But the success around this film has been ironic.

Let me explain: The Purge is a film about some ultra neo-liberal, practically fascist U.S. of the future that has created a single day where all crimes can go unpunished as a way of controlling crime rates. On that one day, people can go on a murder spree and will face absolutely no punishment. The whole concept is sickening, although much of it is a very insightful lefty critique of ideas of social Darwinism—whether the directors meant it to be or not.

In the first film, the antagonists are people who wish to cleanse society of the weaker link and prey on the vulnerable. They are a group of seemingly upper class well-educated white people, hunting down an unarmed black man that the protagonists have hid in their home. The antagonists are not raving blood-thirsty slashers motivated by a love for mayhem and destruction; they’re snooty sociopathic elitists.

Yet, the success of the film has depended, in part, on many people who seem to identify with the antagonists—those snooty elitists—more than the protagonists. Type in “purge makeup tutorial” into YouTube and you’ll find several tutorials on how to recreate the creepy mask look the film’s murderers wore to hide their identity. The Purge costumes were a popular choice this past Halloween.

What does it say about our society that a movie critiquing and showing the horrors of a state run by social Darwinism is interpreted as a “hey cool! I wanna look like the bad guy!”? It’s awkward, to say the least.

Perhaps the creators of the film intended this, but that’s just as awkward. It makes me wonder something truly frightening: Are we more like the villains or the heroes of the film? Are people really identifying with the villains or do they want to don their attire just for fun—and how is that even fun? Do they actually think it would be enjoyable to have a real life “purge”?

I suppose that’s the subtle brilliance of horror. It forces us to ask tricky questions and face uncomfortable realities about our society.

Next week, I look at physical disabilities in horror films and the ways in which they’re exploited for scares.

From the fictional Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, to the very real Eastern State Hospital where John Carpenters The Ward was filmed, audiences can’t help but feel drawn into the psychiatric hospital setting, which promises both physical and psychological scares. In the realm of horror, psychiatric hospitals are referred to by their outdated, and now unused (or at least they should be) names like “mental institution” or “insane asylums,” most likely because those names are evocative of a time where psychiatric hospitals were a place of real-life horrors in the form of severe human rights abuse, major discrimination and stigma, and experimental treatments that tended to worsen mental illnesses or turn the patient into a vegetable.

Notorious psychiatric hospitals like Bethlem Royal Hospital,  once nicknamed bedlam, even functioned as a sort of zoo, where the public would come to observe the patients, or “inmates”, as they were often called. It was a terrible practice, and one that hasn’t entirely gone away. We don’t visit the hospitals anymore, but we do watch them through film. In some ways this practice has simply manifested itself into a more convenient technological form.

I’ll admit that I’m a sucker for any film set in an abandoned psychiatric hospital. Why? Because it scares me. Everything about it scares me. The film could be kind of awful and it would still scare me, mainly because it relies on actual terrible things that happened in the past, that make the word “asylum” automatically scary for people the images it conjures of padded cells and shock therapy.

But so much of the creepy atmosphere of the psychiatric hospital, abandoned or not, is because of the depiction of the patients: completely lost, drooling and spaced out or sadistic and hostile, prone to violence and rage and sexual perversion at any moment. Many horror movies and thrillers alike show scenes where patients are let out of their rooms or “cells” and wreak havoc upon the hospital, murdering orderlies and leaving a path of destruction.

It makes me question why I fall for the eerie allure. What does the horror genre obsession with psychiatric hospitals and mental illness say about the way we perceive those with mental illnesses? Does it scare us because we actually think that people with mental illnesses, especially those in psychiatric hospitals, are seriously dangerous? It’s right for us to think that psychiatric hospitals were really awful places in the past, and some still are today, but it seems like our idea of them is that they house people capable of extreme violence, people who are “sick and twisted” deviants of society.

The truth is, the patients aren’t like that. At least, not the great majority. In fact, people with mental illnesses tend to be a more of a danger to themselves than to others—think self-harm, substance abuse, and suicide. So no, the patients at a psychiatric hospital are not likely to be the next Michael Myers, and no, borderline personality disorder does not mean you have two utterly opposing good vs. evil personalities that rapidly switch back and forth between each other.

These are all misconceptions that horror movies rely on to deliver scares. The latter image, or some variation of it, is especially popular as a horror movie ending cop-out:  the main character is actually just “insane” and it’s all in their head (which, by the way, is very ableist language, so don’t use it!). In reality, people with mental illnesses like, for example, schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder can live happy, functional lives when receiving adequate treatment—much like any physical illness.  While there definitely are cases of people with certain mental illnesses committing acts of violence, it’s important to note that this is not the dominant or driving force behind violent crime—not in the slightest.

Though I’ve questioned why I find these problematic films so appealing, I’ll admit that it hasn’t stopped me for being lured in by horror films with scenes in psychiatric hospitals—even if they aren’t entirely set there. But that’s also a part of engaging in any kind of media; we can’t always expect ourselves to banish all problematic media, because it’s an unrealistic expectation, We do, however, have to openly acknowledge what makes it problematic. In this case, while psychiatric hospitals are a certifiably scary setting sure to give anyone the creeps, viewers need to push themselves to not internalize the misconception that actual patients in these hospitals are sadistic serial killers.

Next week, I look at the problematic racist elements of horror movies that use histories of colonization and enslavement as their themes.

No matter what happens, though, one characteristic of demonic possession always stays the same: the insatiable lust of the demon, now acting through its female host—and it’s almost always a female character. Evidently, we’re more easily tainted. Or, at least, we are according to some ancient patriarchal religious idea that says women are more susceptible to being invaded by Satan. In fact, it’s such an age-old popular concept, that even if contemporary directors are not deliberately trying to propagate the masses with sexist messages, they rarely stray from this plot.

But not only does the demon possess the woman or girl in the movie, it almost always has to have some kind of utterly creepy or manipulative sexual manifestation. I’ll focus on three films in particular (analyzing all the demonic possession films with female sexuality as a key element would take a century). The most obvious example is, of course, the classic 1973 The Exorcist—basically the bread-and-butter of demonic possession films. In the movie, a demon possesses a 12-year-old girl named Regan. Aside from the green vomit, backwards crawling, and head spinning, the demon sexualizes Regan, making her say vulgar things to those around her. There’s the infamous “lick me” scene, in which Regan appears to be stabbing her vagina with what appears to be a crucifix, yelling “lick me”; she even pushes her mother’s face into her bloodied crotch.

Next we have 2010 Spanish horror film Exorcismus, in which 15-year-old Emma Evans is the victim of possession. In one scene she’s sitting with her friend Rose and begins to fall into a strange trance like state. She then starts to caress Roses’ hand, looking at her suggestively while twisting her head closer with her mouth open. Rose responds by leaning in for the kiss. Emma pulls away and starts shouting homophobic slurs at her, claiming that she knew her friend was gay and was attempting to trick her. Here, the demon uses sexuality to seduce and manipulate people, suggesting that the whole interaction was wrong or immoral in the first place. Emma comes out of the trance and has no idea what she’s said or what’s happened.

Then there’s The Last Exorcism (2010), in which Nell, a farmer’s teen daughter, is possessed by a demon. It’s found out later in the movie that she is pregnant, and her father insists that Nell is a virgin and that the demon has somehow made her body “impure.” The Evangelical minister in the film decides that Nell is not possessed, but distressed over the loss of her virginity, which is proven wrong later in the film. In one scene during an exorcism attempt, Nell—while under the possessive hold of the demon—asks the priest if he would like “a blowing job” (yes, she actually called it a “blowing” job).

In all three of these movies, the demons have at least one sexual manifestation. And, put bluntly, it seems to come down to this idea that demons make women horny. While possessed women in horror films do make some sexual statements that are obviously immoral (say those of a incestuous nature), these movies mostly seem to suggest women have repressed  sexuality that only demons can somehow conjure. We couldn’t possibly have a sex drive of our own accord; it’s the demons, duh! A good holy woman would never have sexual urges! (It should be noted that in the few movies that feature demonic or malevolent possession of men, most notably, The Amityville Horror, the male character rarely acts in a sexual manner as a result of the possession.)

I think these movies might be confusing demons with hormones. In fact, maybe I too was possessed when I was going through the embarrassing grips of puberty, blasting my angst-ridden punk music and attempting to understand the mechanics of a tampon. It should go without saying that female sexuality isn’t evil or demonic. Sexy dancing, moaning, and sexual statements do not mean that the demon king Pazuzu is now inside you, nor do these actions mean you’re now the forever accursed Angela from Night of the Demons. It’s high time that demonic possession movies start conjuring up other ways to make demons evil, and avoid the need to use women’s bodies and sexuality as a platform to convey this.

Next week I take a look at a disturbing 2000s horror movie trend, the rise of the torture film.