Freud's Theory of Repression

Taken from Wikipedia;

"Psychological repression, also psychic repression or simply repression, is the psychological attempt by an individual to repel its own desires and impulses towards pleasurable instincts. Such desires, impulses, wishes, fantasies or feelings can be represented in the mind as thoughts, images and memories. The repression is caused when an external force puts itself in contrast with the desire, threatening to cause suffering if the desire is satisfied, thereby posing a conflict for the individual; the repressive response to the threat is to exclude the desire from one's unconsciousness and hold or subdue it in the unconscious. Repression plays a major role in many mental illness, and in the psyche of average people. Repression is an involuntary or unconscious process.

The concept is part of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical. Since Freud's work in psychoanalysis, repression is now accepted as a defence mechanism by psychoanalytic psychologists. Conversely, regarding the distinct subject of repressed memory, there remains instead some debate as to whether (or how often) memory repression really happens and mainstream psychology holds that true memory repression occurs only very rarely."

Freud believed that bad, or upsetting childhood experiences are repressed. This can also happen in adult life, however the childhood experiences are generally more harmful, as there is a feeling of innocence, and ignorance of what is actually happening.

Horror films aallow these feelings to surface once more, in a safe enviroment. By putting us back into uncomfortable situations, and possibly even the same situation we were in that upset us so much that the memory had to be repressed. For example, child abuse is a common experience that is repressed by many people. Some films attack this; "The Butterfly Effect" has a large part of the movie hinting that the father of the main characters friend sexually abuses her and her brother. That film also shows the female lead in prostitution, and dependant on drugs. These things may have been part of real peoples lives, and so may mentally affect them more because of this.