An evil in sheep’s clothing: how does horror use our mental patterns?

Have you ever wondered why we get scared by things that we don’t think should scare us? What is so scary about a boy with a knife or a wide smile of a clown? Why has clown image become one of the most memorable images in horror movies? To answer these questions it is necessary to pay attention to the structural features of the interpretative process which is an essential property of human interaction. Interpretation is the central concept in Herbert Blumer’s symbolic interactionism perspective. It allows us to take a special look at the mechanics of how horror films affect our thought patterns. As cases for this article, fragments from the Halloween (1978) and Terrifier (2016) movies were used.