Psychological Horror: Pareidolia and the Uncanny Valley
Horror is often one of the most difficult genres to properly execute. It is reliant on tapping into the shared fears of the audience. No two audience members are the same, so how can a horror writer create a suspenseful tale that will affect the maximum number of people? There’s a multitude of options but some of the methods I find most fascinating have to do with two basic pieces of human psychology: pareidolia and the uncanny valley.
Pareidolia is the phenomenon in which our minds perceive a pattern where none exists. The most famous form is known as facial pareidolia. Have you ever looked at an object and thought it looked like a human face? This is because of pareidolia. Generally speaking we understand that our brains adapt by examining patterns and predicting results, they’re hard-wired to find patterns wherever they look. Researchers believe this has a huge impact on our ability to empathize with other people. We recognize humanity in the faces of others, so we sympathize and trust them more easily.
Pareidolia has a huge impact on our art and media. It’s why you can recognize Homer Simpson as a human, despite his yellow skin and unnatural form. Everything from abstract art to emojis relies on our minds looking for patterns that will create a person.
It’s also why, when you’re walking down the street at night, you sometimes see a figure out of the corner of your eye. Or when you look at an old photograph you think you think you can see a face in a window. Or when you wake up in the middle of the night you sometimes see eyes staring back at you…
Then there’s the uncanny. The uncanny, in psychology, means something that is both familiar and not familiar at the same time. In simplest terms, the uncanny valley is when something seems almost human but not quite enough to convince your brain. The “valley” refers to how things such as toys, cartoons, and stuffed animals do not unnerve us but as we approach almost-human replicas there is a sudden dip where most people have an extremely negative reaction. That dip is caused by a disconnect in our mind; we’re seeing something that gives off all the traits needed to be human, but subtle differences and inconsistencies warn our brain that something is wrong.
Horror writers have used these concepts for centuries to create suspense in two major ways: by creating humanity where it shouldn’t be and removing humanity from where it should be.
The first plays upon our innate desire to find patterns. Writers and filmmakers introduce elements to the scenery to induce pareidolia. From Edgar Allen Poe to R. L. Stine, writers have relied on using subtly organic descriptors to give objects and locations eerily human traits. If the branches of a tree are described as curling hands it creates an image in our head that is unnaturally human. H. P. Lovecraft went into unnerving detail regarding every object, intentionally giving the audience nothing to trust. In his stories everything had the potential to be dangerous. In Harlan Ellison’s horror shorts, he would use unclear language in order to keep the reader disoriented, never giving them a proper understanding of where they were or what they were seeing, letting imagination fill in the blanks.
The Blair Witch Project also famously relied on shadows and ambiguous imagery to create memorable scares. In one of the film’s critical scenes, the protagonists believe something is attacking their tent and they rush outside, trying to escape. Heather, one of the main characters, looks back, apparently seeing something near the tent, shouting “Oh my god, what the fuck is that?” The camera swings around to see what she was looking at, but no matter how many times you rewatch the scene you’ll find nothing. The filmmakers knew that whatever imagery they could have conjured would be nothing compared to what viewers might imagine. The shadows and shaking camera will create a monster in your mind where there were only branches and leaves.
For the second method, removing humanity from where it should be, look no further than the famous horror monsters of film history. Creatures like Frankenstein’s monster and zombies are near human but their slight differences trigger the effects of the uncanny valley in us, making a zombie infinitely more frightening than the human it once was. Hellraiser, Trick or Treat, and IT are just some of the multitude of films that distort human features to create monstrous facsimiles. Pyramid Head from Silent Hill is one of the examples that take this concept to the extreme, placing a huge geometric head atop an otherwise human body.
Removing the facial features from a character is another common means of removing their humanity and inspiring fear. Nearly every culture on Earth has at least one mythological creature that lacks a face entirely. In fact, one of the most commonly reported nightmares in the U.S.A. is a nightmare featuring a faceless creature. Possibly one of the most famous monsters of the modern era is the Slenderman, the faceless figure who stalks children. This is the perfect example of an uncanny creature. Slenderman’s silhouette is human with familiar clothes and proportions, but his blank, featureless face sets him apart. Our brain struggles to find out why the face is missing and taps into our greatest fear of all: the fear of the unknown.
These monsters, the uncanny valley, and pareidolia reveal truths about humanity. They show our social nature and our fear of the unknowable. Perhaps most revealing, though, is how the things we fear are suspiciously similar to us. With only a few changes something stops being human and becomes a demon, or a zombie, or a skinwalker. Horror writers have revealed time and time again that monsters lurk within, not without.
Horror has always been an incredible tool. It shows us a reflection of ourselves. Horror allows us to examine our psychology and ask what makes us act the way we do. Horror is the study of the dark side of humanity, without it we will never properly face the demons that lurk within. The strongest horror writers know this and use an understanding of psychology to enhance their stories in ways that speak to us on a deeper, universal level.
