Unwanted thoughts & invisible monsters
Horror movies and OCD
I’ve been an editor over at NOCD for the past few months—they’re an organization that helps connect people with OCD to specialized therapists. I don’t have OCD, so since I’ve been working there I have learned more about what obsessive-compulsive disorder actually is. I recall hearing a little bit about OCD in recovery meetings since it has some overlaps with addiction. Both mental health conditions deal with triggers, strong urges, and cycles of anxiety and guilt. I’m not going to throw stats at you or talk about “comorbidity,” but I will say that reliance on alcohol/drugs is often born from an honest attempt to manage living with a mental health issue. That was the case for me anyway.
Addiction has a long history of being portrayed very, very shittily in media, and my bad-screenwriter-spider-sense always go up when I see a movie or TV show where a character’s relapse is used as a plot point (this happens a lot!) But boy oh boy is OCD portrayed badly. I mean, badly. If you are a fictional character with OCD, your choices are being a finicky little choad like Monk or simply being a full-on murderer. Hence, I was inspired to write this article for NOCD. If you don’t know much about OCD, I hope you find it informative. If you do have OCD, I hope it resonates with you a little bit.
Horror Movies and OCD: Unwanted Thoughts and Invisible Monsters
The horror genre is an exceptionally versatile one. Horror movies can be so much more than jump scares and blood splatter—they can provide a wonderfully creative way for filmmakers and audiences to process difficult subjects together. Over the decades, horror movies have examined a myriad of complex topics, including mental health issues, racism, class inequality, and sexism.
Because obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by intrusive thoughts—which by nature can be deeply frightening—there is a compelling intersection between horror films and OCD.
In this article, we’ll take a look at both positive and negative depictions of OCD in horror. From the “serial killers with OCD” myth to some thoughtful writers and filmmakers who are using their own experiences with OCD to tell innovative stories.
Why is OCD so scary?
Living with any mental health condition can be frightening at times. This isn’t because of a weakness of character or a moral failing—mental health conditions can mess with our thinking and distort the way we perceive reality.
OCD is defined by a cycle of obsessions and compulsions. Intrusive thoughts are a key component of OCD—these are highly charged statements, images, or urges that flood your mind, unexpected and unwanted. Because intrusive thoughts are ego-dystonic and don’t align with your values, they can take a heavy emotional toll.
Having intrusive thoughts is common, whether or not you have OCD. But when these unwanted thoughts become repetitive and distressing, they’re known as obsessions. These obsessions fuel compulsions, which are another key part of the OCD cycle. Performing a compulsion means going through a certain mental or physical behavior in order to neutralize or reduce the distress caused by obsessions.
Having OCD can be scary for anyone, but themes related to violence or harm have the clearest connection to horror. In an essay for the online horror magazine Bloody Disgusting, pop culture critic Michael Pementel writes, “While the [intrusive] thoughts are different from person to person, what this side of OCD does is spring abrasive and abrupt thoughts and visuals within one’s mind—specifically, something violent and/or shocking. This creates an immediate sense of repulsion and disturbance within the person, for these thoughts always pertain to something they would never do or think. The disorder [OCD] tricks one into believing they are some kind of monster—it gaslights one to question their own sanity.”
Compulsions arise out of a need to avoid the possibility of harm occurring to the people or things you care about. The rituals themselves may not be rational—in fact you may already be well aware that your compulsions aren’t rational—but that doesn’t matter. What matters is stopping bad things from happening.
The myth of serial killers with OCD
Some horror movies choose to take mental health conditions—which in reality are complex and nuanced—and boil them down into plot devices. There are countless examples in film and TV where a killer’s motivation is simply that they are “crazy.” It’s a trope that’s been done so many times over the years that it’s cemented the connection between mental illness and criminality into popular consciousness.
The myth connecting serial killers and OCD is particularly damaging. Earlier this year, the International OCD Foundation released a statement criticizing the misuse of OCD in M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap. The film centers on Cooper (Josh Hartnett) who leads a double life as a serial killer known as The Butcher. One of the detectives pursuing Cooper casually throws out that The Butcher probably has OCD because of his car. The logic being, “people with OCD prefer darker colors to hide dirt and look cleaner.”
On its own, Shyamalan’s OCD factoid could be attributed to an insensitive, and frankly lazy, approach to writing a character. But when you combine Trap with violent “grindhouse” movies like The House That Jack Built and The Dentist, there’s a clear message: OCD drives people to kill. In fact, the popular procedural television show Criminal Minds may be the worst offender of all—throughout its seventeen seasons, violent criminals and serial killers were repeatedly shown to have OCD, and often their obsession or compulsion played a role in their decision to murder.
All of these examples perpetuate stigma around OCD by using it as a device to horrify viewers. And to be perfectly clear, there is no truth behind these movies or shows. Since OCD is a widely misunderstood mental health condition, it often becomes a convenient scapegoat.
The worst part about this trope is that it fuels intrusive thoughts for people who are already dealing with harm OCD—especially if they’re worried about becoming a serial killer themselves.
In an essay on her OCD journey, writer Anna Dang recalls wondering if she was a serial killer as a teen. “I’d read a lot of books about teenagers and growing up, and none of them said it was normal to worry about going on a killing spree,” she writes. “I couldn’t ignore a gnawing feeling inside me—like ants crawling under my skin—telling me that something was very, very wrong. I researched famous serial killers, their habits, their crimes, their backgrounds. I plunged my hands elbow-deep into the filth and worms of their tragic childhoods, digging for any hint that would draw a definite and impermeable distinction between them and me. There must be something, I thought. Something that shows I am not, and never will be, capable of doing the things they did.”
The fear of becoming a serial killer is not the same thing as being a serial killer. Having intrusive thoughts about murder and being horrified by them means that you do not actually want to hurt anyone. However, that doesn’t make the experience any less upsetting or exhausting.
Horror films based on personal experiences with OCD
In spite of Hollywood’s inaccurate depictions of mental health, a few filmmakers have chosen to take the OCD narrative into their own hands, and draw on their own personal experiences. By doing so, they are giving audiences a much more accurate representation of what it’s like to live with OCD.
The following two short films use elements of the horror genre to explore how obsessions, fear, and compulsions can manifest in day-to-day life. Note: These films contain depictions of OCD and intrusive thoughts that some viewers might find triggering.
Sit With Fear, 2023
Writer/director: Jason Blackman
In the short Sit With Fear, we follow Adam (George William Basil) as he goes about his day— he repeatedly has intrusive thoughts, but he works with this therapist to manage his OCD symptoms. However, when Adam doesn’t perform his compulsions perfectly, he is confronted by the frightening personification of his fears (Sarah Gorden).
Jason Blackman explains how his own experience inspired him to make Sit With Fear. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve had some form of what I now know to be OCD—rituals, intrusive thoughts, etc. I was convinced that if I didn’t perform specific actions in specific ways, then something bad would happen,” he says.
After being diagnosed with OCD in his late twenties, Blackman used a combination of therapy and medication to manage his symptoms. “A lot of therapy is metaphorically sitting with uncomfortable thoughts and feelings—especially exposure and response prevention therapy—which is used a lot in treating OCD,” he says, “For example, if you have contamination OCD, and you’re afraid to touch a doorknob in public because you’re positive you’ll contract an incurable illness and die. Therapists practicing exposure therapy may have you intentionally touch door knobs in public, to desensitize the mind and hopefully over time show by example that your thoughts aren’t rooted in reality.”
“The idea for Sit With Fear came from that therapeutic process,” explains Blackman. “When a person with OCD is prompted by their therapist to sit with their fear, instead of avoiding it. And of course, since I was considering this premise as a horror story, I thought, ‘How fun would it be if this guy was right all along and literally came face to face with his worst fear all because he didn’t put a key in his front door the right way?’”