People either love or hate horror movies, there is no in-between or question about it; each person knows exactly how they feel. However, most are not educated or have ever thought about how powerful these movies are or what they can do. Horror movies have immense power and influence over a one’s psyche and the effects on the mind can happen consciously or unconsciously. The monster in the movie Oculus, an evil, haunting, and calculating spirit trapped within an antique mirror, destroys the lives of a family by corrupting the parents of two young siblings and framing the mother and father’s murder on the pre-teen son. The mirror serves to help the audience cope with their own ideas about themselves and the present that they live in by allowing …show more content…
He examines how the prefrontal cortex works and explains that how horror movies use juxtaposing images and ideas, things that seem normal on the surface but have tweaks that make them scary because they make people uncomfortable. He uses the idea of a pug with cat eyes, it seems normal but something is off about it. Oculus demonstrates this trick by using an old antique mirror; it is old and should be harmless, but it is actually powerful enough to kill. The spirit connected to it has mirrors in its eyes. In the film a mirror is a symbol for the truth. It reveals all. And the mirror and the spirit are the same, a monster. The film uses an image that turns viewers back because it makes them uncomfortable; a preteen son being capable of murdering his mother and father. These images and actions create “cognitive dissonance of two patterns that get shoved together and [people] feel a little bit frightened then [people] step away [wondering] is that the source of prejudice? Is that the source of racism?. . .This unconscious thought process is a biological substrate for one of the worst things