Terror Talk: True Crime, Serial Killers and Horror

Can someone really commit murder in their sleep?

⚠️ Trigger warning: discussion of a toddler's death, a child's death in a hit-and-run, involuntary psychiatric holds, and suicidal feelings.

Shannon and Cathy break down homicidal sleepwalking, from Kenneth Parks to Simon Fraser, and take on Knott's Scary Farm's controversial FearVR 5150 maze. Plus, Horror Facts with Cath, and reviews of Pumpkinhead, The Shed, Clown, 30 Miles from Nowhere and Hell Baby.

Therapists Shannon and Cathy bring a clinical lens: what a 5150 hold really is, why a haunted psychiatric hospital does more harm than a haunted house, and what the brain is doing when someone acts without consciousness.

Chapters

00:00 Week two of Season 3

01:54 The Halloween Horror Nights panic

04:17 Horror Facts with Cath

06:46 The answer, and an MFT on screen

09:25 Knott's FearVR 5150 and mental health stigma

17:38 Homicidal sleepwalking

18:48 Kenneth Parks and Simon Fraser

19:46 What happens in the brain

22:10 The real horror is brain science

23:41 Pumpkinhead (1988)

29:56 The Shed

34:45 Clown (2014)

37:44 30 Miles from Nowhere

40:22 Hell Baby

Covered in this episode:

- The Cell (2000, Jennifer Lopez, Vincent D'Onofrio)

- Knott's Scary Farm and FearVR 5150

- Kenneth Parks and Simon Fraser

- Pumpkinhead (1988, Lance Henriksen, Stan Winston)

- The Shed (2019)

- Clown (2014, Jon Watts, Eli Roth)

- 30 Miles from Nowhere (2018, Carrie Preston)

- Hell Baby (2013, Keegan-Michael Key, Leslie Bibb)

Clinical concepts: parasomnia, homicidal somnambulism, slow-wave sleep, 5150 involuntary holds, NAMI, mental health stigma, grief, identity and being consumed by an illness.

A correction from us: Kenneth Parks's killing was in 1987, and he was acquitted in 1988. Matthew Wolf-Meyer, author of the article we cite, is an anthropologist.

Related episodes:

- PSYCHOLOGY: Mental Illness in Horror, Joker, Hereditary & The Babadook

- SHRINK CHAT: Host, In Search of Darkness, Tom Savini & Lucio Fulci

If this episode made you think, follow Terror Talk and leave us a 5-star review. It helps other horror fans find the show.

*Two licensed therapists, one forensic psychologist, one clinical LMFT, take apart the minds behind the crimes.*

Until then... sleep safe. 😴

🎧 Follow Terror Talk wherever you get your podcasts and join us on Patreon for bonus content and access to our private discord: patreon.com/terrortalk

📸 Instagram: @terrortalkpodcast | 🎥 YouTube: Terror Talk Podcast | 📘 Facebook: Terror Talk Podcast | 🎵 TikTok: @dark.psychology.girls

🎶 Music by Mannequin Uprising

Was The Alienist the first great TV series about forensic psychology?

⚠️ Trigger warning: discussion of the murder and mutilation of children, including child sex workers, and infant deaths.

Chapters

00:00 The Alienist: the TNT series and Caleb Carr's novel

03:43 What an alienist was, and the birth of forensic psychology

05:35 Krafft-Ebing and Psychopathia Sexualis

06:47 From The Alienist to Mindhunter

08:17 Freud's timeline and 1896 New York

09:49 Teddy Roosevelt and the NYPD

10:43 "We're all capable of murder"

11:53 A team of outcasts

14:03 Why the Sherlock formula works

15:46 Child victims and 1890s poverty

20:02 The antihero and the shadow

22:04 Spoilers start here

27:56 Character over plot

29:41 Caleb Carr's research

32:53 Hoping for a season 3

The Alienist, the TNT series based on Caleb Carr's 1994 novel, follows Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Daniel Bruhl), John Moore (Luke Evans) and Sara Howard (Dakota Fanning) as they hunt a serial killer through 1896 New York. Season 2, The Alienist: Angel of Darkness, takes the team into a new case.

Therapists Shannon and Cathy bring a clinical lens to the series: what an "alienist" actually was, how psychology stood just before Freud, and why the show's portrait of an obsessive, shadowed investigator works so well.

Covered in this episode:

- The Alienist (season 1) and The Alienist: Angel of Darkness (season 2)

- Caleb Carr

- Daniel Bruhl, Luke Evans, Dakota Fanning

- Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Psychopathia Sexualis

- Sigmund Freud

- Theodore Roosevelt and the NYPD

- Mindhunter, Sherlock, House, The Americans

Clinical concepts: forensic psychology, competency to stand trial, the history of psychiatry, pathologizing sexuality, trauma, the antihero, Jung's shadow, character arcs

A correction from us: Sara Howard is fictional. The NYPD's first woman detective was Isabella Goodwin, promoted in 1912.

Related episodes:

- PSYCHOLOGY: Mental Illness in Horror, Joker, Hereditary & The Babadook

If this episode made you think, follow Terror Talk and leave us a 5-star review. It helps other horror fans find the show.

*Two licensed therapists, one forensic psychologist, one clinical LMFT, take apart the minds behind the crimes. *

Until then... sleep safe. 😴

🎧 Follow Terror Talk wherever you get your podcasts and join us on Patreon for bonus content and access to our private discord: patreon.com/terrortalk

📸 Instagram: @terrortalkpodcast | 🎥 YouTube: Terror Talk Podcast | 📘 Facebook: Terror Talk Podcast | 🎵 TikTok: @dark.psychology.girls

🎶 Music by Mannequin Uprising

Can a horror movie shot entirely on a Zoom call actually be scary?

Shannon and Cathy are back for Season 3 with a Shrink Chat full of horror: Host, the 2020 Shudder seance film set on a video call, In Search of Darkness, the four-and-a-half-hour documentary on 1980s horror, and Lucio Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters. Plus, Horror Facts with Cath, a Golden State Killer sentencing update, and the psychology of deja vu.

Therapists Shannon and Cathy bring a clinical lens to the movies: why Deja vu feels like a memory of something that never happened, what Carl Jung made of it, and why the wives of serial killers so often never knew.

Chapters

00:00 Back for Season 3: mugs, shirts and our private discord

05:08 Horror Facts with Cath

08:29 The answer, and Salma Hayek's snake phobia

10:05 Golden State Killer sentencing update

12:46 The psychology of deja vu

16:40 Jung, the collective unconscious and deja vu

18:49 Host (2020) review

24:43 In Search of Darkness, Tom Savini and 1980s practical effects

28:57 Zombie Flesh Eaters and Lucio Fulci

32:39 Bill & Ted Face the Music

35:48 Birthday gifts and a Pinhead figure

Covered in this episode:

- Host (2020, Rob Savage)

- In Search of Darkness (Shudder)

- Tom Savini

- From Dusk till Dawn (1996, Robert Rodriguez)

- Salma Hayek and George Clooney

- Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979, Lucio Fulci)

- City of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead

- The Burning, Fade to Black, The Fog, Cat People

- Bill & Ted Face the Music

- Hellraiser's Pinhead

- Joseph DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer

Clinical concepts: Deja vu, source memory, short and long-term memory, temporal lobe epilepsy, Jung's collective unconscious, cognitive dissonance, exposure therapy, phobias.

A correction from us: Host runs about 57 minutes, not 92. And the Jason actor we couldn't name is Kane Hodder.

Related episodes:

- Fulci's Zombie, Asvins, Lavender, Contorted

If this episode made you think, follow Terror Talk and leave us a 5-star review. It helps other horror fans find the show.

*Two licensed therapists, one forensic psychologist, one clinical LMFT, take apart the minds behind the crimes.*

Until then... sleep safe. 😴

🎧 Follow Terror Talk wherever you get your podcasts and join us on Patreon for bonus content and access to our private discord: patreon.com/terrortalk

📸 Instagram: @terrortalkpodcast | 🎥 YouTube: Terror Talk Podcast | 📘 Facebook: Terror Talk Podcast | 🎵 TikTok: @dark.psychology.girls

🎶 Music by Mannequin Uprising

Does mental illness in horror movies make us fear the wrong people?

⚠️ Trigger warning: discussion of suicide and its portrayal in media (13 Reasons Why), adolescent suicide risk, and references to mass shootings.

Chapters

00:00 Season 3 opener: why this topic is so controversial

02:47 Axis I vs Axis II: mental illness vs personality disorders

06:26 The PTSD violence myth and schizophrenia stigma

08:30 Why horror reaches for the rarest cases

10:52 Old-school horror: Psycho, Halloween, Leatherface, The Shining, Hannibal Lecter

13:58 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the first asylum film

14:53 Michael Myers is psychological, and fans hate that

16:27 Fear of the therapist: American Horror Story: Asylum, The Invisible Man

17:15 New horror: emotional abuse, trauma and Get Out

21:00 Grief as horror: The Babadook and Hereditary

22:42 Heath Ledger's Joker vs Joaquin Phoenix's Joker

25:10 Joker's mother and covert narcissism

27:34 Violent video games and the dialectic

33:52 Why we won't rank "good" and "bad" representation

34:52 13 Reasons Why and suicide

38:10 Media that comforts: Sharp Objects, Silver Linings Playbook

40:02 Is horror the genre to turn to when you want to be seen?

From Norman Bates to Joaquin Phoenix's Joker, horror has leaned on mental illness as shorthand for danger for a hundred years. This episode traces how that portrayal has changed, from asylum villains and "criminally insane" killers to modern films like The Babadook, Hereditary and Get Out, where the horror is how other people treat the person who is suffering.

Therapists Shannon and Cathy bring a clinical lens to the genre they love: what the films get wrong, what they get right, and why the line between mental illness and personality disorder matters for real people.

Covered in this episode:

- Psycho (Norman Bates)

- Halloween (Michael Myers, Haddonfield)

- The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Leatherface, Ed Gein)

- The Shining

- Hannibal Lecter

- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

- American Horror Story: Asylum

- The Invisible Man (2020)

- Get Out (Jordan Peele)

- The Babadook

- Hereditary

- The Dark Knight (Heath Ledger's Joker)

- Joker (Joaquin Phoenix)

- American Psycho

- 13 Reasons Why

- Sharp Objects, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Mr. Nobody, Silver Linings Playbook

Clinical concepts: personality disorders, schizophrenia and violence risk, command auditory hallucinations, PTSD and complex PTSD, emotional abuse, covert narcissism, cultural competency, stigma, person-first representation, dialectical thinking.

A note on terms: we use Axis I and Axis II as shorthand for mental illness versus personality disorder. The axes come from the older multiaxial system of DSM-III and DSM-IV, which DSM-5 retired in 2013, as we mention in the episode.

A correction from us: we call The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari film noir. It is German Expressionism. We record as if we were live, and sometimes we get one wrong.

Related episodes:

- Joker - The Making of a Psychopath

- Villains Influenced by True Crimes of Ed Gein

- PSYCHOLOGY: The Alienist, Dakota Fanning, Luke Evans & Daniel Bruhl

- Michael Myers & the Halloween Franchise

Further reading: Megan Benham, "Horror Movies and the Exploitation of Mental Illness," The Boar, April 2018.

If this episode made you think, follow Terror Talk and leave us a 5-star review. It helps other horror fans find the show.

Two licensed therapists, one forensic psychologist, one clinical LMFT, take apart the minds behind the crimes.

Until then... sleep safe. 😴

🎧 Follow Terror Talk wherever you get your podcasts and join us on Patreon for bonus content and access to our private discord: patreon.com/terrortalk

📸 Instagram: @terrortalkpodcast | 🎥 YouTube: Terror Talk Podcast | 📘 Facebook: Terror Talk Podcast | 🎵 TikTok: @dark.psychology.girls

🎶 Music by Mannequin Uprising