Tag Archives: Teresa Palmer

‘Lights Out’ Brings Mental Health Out of the Darkness

Darkness is where shadows thrive, nightmares reside, and monsters are born. To fear the dark is primal. In the absence of light, to protect us, our minds make the shadows we perceive in the dark threatening. Evolution is the reason that anxiety builds in the dark. In her essay, “Why Are We Afraid of the Dark? Because of Our Brains,” Gillian Kelly explains that horror films and haunted houses rely on the fear and unease felt in the dark to trigger an adrenaline-fueled thrill. David F. Sandberg‘s Lights Out, co-written by Eric Heisserer, plays with metaphors while exploiting fears of the dark and exploring mental illness.

The film follows Rebecca (Teresa Palmer), who must protect her little brother Martin (Gabriel Bateman) from the disturbing experiences that haunted her childhood. In discovering their mother Sophie’s (Maria Bello) secrets, they face Diana (Alicia Vela-Bailey), a supernatural entity attached to her since she was a girl. Sophie and Diana befriended each other when they were children, both undergoing treatment at a psychiatric hospital. Interestingly, the central antagonist of Lights Out is not only Diana, but Sophie’s mental illness and struggles with depression. 

Depression is a symptom of a complex combination of factors, including genetics, brain chemistry, lifestyle, environment, personality, trauma, and stress. Diana perfectly embodies the emotional darkness — the proverbial rain cloud — that blankets depression. As a physically and mentally vulnerable child, experimental medical treatments transformed her into a monster, making her a particularly interesting villain. Her volatile behavior is vengeful but also a misguided attempt to protect the only genuine human connection she’s ever known. Ultimately, we recognize that Sophie is the only thing tethering Diana to our plane of existence. Everything she does is wholly self-serving.

As a girl, Diana was discovered in the basement of her childhood home following her father’s suicide. She was said to be evil, possessing the ability to invade the minds of others, influencing their emotions. Leveraging her ability, Diana first latched herself onto Sophie as a teenager when both resided in a mental institution. When Rebecca discovers this link between Diana and Sophie, she learns not only the horrifying details of Diana’s death but also the lengths she’ll go to prevent Sophie from getting better and leaving her behind.

Diana is an effective and frightening monster when reduced to an infectious disease-causing parasite, feeding on and fueling Sophie’s negative emotions. Depression can be viewed with a similar lens. It is the most prevalent cause of disability worldwide, affecting our work, social interactions, and physical health. It breaks us down until the void we feel is unbearable. It’s like slowly falling into a sinkhole. The bottom is dark, damp, and cold, making it difficult to discern a way out. Diana, the parasite, is an intruder, and Sophie’s mind is the host. 

Sophie has forced down the depression that envelops her with medication for decades. In that time, Diana has latched on, feeding on her repressed emotions, becoming her shadow self. Angry, vindictive, and jealous that Sophie has moved on without her, Diana returns as Sophie’s mental state declines. Diana, in a calculated and childlike rage, kills Sophie’s husband. She manifests as a feral womanly figure, shrouded in black, as if her skin were covered in ash, with glowing eyes and long-nailed fingers, only able to move and be seen in the dark. 

Eventually, Sophie embraces Diana for solace following the traumatic death of her husband. Unbeknownst to her, Diana’s attachment has bred malice toward anyone she perceives as threatening her hold on Sophie. The two are co-dependent, with Diana the dominating force in their toxic friendship. In her article on toxic friendships, Gaya Mahesh notes that “we form toxic friendships when there is a power imbalance.” With Sophie weakened by depression, Diana gains the upper hand.

Approaching the film’s final shocking act, Sophie threateningly reminds her shadow self, “You need me, Diana. There’s no you without me.” While Sophie represents the light, signifying life, love, and happiness — no doubt through the joy motherhood has brought her — Diana represents the dark, symbolizing despair. Their interwoven existence proves detrimental to Sophie’s ability to manage her depression and heal. As previously concluded, Diana is an unmistakable metaphor for depression and a reminder that while it is manageable, there is no cure. This fact makes many who suffer from depression feel hopeless and isolated, seeking solace in self-harm.

While tragic and horrifying, the film’s ending ties in perfectly with the metaphor. Sophie makes the ultimate sacrifice to save her children, killing herself and taking Diana with her in death. This act, in turn, is an allegory for individuals who commit suicide due to depression. Those afflicted with depression often believe that suicide is the only way out and that their death will be a favor to those they leave behind. 

Sophie’s mental illness carried Diana into their lives, and in her final moments she warns Diana, “Never hurt my kids.” While neither can survive without the other and the threat is destroyed, the tragic aftermath and long-term trauma Sophie’s choice will no doubt cause Rebecca and Martin is harrowing. Mental illness and depression are frequently demonized, making it all the more isolating and hard to discuss openly. Ultimately, Lights Out raises mental health awareness and is a cautionary call to society, medical professionals, and institutions to practice empathy and take mental health seriously.

‘The Twin’ Is a Twisted Take on Female Hysteria

In our predominantly patriarchal society, we are continually fed the stereotype of agitated, irrational, uncontrollable, and emotional women — influencing the hysterical female trope in horror cinema. Hysteria was once a studied psychological disorder found in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders through 1980 before the rise of the “final girl” archetype. Many filmmakers continue to let the notion of female hysterics thrive somewhat unchecked despite horror cinema’s leaps forward in representing strong and self-reliant women with characters like Nancy Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street. While hysteria was removed as a formal psychiatric diagnosis, societally, women are still perceived as hysterically inclined creatures.

Before its removal, hysteria was the medical explanation for ‘everything that men found mysterious or unmanageable in women,’ a conclusion only supported by men’s (historic and continuing) dominance over medicine and hysteria’s continued use as a synonym for “over-emotional” or “deranged.” This lens shows women depicted as the modern Ophelia — pretty, fragile, and unstable. Throughout history, hysteria has been a sex-selective disorder, affecting only those of us with a uterus. Therefore, women remain the poster children for frenzied and irrational behavior. The hysterical female is, in essence, a representation of horror’s damsel in distress. 

One representation of this trope is that of the hysterical grieving mother. This character archetype is represented in The Twin, directed by Taneli Mustonen and co-written with Aleksi Hyvärinen. The acutely painful psychosis of grief and the aforementioned hysterical female is evidenced through the character of Rachel (Teresa Palmer). In her case, hysteria is the side effect of immense suffering, crippling her ability to self-regulate the overwhelming emotions triggered by her son’s death. A strong religious influence also perpetuates her inevitable mania. 

Hysteria was initially thought to be a physical ailment affecting the uterus. It was believed that the ‘female seed’ retention within the womb was to blame for the anxiety, insomnia, depression, irritability, fainting, and other symptoms women experienced. Loosely following that logic, we can surmise that the profound emptiness and unimaginable feeling of loss the death of a child causes is most acute for mothers.

We all grieve differently. Rachel is no exception. Traumatic grief causes the mind to cycle through the following stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, as outlined by Elisabeth Kubler-Rossin her book On Death and Dying. The mind protects us when the stress of grieving overwhelms our nervous systems. The brain is a complex organic machine with intricate pathways that control our thoughts, memory, emotions, and every process that regulates our bodies. Perhaps the most frightening side effect of grief is psychosis. Rachel’s pathways are interrupted during her bereavement.

The Twin offers a clever and unnerving examination of grief that compels us to question what happens when the mind becomes locked in a bargaining state. What occurs when the mind creates a dominant delusion as a coping mechanism to combat the trauma of losing a child? Mustonen explores these questions and the paranoid anxiety of neurotic bereavement through Rachel. Her denial manifests in elaborate delusions — a pagan cult, insidious rituals, and waking dreams — as her reality collides with the truth. Therefore, she becomes a personification of the hysterical grieving mother.

After the tragic death of their son, Anthony (Steven Cree) and Rachel relocate to an idyllic village in the Scandinavian countryside. When her son Elliot exclaims that he is his dead twin brother, Nathan, Rachel seeks psychiatric intervention from the town doctor. Though she is adamant that something is wrong, the doctor declares, “Elliot is a mirror. He’s a reflection of your emotions and fears. Especially yours, Rachel. He’s leaning on you in this difficult time. That’s why the best thing you can do for him, as a mother, is to be calm.” This short speech demonstrates the misogynistic opinion that Rachel is merely exaggerating. He posits with his words that her concerns are irrational, and her heightened emotions cause Elliot’s behavior. 

Would the trauma of losing a child not prompt a mother to be hypervigilant about the well-being of her surviving children? What is unfortunate in Rachel’s case is that Mustonen and Hyvärinen make the doctor’s gaslighting acceptable, proving him right, and Rachel hysterical. Through her grief and post-traumatic stress, she becomes psychotic. When Helen (Barbara Marten), the outcast of the village, warns Rachel about the village’s history of pagan worship and relays a story about her husband’s possession by the Devil, she further fuels Rachel’s delusions. Rachel becomes convinced that Elliot is possessed. What is reality versus a fabrication of her grieving mind?

Believing Helen’s claims, Rachel photographs Elliot playing on a swing, hoping to discover if her suspicions are confirmed. Shockingly, upon developing and investigating the photos, Elliot is vacant. Helen informs Rachel that the Devil is taunting her. “With these photos, he’s saying, ‘I already have your son.’” This is the first evidence of Rachel’s psychosis.

To prevent the Devil from attaching himself to Elliot, Helen asks to be taken to him. When Rachel introduces Elliot, Helen looks at her in anguish and states, “No. You’re sick. You’re sick.” Not understanding Helen’s reaction, Rachel’s belief in her delusion strengthens. After a pagan ritual meant to bring the Devil into the world through her womb, Rachel runs with Elliot in tow from their home to escape. 

In the woods, she fights with her husband. As Rachel sits on top of Anthony, ready to bludgeon him with a rock, he says, “Just do it. I’m too tired to go on with this.” He pleads with her to recognize the reality that Elliot isn’t real. Their only son, Nathan, died in a car accident while she was driving. Not only does Rachel become trapped in her grief cycle by inventing Elliot, but Anthony supports her delusion. Her psychosis created Elliot as a coping mechanism, leading to hysteria and eventually being committed. Anthony allows her to remain locked in her delusion, amplifying her hysteria to make his existence with her easier. It isn’t until he’s exhausted that he attempts to force her to the acceptance stage of her grief.

Ultimately, Mustonen and Hyvärinen refuse her the ability to accept the truth. Instead, they make their hysterical female, the grieving mother, a villain. Even with blood on her hands, Rachel is never given the agency to accept the truth. She will continue to resurrect what she’s lost, forever haunted by her trauma. The trope prevails.