Death, Nostalgia, and Relationships: Psychological Defenses against Existential Terror and the Appeal of Stranger Things

Special attention is given to the intensification of the horror elements that occurred in season 4, most notably in the character of Vecna, who evokes the requisite emotions for the experience of art horror (fear and disgust) by his macabre appearance and the gruesome way he kills his victims. Keywo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPSYART (Gainesville, Fla.) p. 124
Main Author Bassett, Jonathan F
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Gainesville University of Florida 01.01.2023
Subjects
Anxiety
Duffer, Ross
Film adaptations
Genre
Mortality
Motion pictures
Nostalgia
Seasons
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Summary:Special attention is given to the intensification of the horror elements that occurred in season 4, most notably in the character of Vecna, who evokes the requisite emotions for the experience of art horror (fear and disgust) by his macabre appearance and the gruesome way he kills his victims. Keywords: Stranger Things, existential psychology, death anxiety, nostalgia, Terror Management Theory, horror This paper presents an existential perspective that views horror as confronting people with typically suppressed concerns about mortality and the animalistic aspects the human condition, while also providing the opportunity to evaluate beliefs about existence that are potentially palliative towards those concerns. [...]the scene takes place in the diegetic setting of Pennhurst Asylum, the name of which is an allusion to an actual defunct state-run psychiatric hospital in Pennsylvania that now serves as the location for a popular haunted attraction (Tarabay, 2010). Upon discovering that Henry is the source of the strange torments experienced by the family in their new home, his mother is planning to have him sent away to a psychiatric hospital.
ISSN:1088-5870
1088-5870