What horror films teach us about ourselves and being human | Dr. Steven Schlozman | TEDxNashville

Wow

A standing ovation

I haven't done anything yet.

Don't hardly feel right as they say.

Okay.

Sorry this is your last thing.

Right so this is what you're

going to look at.

That behind you

That's a mirror. Okay.

That's a mirror of all of you.

Not trying to be insulting it's just true.

And it's a mirror of me

its a mirror of pretty much

anybody who looks at it

except that guy in the picture

'cus we know he shouldn't show up on film

but it's okay that that's the mirror

Right? We know how it works.

'cos if it were more pristine.

If it were more kind of accurate

I think it'd be hard to look at

this is what I'm going to try

and tell you about horror,

it teaches us about ourselves

it actually entertains us

and helps us to love each other even more

and I know that sounds like a cliche

so you're gonna have to

bear with me a little bit

and you're going to have to bear with me

as I tell you some stories.

So let's let's get started.

That's me with as just bangs

makes the difference.

When I was eleven years old

with bangs

I saw a vampire,

I- I- did,

he was someone's brother this vampire, and

he was hovering outside a second story window

through which he was trying to gain access

and his nails they'd grown

unnaturally long throughout the night,

he was staring at me with kind of these

kind of lifeless glowing yellow

bile filled eyes

and you know what?

I let that vampire into the house.

I've been thinking about that vampire

for a long long time.

He was scratching at the window

and he was smiling.

So,

if I could play you this scene,

which we can't because of copyright reasons

that's good because the music alone

would scare the hell out of me again

and I'd be back at that time

when I had bangs, So, rather than

to do that, what I'd like to do for you

is paint the picture.

I'd like to take you back.

So like I said,

I was eleven years old.

It's 1978

you need to picture wood panelled basement

okay, and I'm home all alone

it's just me and my my trusty dog Patches

this mongrel this white mongrel animal

whose white fur kind of blended seamlessly

with the white shack carpet.

My parents were out for the evening.

My sister is having a sleepover

at someone's house.

And I've eaten all but the last piece

of one of those God given Tostino's

Frozen Pizza. Those are like the greatest

gift ever to frozen food.

And I'm clutching one of those 70s

plastic translucent cups which you've seen

-which you've probably seen - have

in your basement

- I'm clutching a glass Dr. Pepper

and there's a vampire at the window.

Tell you what. You know what I did?

I got up and I ran up the stairs

and I turned on every light in the house.

Every light went on and I didn't care

that I had little bits of pizza crumbs

stuck to my flannel shirt. didn't care

that my dog was running after me going,

"What's going on Steve?

What's all the fuss?"

I didn't care that I was pretty sure

I'd knocked that Dr. Pepper thing

down below. None of that mattered to me.

What mattered was that there's a vampire

at the window. In the basement.

So I had to do something.

I had to take action.

My dad was a doctor.

So I went into the bathroom

and I found all these tongue pressers

and then I found these rubber bands

and I made them into crosses

I made like 12 crosses

out of rubber bands.

No really I did this.

But you know what the funniest part

of all this is? I'm Jewish.

I've never made a cross in my life

you know? I knew the rules. There was

a vampire in the basement.

And I'm wasn't taking any chances.

So -so that vampire

those of you who may have recognised him

that was from the made for tv movies

Salem's Lot. That was a network television

I don't know how that gets passed.

Network television.

You talk to people from my generation.

And you say "what was the scariest movie

you've ever seen?"

They'll go through the cannon.

They'll say the Handmaid, the Exorcists,

The Omen. Then you say, did you ever see

'Salems Lot?

And they'll eyes will grow wide

and look with this big smile.

Oh my god.That movie scared me to death.

Directed by the same guy who directed the

Texas Chain Saw Massacre. But -But

I will bet you a thousand tickets. To a

thousand horror conventions.

That if they tell you their story about

'Sales Lot, It'll be a lot like the story

I just told you.

It might not involve Tostinos Frozen Pizza

it might involve a bag of Torritos instead

it might involve a sleepover.

But nobody sleeps over. Right?

Everyone's up all night

in this delightful terror

after having seen the show.

This is what horror does.

Horror grabs you when you're 11 years old

which by the way the average age

when people see their first horror movie.

That's eleven

So there's something transgressive

about horror.

It grabs you and it makes some of

the most loyal fans on the planet.

Even bad horror films make money.

Don't get me wrong there are plenty of

really really good horror films.

Films that are celebrated by

the critics and the fans alike.

Let's wander through them.

The Shining

Who has not had nightmares

about the twins in the hallway.

That little kid with his redrum thing

and the bike and the elevator. The Shining.

There's Rosemary's Baby. 1968.

I teach this film to Harvard undergraduates

they've grown up with Youtube right?

they need to see the story from begin

middle and end by 3 minutes

and they sit through 2+ hours

of Mary's descent into littly and to hell

and they have this huge smile on this face

why don't we see movies like this anymore?

There's It Follows, a movie that

came out very recently.

If you want to see a terrifying depiction

of what it means to come of age

in this society

this is your movie.

There's this one we've forgotten to come to

Nightmare on Elm's Street

a generation of people grew up on this movie

including me.

And theres dawn of the freaking dead.

If you see one zombie film.

This is the one you want to see. 1978.

This movie's made.

What did Romero show with this movie?

He showed us that you don't need

a contagent or radiation

or the rage virus to become a zombie.

what you need is a shopping mall.

That's it. That's what makes the change.

These are the movies that I love.

I am a horror fan.

These movies scare me to death.

But I will go again and again

with a big smile on my face

and I'll come out with

an even bigger smile on my face.

But there's a bit problem for me here.

Because' you know what?

I'm also a child psychiatrist

I have a bodified MD

and I take care of children for a living

and they're not just the kids I'm raising

they're the kids whose parents

actually pay me and I see them.

If you bring your kids to see a doctor,

you do whatever somebody does nowadays;

you google their name right?

And in addition to being a child psychiatrist

I've written horror novels.

I've written a couple of novels,

I've written horror short stories,

been involved in horror movies

and video games and a project right now

where we're using virtual reality

to create this wrap around horror experience.

If you google me

and you say this is the person

I'm going to take my child to to help

you might get that image. Okay.

That's actually and image from

one of the books I wrote.

And you know what happens?

Kids they say yeah, that the guy I want to see

But the parents don't do that

the parents say ehh I don't know.

So if you're a child psychiatrist

and you like horror

that Harvard name can only get you so far.

But I think because I'm a psychiatrist

I'm not so bothered by this

I'm actually sort of fascinated by my love

of the macab

I'm wondering what is it about horror

that we find so attractive?

That those of us who are fans

find so illuminating.

How does horror teach us about ourselves?

Is there something sneakily provocative

about it?

Why when I was 13 years old still with

bangs did my grandma Bobby

give me that book my sweet grandma Bobby

for Hanukkah gives me this book I asked

for this book that's why. I wanted to

learn about this genre that I was so

fascinated by is there something kind of

sneakily profound buried in all the gore?

I'm going to say yes that's the case

I'm gonna make for you today. I'm gonna

say that horror makes us ask questions

that we are very uncomfortable asking in

any other setting except in the campy

displacement that hoar affords and

because of that we can get to know

ourselves better. We can tolerate our

foibles better and we could learn to

love each other better so let me give

you some examples. I told you were going

to come back to this guy. That's Freddy

Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street. So

I apologize for the spoiler alerts here

if you haven't seen this movie and most

people have seen this movie many times

or they're never going to see this movie

there's not a lot in between on that one

but if you haven't seen I'm gonna spoil

a little bit of it. Freddy is a demon

now those claws he has those

are like razor blades that he's fastened

to these gloves and he haunts teenagers

in their dreams so so he he gets into

their dreams and these kids go to sleep

and he slashes them in their dreams and

then they wake up and they're still

bleeding in fact if he catches you in

your dream you could bleed to death in

real life. So what are the teenagers do?

They refuse to go to sleep. does that

sound familiar to anybody? So the

teenagers refuse to go to sleep in this

town and Freddy is a monster he is a

demon and you hate Freddy for most of

the movie but around three quarters into

the movie you learn Freddy's backstory

Freddy wasn't always a demon. Freddy was

once a human being he was a living

breathing soul just like you and me

and and he committed unthinkable acts in

the very town that he now haunts and he

got caught and he got tried but he's

released on a technicality that's the

words in the movie so the town folk

before their kids are grown up they take

justice into their own hands and they

capture Freddie and rather than giving

him back to the authorities they burn

him alive that's why his face looks like

this you don't see idiots in the movie

that's all the backstory so now you've

got a problem

I mean Freddie's a monster he's got to

go he's killing children in their dreams

children who didn't they weren't even

part of this mob justice thing right

they're not responsible and nevertheless

no one deserves to be burned alive

everybody who went to that movie

believed in due process everybody in the

movie believes in due process the whole

movies about due process believe it or

not and yet Freddie gets burned alive so

even if you don't believe in due process

does somebody really deserve that kind

of ending? And before you know it just

like that this trifling film this

throwaway this thing that you rented

probably because that face caught your

attention now you're thrust into this

really interesting discussion of the

ragged world of mob justice and we can

ask those questions much more easily in

a horror film. I told you that that

vampire was a brother and I told you

that we let that vampire into the house

so another spoiler alert here I got to a

little bit about Salem's Lot. Two

brothers on their way home. Suns going

down they know they're not supposed to

get home after Sun Goes Down and they

know they're going to be late so there

is of course an obligatory shortcut

through the woods every horror film has

a shortcut through the woods right

that's the way it works so the big

brother says to the little brother come

on dad's gonna kill us we don't get home

on time let's take the shortcut through

the woods the little brother says dad's

gonna be really mad if we go through the

woods and the big brother says

accurately dad will never know that we

went through the woods so let's just go

so the little brother sighs follows the

big brother because he's stronger he

could move all the brambles out of the

way and when he pops out literally into

his backyard out of where the woods end

he notices that his brother's not with

him anymore he's lost his brother in the

woods so he doesn't think anything

rottens happened he just as scared so he

goes inside he says to his parents look

we came home

through the woods and and I lost my

little brother and I don't know where he

is and his parents are mad so they send

him upstairs onto that second story and

they go out to look for him and that's

when that vampire shows up who used to

be his brother in fact that's why his

brother didn't make it home his brother

got attacked by the vampire when I was

watching this movie

I wasn't thinking don't let him in I was

thinking he will definitely let him in

because it's his brother okay and that

blood bond of brotherhood transcends the

fact that his brother is now a vampire.

Now this may seem really silly and trite

to you except take away the word vampire

and insert something new I will not let

my brother at the dinner table because

he is a criminal. Or I will not let my

brother at dinner table because he's an

addict or I won't have dinner with my

brother because he didn't vote for the

same guy I voted for

and if ever there were a timely debate

that we can handle better and that can't

be displacement of horror it happens in

movies like this and you might wonder

did I really get that when I was 11? Yeah

Not because I'm anything special I work

with 11 year olds for a living and I can

tell you they sense intuitively when

there's a profound question on the table.

They get it much better than adults. You

know the movie that did this best nNght

of a Living Dead. 1968. Hundred thousand

dollar budget not even copyright I know

George really well George Romero the guy

who made this movie he didn't know he'd

be a filmmaker he was and I'm not making

this up

the chief cameraman for Mr. Rodgers when

he made this film. So he chips in some of

his own money he gets his buddies to

make this movie and it takes the movie

world by storm and in one fell swoop

it attacks racism, it attacks sexism, it

attacks a war that we as a nation

couldn't seem to extract ourselves from.

It asks us what we do in a postmodern

world when science actually fails us

when we can't get the answers we need

from science and most importantly it

asks us what we do when fear overpowers

our ability to be reasonable and how we

can become violent all that from a

hundred thousand dollar non copyrighted

he didn't know he'd be a filmmaker so he

never copyrighted non copyrighted movie

that's a pretty impressive step if you

think about it so

how does it do that? Let's move over to

the brain that the organ I'm actually

supposed to know something about okay

let's talk for a second about the tricks

our brain play so that we can get to

these fairly profound conclusions from

horror films and we do that through

clowns. No we don't really do that

through clowns but I've showed you a

picture of a clown here so you could

engage in the first thing I want to talk

about a metacognition so a metacognition

means thinking about what you're

thinking about and in studies of people

who like horror films there's two really

important findings the first one is that

they are frightened so you know this by

measuring things like skin conductance

you can see that people are sweating

respiratory rate heart beat you know

that you at least have a fight-or-flight

response and as those folks come out of

the movie you sort of say okay you had a

fight-or-flight response to us you did

you did

what'd you think of the movie and the

first person of the fight-or-flight

responses never again never again you

say okay thank you for your time but

somebody else comes out and says yeah

yeah I was I was really scared but that

was really good that was really good and

say well what made it good? And then they

stop and they say that's a good

question I have to think about what made

it good. I have to think about what I'm

thinking. So clowns are the perfect

example of that. Many people even before

all the nonsense that happened this fall

are afraid of clowns many people don't

like clowns. Nope but why don't we like

clowns?

That's a metacognitive exercise so let's

just do a little little experiment here

a little thought experiment a clown at

the circus or at a birthday party or at

a rodeo that's okay right? I mean you

might not like clowns but you understand

that's where he belongs. But a clown in

your backyard holding a meat cleaver at

11:30 at night and staring? That's not

right. Right that's a moment that doesn't

fit the pattern.

That's a metacognitive moment where

you're saying I know we're clowns belong

and it's not there okay

that actually has to do with the second

concept I want to talk about and that's

the concept of pattern recognition you

recognize the pattern of where a clown

ought to be. So another example that's a

pug everybody does that when I saw that

photo at aw so if you ask your

two-year-old is that what is that she'll

say that's a doggy. And you'll say why is

that a doggy? And she cocks her head kind

of funny and like you're out of your

mind? She says well because it looks like

a doggy and if you say well how was the

doggy different from a kitty she's not

gonna say well kitties have retractable

claws and those funky pupils she'll just

say kitties look like kitties and

doggies look like doggies and can I go

now?

And you know what she's right she

recognizes the pattern of a doggy.

Pattern recognition sets in at a very

young age. It's an adaptive response it

allows us to see when things are just

slightly off and to take guard to be

aware to know that things just aren't

quite right. So we're gonna do a little

experiment with this very cute pug.

I'm not gonna hurt him. I promise we're

just gonna tweak this pug just a little

bit. There. Okay now you all laughed

right? You laughed because you recognized

before you understood why the patterns

here. Those are cat eyes on a pug and you

didn't say I am laughing because those

are kitty cat eyes on a pug face your

brain registered it is not quite fitting

in even before you knew why you had to

kick it north to that prefrontal cortex.

We heard about earlier in order for it

to make sense but you know what happens

then

when we have that cognitive dissonance

of two patterns that get shoved together

and we feel a little bit frightened then

we step away you wonder is that the

source of prejudice? Is that the source

of racism? Something that looks really

similar to you but it's a little bit

different. Is that under a biological

substrate for one of the worst things we

can do as humans? These are the questions

that horror can ask in ways that we

cannot ask directly. We're very funny

species we don't like difficult

questions unless somebody poses it in

displacement and horror films give us

that opportunity it's a

very subtle thing or you might not know

that horror is subtle except when it's not

guys remember this film my goodness this

movie that's alien that's Ridley Scott's

alien the tagline for this movie is in

space nobody can hear you scream I tell

you what when I watched this movie

people heard me scream like the whole

neighborhood heard me scream everybody

up and down when that thing busted out

of that guy's gut it was like you know

to quote the sequel to alien aliens it

was game over man game game over it got

Bill Paxton just passed away God rest

his soul well I don't remember being

terrified I remember laughing as I was

screaming game over and I remember

laughing with my buddies because I

didn't see alien in the theater I rented

it I was 17 years old then my parents

were not home I you guys are gonna think

I grew up with no one watching me ever

it was my parents weren't home my sister

wasn't there I had all my friends over

and mom dad were in the audience tonight

forgive me we had procured some 3.2%

alcohol beer which was legal at the time

in Kansas if you were 18 and in that

funky kind of logic that adolescents

like to engage in I was not 18 but I

figured because I had friends who were

18 we're in the same class I could drink

of this beer so we watched this movie

and laughed and screamed a delight and

this is what horror does for you it

doesn't make you drink that's not what

I'm saying

it creates community that creates

connection and that's the third part it

makes you think it makes you recognize

patterns but it brings us together and

that's like gold to our social brains

we're wired to connect with each other

and we need ways to do that have you

ever been to a horror film in the

theater because if you haven't you

should they place so much better than

the theater and it's the only movie

setting where it is not only permissible

it is expected to yell to scream to say

I can't watch to shout instructions to

the guy on the screen to say what are

you do we don't split up and if you if

you do split up there's this dark creepy

tunnel that you just discovered don't go

down there and if you do go down there

why in god's name are you taking a match

and not the flashlight that you

in your truck this is what happens in

horror that happened in the conjuring if

anybody saw that very seed and everybody

theater starts laughing we love that

moment we know that the filmmaker loved

the idea of the match and couldn't give

it up that connection horror is so

derivative that you see every horror

film in every other horror film and you

feel immediately like you're part of the

club liqueur is a mirror okay it's a

distorted mirror by high definition it's

not what we think we're seeing when we

look in it but if it were super pristine

I don't think we could tolerate it

because we've got some ugly sides to us

but if we move it into displacement we

can ask some pretty provocative

questions about ourselves and we can

answer them learn to tolerate our

vulnerabilities our foibles actually

even learn to love ourselves more that

mirror can be a present to us so go out

and see the next war film thanks for

coming.

[Applause]