because it articulates the film’s aims so well. “There are two goals with this documentary: the first is to let that person in the middle of nowhere, the one who loves horror but has no support system or access to mental health resources, know that they are not alone. The second goal is to actively fight against harmful stereotypes and stigmas that our community faces on a daily basis.” What lofty and fantastic goals!
Jonathan Barkan: Lofty is the perfect word for that.
When you and your team were thinking about structuring when to use mental health resources in this project — like when mental health professionals would be speaking within the documentary or when to add in resources — what were your thoughts around that process?
Yeah, that was a part of it from the very beginning. I knew I needed to ensure their voices were a part of the documentary. I’ve seen so many times how anecdotal evidence is both relied upon heavily when it’s in favor of someone’s argument but dismissed entirely when it’s against someone’s argument. I realized that for people who would have knee-jerk reactions to this documentary — who would think of it negatively — to stop them in their tracks, we needed to have the input of licensed professionals be a part of the voice from the beginning.
When I was thinking about who did I want to interview, and what kind of voices I wanted to be part of this, there were three groups. The first is the fans who have nothing to do with the horror genre, professionally speaking, but they are the backbone of the community. They’re the people who buy the Blu-rays, who go to movies, who wear the shirts, who are just the diehard fans, and even the casual fans — the people who will watch Scream or whatever is popular, but may not necessarily look into the French New Wave extremity or the Tartan Asian Extreme films in the early 2000s. That may not be something they seek, but they’re no less of a horror fan for enjoying what they enjoy. The second group was people in the horror industry, people like yourself — the critics, the bloggers, the journalists — as well as the people that are creating films like the producers, the directors, and the writers. All of those fall into that same category of horror as their profession. Group three was the mental health professionals. It was the licensed therapists, psychologists, and psychotherapists. We needed to have their voices because they were the ones that would take the anecdotal evidence and frame it from a position of evidence and fact. That way anyone who, as I said, had knee-jerk reactions or wanted to dismiss what we were saying in Mental Health & Horror: A Documentary would have to fight against hard evidence. At that point, all I have to say is, “I’m very interested in hearing your opinion. Please show me the evidence to support it.”
Speaking of finding the right voices and research, was there a certain book that came to light for you that really spoke to you? Or something that one of your interviewees mentioned that you’d love to share with our readers?
I think one of one of the really great moments that we had was when we confirmed and then interviewed Psychologist Coltan Scrivner, who is based out of Chicago. Do you remember — I want to say about a year and a half ago — there was a study that was being covered on all the entertainment websites that stated that horror fans were best suited to the isolation and quarantine of the pandemic?
Yes! I had a lot of questions about that…
Coltan was one of the main authors of that paper, so it was a really great moment to have him. But everyone that we’ve interviewed from the mental health profession has brought up some really fascinating insights — whether it be talking about the physiology, the effects of horror films on our physiology, or the chemicals in our brain and how they react to the stimulus of a horror film. We’ve also had many of these mental health professionals bring up the idea of the shadow-self. These were things that I’d either known about or were in the process of reading about anyways. But what I’m most excited about is how these comments might strike a spark in everyone else out there who may not know where to begin, where to start their search of figuring out how horror films affected them, and why it makes sense.
I imagine sitting down to think, “Where do I start to write a documentary about mental health and horror?” must be tricky. How far in time do you go back? When you were thinking about that — either the starting point for how this project began or its first scene — what were some goals that your team had for how you wanted to open up this world?
It’s a great question. We knew from the beginning that it would be disingenuous to try and paint this hypothesis in a purely positive light, specifically because when we look at the representation of mental illness in horror cinema, and even cinema in general, it hasn’t exactly been kind. So we have to acknowledge that there’s been a lot of harmful representation. And as a result, a lot of destructive mentalities and dangerous mentalities have been fostered in the minds of the general public. A lot of that has to be undone and unlearned. If we were to gloss over that, or ignore that, as I said, it would be completely disingenuous. So we had to think to ourselves, and really put work into saying, “How do we acknowledge the past, and at the same time, use that in a way to carve a better discussion moving forward?” So acknowledgment was basically a keyword. When that discussion came up, it was, “We have to acknowledge it, we can’t ignore it.”
I think you’re right. No matter what kind of horror fan you are, at some level, there are things we’ve soaked up without realizing it. Are there any specific stigmas that your team wanted to shed light on to be like, “We make a lot of assumptions. I would like at least one of these things to be thought about before we assume this.”
Yeah, it’s so funny because the way that you phrase that question is very similar to the way that I phrased the question to the interview subjects. I don’t try and bring up specific stigmas. I asked them, “What are some stigmas that you know of? How have they impacted the world you live in?”
One of the ones that kept cropping up, is that, for some reason, people see horror fans as inherently dangerous or violent. When, in reality, anyone who’s a part of the horror community knows that, for lack of a better way of putting it, a lot of us are basically some of the cuddliest teddy bears —
— I was gonna say teddy bears! Horror fans, to me, are so empathetic, so that’s my bias.
I really think it’s because we see horror, and we don’t want to see it inflicted upon others. We can enjoy watching Freddy puree Johnny Depp. It’s cool. It’s fun. But we know it’s not real. And we don’t want it to be real. That’s kind of the big discussion. That’s why some of the most intense and human sub-genres of horror — for example, rape-revenge — are very often the ones that are the more niche subgenres. It’s because specific people take specific information away from it — whether it’s a sense of catharsis or whether it’s a sense of empathy.
But then you see something like haunted house films or slashers and those are really popular because, again, we know it’s not real. The general public can find a lot of joy out of the thrills. But again, we’re not going to go out and start slashing people. It reminds me of when I saw The Raid in the theater and afterward, there were all these people running around the parking lot, pretending they were in a kung-fu movie. You don’t see people coming out of horror films pretending to murder each other. That’s not something you see. And yet, for some reason, there is this idea that that is exactly what goes on. It’s just incredibly frustrating to see such a harmful misplaced stereotype and stigma on people who truly are wonderful.
I’ve heard a lot of people mention before the idea that horror gives us a space to explore our deepest fears or traumas and it gives us a vehicle to do so safely. We know Freddy isn’t going to pull us into a nightmare. Were there any other themes or ideas that you saw keep popping up during interviews?
I think it’s exactly what you’re saying. In the process of watching a film, I think people forget just how much control we have over the entirety of the experience. We put on the film, and we can pause it, we can fast forward, we can press rewind, we can leave the lights on, we can adjust the volume. Oh, I’m scared of the dark and the darkness in this film? Let me turn up the brightness a little bit to make it a little bit easier on myself. Oh, I’m starting to get really nervous and anxious? Let me hit pause. I’m going to step away. I’m going to load up YouTube and search for some kittens. There’s so much that goes into watching a film that we have control over. That’s why films are such a powerful kind of exposure therapy because we have the ability to stop, to work through what we’re feeling, and to acknowledge the impact of what we’re seeing on our well being. A lot of people were bringing that up.
In one of our recent interviews, they had this amazing story about how they were absolutely terrified of horror films as a child. But a friend of theirs in elementary school said, “We’re gonna watch this movie, but I’m going to let you know what’s coming up.” So when a kill was about to happen, this kid would say, “Okay, this person is about to die.” By having that advance warning, this person that we interviewed, was able to navigate their way through that experience. Ultimately, by having that safety net, they found that they loved horror. And now this person is directing horror films and getting acclaim and they’re working with some of the most amazing people in the industry. It’s amazing to see what that little bit of nurturing and empathy can provide for someone. And this person that we interviewed is one of the sweetest, gentlest, kindest, most loving people I’ve ever met.
When you were crafting this documentary, did you have any “pinch me” moments when you were interviewing talent? I don’t know if you still have those moments but I certainly would if Linnea Quigley was in front of me!
The thing is, I have those moments pretty much every single day. Not only in making this, but I got my start as a music critic for Bloody Disgusting and was eventually the Managing Editor and then Editor-In-Chief at Dread Central and then started getting into film acquisitions. Every single day that I was doing this, and to this day, I still have those moments where I cock my head a little bit to the side and I’m like, “This is my life. I get to do these things. I get to meet these people and call them friends.” There was a very surreal moment when I was recently in New York, doing a few interviews, and some of the people that I was interviewing were friends of Barbara Crampton. I took some selfies and texted Barbara and was like, “Hey, check out who I’m hanging out with!” And then it clicked, and I was like, “This is nuts.” That’s the reality of what is happening right now, and that’s where somehow I’ve landed. At no point do I ever want that feeling to go away because I think it’s an incredibly important and humbling feeling. I hope that it gives me that perspective and sensibility that I maintain. I hope to be a horror fan for life because it’s so much more fun being a fan than being jaded or used to it. I never want to get used to this.
Yeah! The joy is really what keeps it fun for everyone involved. Mental Health & Horror: A Documentary covers a topic that is so big! I could easily see this branch out into a docu-series or several focusing on subgenres. Is this something that you’d like to continue in another format too? Or do you feel as if you and your team are more focused on putting this out into the world and then seeing who else gets inspired by it to create something within this topic?
Yeah, I’ll say this: we’ve always had the idea of, “What if?…” I think that’s a very natural mentality when working on something that has the potential to reach so many people to think, “How can we keep that story going?” But at the same time, we’re still working within the confines of the film business. So it still really matters how this performs, the reach that it has, and the interest that it draws. We have hopes and aspirations and dreams, but we also have the reality of the situation.
I also want to say, because you asked if this is something that we would love to see other people do, that I am so excited for the day when a group of filmmakers decides to tackle this subject from their own perspectives. It was incredibly important for me to make sure that the team behind the camera was diverse, could speak to their own lived experiences, and would be able to hold me accountable if they saw me making mistakes or being disrespectful. That was very, very important to me. But at the end of the day, I’m still here in this position, with my lived experiences, and with my view of life. Anyone else who decides to take on this topic, and present it from their perspective, inherently, it’s going to be something unique. It’s going to be something in and of themselves. I’m really interested in seeing what that’s going to look like. I can only hope to champion them and to support them in whatever path they take, so long as they’re doing it.
To support the creation of Mental Health & Horror: A Documentary, check out the creative team’s Indiegogo page.
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