GRAPHICS EDITOR Emma Gillich graphics@themanitoban.com
GRAPHICS ASSOCIATE Teegan Gillich
AUDIO AND VIDEO
AUDIO EDITOR Max Reid audio@themanitoban.com
PHOTO EDITOR Mike Thiessen photo@themanitoban.com
PHOTO ASSOCIATE Ebunoluwa Akinbo
VIDEO EDITOR Zulkifl Rafah video@themanitoban.com
DIGITAL MEDIA EDITOR Faisal Rahman social@themanitoban.com
SOCIAL MEDIA ASSOCIATE Paula Robles Andia
REPORTERS
NEWS Arifah Gheesah
NEWS Nafisa Al Lilo
RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY Nawal Semir
COMMENT Thandeka Katsika
COMMENT Kyra Campbell
ARTS & CULTURE Carrington Dong
ARTS & CULTURE Jordan Anglin
SPORTS Faiyaz Chowdhury
SPORTS Israel Abejoye
VOLUNTEERS
VOLUNTEERS
Marco Tolentino
interested in volunteering? email me@themanitoban.com today!
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UMSU discusses health, advocacy and student initiatives
Free vaccines, reproductive health access and alleged NDA breach investigation
Arifah Gheesah, staff
U
MSU’s Board of Directors met on Oct. 24 in the UMSU Council Chambers at U of M’s Fort Garry campus. Present were representatives from over 20 student associations, along with UMSU staff and executives.
As part of its ongoing efforts to support student well-being, UMSU announced that free flu and COVID-19 vaccinations will be available through the UMSU Healthcare Clinic. The clinic will operate out of the GSA Lounge on the second floor of UMSU University Centre from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., operating on a firstcome, first-served basis. Students are encouraged to bring their Manitoba health card or equivalent documentation. Those with coverage can receive vaccines at no cost.
UMSU executives reaffirmed their commitment to accessible reproductive healthcare, including educational resources and information on how to safely access abortion services. Students seeking support can access confidential referrals through the StudentCare health plan and on-campus services such as the Student Counselling Centre and University Health Service. UMSU emphasized that advocating for safe, informed reproductive care continues to be a core part of its broader health and equity
work, ensuring that students can access reproductive and abortion-related healthcare without stigma or misinformation.
Midway through the evening, the board entered a private session lasting 105 minutes, temporarily clearing the room of non-members.
The closed discussion reportedly centred on a potential breach of UMSU’s non-disclosure agreement (NDA) policy, with sources indicating that vice president external affairs (VPEA), Jared Ramos Murphy, was under review in relation to the matter. When the public session resumed, the board continued business under the same agenda but introduced a revision, changing the language from “determined” to “alleged” in the motion concerning the suspension and investigation of the VPEA. An ad hoc committee was formed at the meeting to further investigate these allegations.
Ramos Murphy, in a statement made to the Manitoban shared, “This is a very serious accusation and an ongoing investigation. I would never knowingly break my NDA, and look forward to clearing my name.”
Executives also highlighted recent advocacy work, including a meeting with Minister of Municipal and Northern Relations Glen Simard,
‘Toban news briefs
Jesse Brogan, staff
Millennium Library starts new support program
Winnipeg’s Millennium Library has opened the Downtown Resource Corner, which is now readily accessible for safety, well-being and inclusion downtown. Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine said it offers a variety of resources, such as mental health support, help securing IDs, rent assistance and even free phones and photocopying. The staff includes two mental health workers and a WRHA public-health nurse. Operating mainly in afternoons with one late day, the hub works with the Downtown Community Safety Partnership and builds on the library’s 2022 Community Connections program.
Winnipeg poet and filmmaker makes National Youth Panel
Winnipeg artist Sarah Simpson-Yellowquill — filmmaker, poet and advocate for Indigenous and women’s health — has been selected for the 2025 National Youth Panel in Quebec City this October. Simpson-Yellowquill, a survivor of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, now manages programs and development at the National Screen Institute and supports community care at the Women’s Health Clinic. She teaches emerging creators and brings working Indigenous artists to train in lighting, sound, cameras and writing.
“I am a storyteller through poetry, paint and film,” she said, adding that she aims to uplift communities and pass knowledge forward.
where UMSU discussed key issues affecting students such as high tuition fees and access to healthcare for international students.
UMSU also announced that new microwaves will be installed in University Centre, improving campus amenities for students.
Feedback regarding student experiences with Winnipeg Transit has also been actively collected to better cater for student needs. UMSU tabled a report at the Manitoba Legislature and continues to advocate for an improved public transit system.
The board also received updates on events and ongoing initiatives across campus such as the ReShop program, which redistributes used furniture and supplies to reduce waste and promote sustainability, and UMSU Ventures, which offers resources for student entrepreneurs. Updates were also shared on hardship funding, travel grants, holiday hampers and gift card giveaways to support students facing financial challenges.
Community events were also detailed, including Diwali celebrations, mental health
tabling with pet therapy and planning for the Lunar New Year in February 2026. The meeting closed with reminders about ongoing campus initiatives and anticipation for the upcoming annual general meeting as the board continues to prioritize transparency, internal accountability and student well-being. Students-at-large in attendance expressed interest in hearing future updates regarding the NDA breach discussions and any resulting decisions.
Elmwood-East Kildonan by-election
Emma Durand-Wood won Saturday’s by-election for Winnipeg’s Elmwood–East Kildonan council seat with 1,567 votes, ahead of Abel Gutierrez with 887 and Braydon Mazurkiewich with 842, unofficial results show. The 44-year-old community activist who succeeded the late Jason Schreyer said she’ll focus on investing in community, housing-first approaches, transit and youth programs. Turnout for the byelection was 4,977 out of 31,819 eligible voters in the Elmwood-East Kildonan area.
Ukrainian church thriving after 100 years in the community
Marking 100 years in Winnipeg’s North End, St. Mary the Protectress Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral remains a community anchor at 820 Burrows Ave. The parish owns a 72-unit, non-profit seniors complex next door, opened in 1990, and celebrated a symbolic mortgage-burning last year. Centenary events will culminate Nov. 1 with a soldout gala at the Hotel Fort Garry, which is backed by a $100,000 fundraising drive drawing support nationwide. The parish is also helping recent Ukrainian arrivals navigate settlement and services.
Man responsible for Langside execution pleads not guilty
Jamie Randy Felix pleaded not guilty Monday in Court of King’s Bench to five counts of second-degree murder tied to a November 2023 shooting at a Langside Street apartment. An attempted-murder charge was upgraded after the lone survivor, Shawn Marko, 56, died in June. The other victims were Melelek Leseri Lesikel, 29; Dylan Maxwell Lavallee, 41; and sisters Crystal and Stephanie Beardy, 34 and 33. Court filings say Felix, a former Canadian Forces member, has mental health and substance-use issues.
PHOTO BY ZULKIFL RAFAH / STAFF
Econ society hosts grad panel
Graduate student panel connects undergrads with graduate insights
Roy Albright Obah, staff
The U of M Economics Society (UMES) hosted a graduate student panel in collaboration with the Economics Graduate Students Association to help undergraduate students understand what to expect in graduate-level economics.
UMES president Abby Procter expressed the idea for the event came directly from student feedback. “At our first open meeting, it was brought to our attention that many students were interested in pursuing graduate studies and would benefit from hearing firsthand perspectives from current grad students,” Procter said. “Our goal with this event was to gather questions from our members and have the graduate students answer them to provide our members with the academic counselling they sought.”
The session was organized as a come-and-go event to accommodate students’ schedules. Procter mentioned the society wanted to create a space where members could ask questions and receive practical guidance about research, workload and transitioning into graduate programs. “Participation in events at the U of M is something a lot of groups struggle with,” she said. “UMES is redefining what it means to be an academic club by providing social and networking opportunities as well as engaging content.”
Questions from attendees focused on workload and research direction. “This event deconstructed misconceptions around choosing your research and how to manage the workload,” she said. “All of the graduate stu-
dents emphasized the importance of pursuing a research topic you are genuinely passionate about, [as] you are responsible for shaping your own academic journey.”
She said early engagement
“There’s no single path to success in economics [...] What matters most is curiosity, persistence and aligning your choices with what genuinely interests you”
— Abby Procter, president of the U of M Economics Society
with research and graduate-level discussions gives students practical preparation for future goals. “Our society provides a space for students to engage with research-based learning while in their undergrad and also leverage social and networking opportunities,” she said. “There’s no single path to success in economics […] What matters most is curiosity, persistence and aligning your choices with what genuinely interests you.”
According to Procter, feedback after the event was positive. “Many students appreciated the opportunity to hear honest, real experiences from graduate students and found the discussion helpful in clarifying what graduate-level economics entails,” she said.
“Participants expressed that events like this make the path to graduate studies feel more approachable by address-
ing questions about research, coursework and career planning that aren’t covered in class.”
Procter, on behalf of UMES, encouraged students to reach out to umeconsoc@umanitoba.ca so “we can connect them with tailored support [such as] career opportunities, economic insights, scholarships, research opportunities and more,” she said.
There will be a follow-up event for new and continuing students titled “Why Econ?” on Nov. 7 at 2:30 p.m. in 217 Russell Building. The session will feature economics professors and student representatives who will discuss the value of studying economics, potential career paths and tips for academic success within the program.
ABBY PROCTER, PRESIDENT OF THE U OF M ECONOMICS SOCIETY.
PHOTOS BY ZULKIFL RAFAH / STAFF
Sleep is a cousin of death
How a mysterious syndrome inspired a horror classic
Marco Tolentino, volunteer
“D on’t fall asleep...”
This is a line that kept me up at night, made me afraid to sleep when I was younger, and a line from Nancy Thompson, the protagonist of Wes Craven’s 1984 film A Nightmare On Elm Street. Most of you may think of this as purely an imaginary situation, where falling asleep results in nightmares and eventually death, but what most people don’t realize is that this was a reality for many people. This was due to a mysterious phenomenon now known as the Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome (SUNDS).
Widely known as the Nightmare Death or the Nocturnal Death, it is also referred to as Lai Tai in Thailand, Pokkuri Death Syndrome in Japan, Dream Disease in Hawaii, Sudden Manhood Death Syndrome in Mainland China, Sudden Adult Death Syndrome in England and Bangungut in the Philippines. With the first case being reported in 1917 in the Philippines, it created a little folk tale, referred to as the Bangungut. The Bangungut is depicted as a mythological creature (also known as the Batibat or the Bangungot), and often described as large and almost haglike by many. The creature is said to have sat on its victim’s face or
chest, immobilizing them and sometimes causing death.
This folk story is also tied to sleep paralysis in some cases. The other countries that refer to this phenomenon later described the cases as a syndrome or illness.
It has been 108 years since the first description of SUNDS. Since then, two major active periods of studies on SUNDS have accumulated vast information for further understanding of the pathogenesis. Both studies are from the Center of Disease Control in the U.S.
cle by Ronald B. Melles and Barrett Katz (1988), “Night terrors are a sleep disorder characterized by vocalization, motor activity, a non-arousable state and severe autonomic discharge. The proposed recognition of both
“Most of you may only think of this as purely an imaginary situation, where falling asleep results in nightmares and eventually death, but what most people don’t realize is that this was a reality for many people.”
night terrors and cardiac anomalies in patients offers a pathophysiologic mechanism for their sudden death.”
The leading factors behind SUNDS deaths are believed to be a mix of cardiac anomalies in the patient and night terrors. According to a medical arti -
Reported victims of this syndrome include males from Southeast Asia, roughly within the ages of 20-30, sometimes in
their 40s or 50s. A number of them were Hmong Refugees — these people were forced to flee from their homes in Southeast Asia and Laos after the Vietnam War and Laotian War because they had previously been allies of the U.S. Later, they resettled in various countries such as Australia, France, Canada and the U.S, with the majority of this population now residing in the latter. Although cases of SUNDS have been slowly growing more widespread ever since the first report, few paid attention. However, it eventually grasped the attention of classic horror movie director Wes Craven, who is known for his movies such as A Nightmare on Elm
Street, The Last House on The Left The Hills Have Eyes and the SCREAM franchise.
In an interview with fellow movie director, Mick Garris, Craven said the idea for A Nightmare on Elm Street first came to him when he was watching television late one night, and a story came regarding a young man who died after having what could only be described as “horrible nightmares.” The case led to a series of different articles regarding similar cases, one about a boy that claimed that there was a man in his dreams trying to kill him. The boy’s father, a doctor, constantly provided the boy with sleeping pills to hopefully help his child sleep. One morning, however, the police found the boy dead. They also found all of the sleeping pills that the boy’s father had previously given him underneath the boy’s bed. He never took a single one.
Although there have not been any recently reported cases of SUNDS, it seems that it can only take heart issues and a nightmare to make a person become a part of the statistic.
GRAPHIC BY EMMA GILLICH / STAFF
Conversing about death and dying
End-of-life communication between staff and families in personal care homes
Mansura Akter Meghla, staff
F or many older adults, long-term care homes are where they will spend their final days. In Manitoba, these are also known as personal care homes. While medical care at the end of life is well-studied, conversations surrounding death and dying remain less understood.
Erin Scott, a PhD candidate in the college of community and global health and a sessional instructor in the department of sociology, is addressing that gap. Her research focuses on how staff in personal care homes communicate with family caregivers about death and dying, as well as the ways in which older adults transition through the healthcare system. These conversations are often delayed, avoided or emotionally charged.
“My interest in understanding how older adults access and navigate the system stemmed from helping my grandparents navigate it and understanding first-hand how confusing it can be,” Scott said.
Her interest in aging and healthcare developed gradually. After completing a bachelor of arts in anthropology, she pursued a second degree in sociology. While studying sociology, Scott began working with Laura Funk, a professor in the department of sociology and criminology at
U of M, on projects related to the sociology of aging. That experience led her to com-
she studied the experiences of family caregivers helping loved ones transition from living independently to entering personal care homes.
Now, as a doctoral researcher, she continues to explore the humane side of healthcare systems. According to Scott, the topic is a “black box” in health research.
“[Most people] are pretty good at having the formal conversations around advanced care plans, ‘do-not-hospitalize’ orders and goals of care,” she said. “We’re also pretty good at having conversations around imminent death.” She explained, when it comes to the more informal conversations about death and dying, things become less clear.
The first phase of her project is a scoping review analyzing how such conversations occur, including the goals, experiences and barriers that prevent open communication. Insights from this phase have informed the second stage, which involves interviews with long-term care staff to better understand their perspectives.
Scott noted that while staff often handle clinical care with professionalism, many lack formal training in discussing emotionally-sensitive topics. “Staff typically aren’t taught
how to have these conversations. Comfortability comes with experience,” she said.
Her goal is to provide strategies that normalize endof-life discussions in personal care homes, improving experiences for both residents and their families. When conversations occur too late, Scott noted, palliative care tends to be late. Families frequently report feeling unprepared or unsatisfied with communication around death and dying.
“I wouldn’t say we are a death-denying culture, but we are death-averse,” she said. “By normalizing these conversations, we can ideally ease the experience.”
Looking ahead, Scott hopes to expand her research by interviewing family caregivers to capture their side of these conversations. She is also interested in exploring the intersection between long-term care and medical assistance in dying.
For students interested in aging or healthcare research, Scott offered practical advice to take the process slowly and steadily. “PhDs are marathons, not sprints,” she said. “Find a cohort of people that can support you throughout your process, because it [can be] a lonely road.”
plete a master of arts with a specialization in aging. As part of her graduate research,
GRAPHIC BY EMMA GILLICH/ STAFF
Conflict management guide for legal students
Faculty of law’s new collection aims to provide effective conflict resolution skills
Nawal Semir, staff
Anew edited collection titled The Other Side of the Bar: Conflict Transformation in Legal Practice brings fresh insights into how lawyers and mediators can navigate complex and multidimensional conflicts. Co-edited by Richard Jochelson, dean of law, and Laura Reimer, director of program development for the faculty of law, the collection offers a “theory-informed and practice-oriented resource” for legal practitioners and academics working to resolve disputes in today’s evolving legal landscape.
Based on current research, the collection explores conflict transformation in specific contexts. It includes advanced legal research, Indigenous approaches to conflict resolution, international arbitration and interpersonal communication. Reimer explained the book is designed “like a course,” including questions at the end of each of the 12 chapters. The hope is to provide legal educators an opportunity to utilize the collection
as a textbook if desired.
A believer in “research as conflict transformation,”
Reimer’s inspiration for this book stemmed partly from a conversation she had three years ago with Chief Justice Glenn Joyal of the Court of King’s Bench. After bumping into him at an airport, “the Chief Justice expressed concern that legal education ensures lawyers are equipped to address the different kinds of conflict the judges are seeing in the courts.”
ing] outside of the traditional realms of litigation or mediation,” with an aim to include the entire legal sphere. After further discussion, they moved forward with the project, framing the book as an “essential [tool] to legal practice that would help practitioners navigate conflict in its various forms.”
Although advertised mainly
sations that it will open up for students.
She said, although there is room to offer the book as a special topics course, “without doubt, the contributors will be using their chapters in their [own] courses.”
“[I want to give people] an opportunity to be introduced to various ways conflict can be recognized, moved, shifted and responded to”
She added in her capacity as director of the Desautels business accelerator, she is “toying with the idea of making this into some kind of summer institute […] a crash course in conflict transformation.”
— Laura Reimer, co-editor and director of program development for the faculty of law
Reimer noted, although “lawyers receive some training in mediation, arbitration and negotiation, the adversarial nature of our court system increasingly requires a need for expertise in conflict management.”
Together, Reimer and Jochelson imagined “a collected book on conflict transformation for lawyers [expand-
through word of mouth, Reimer claimed the book has been eagerly awaited by the legal community, including Justice Sheilah Martin of the Supreme Court of Canada. While Reimer is optimistic the book will be well-received by the practicing bar, she is more concerned about the opportunities and conver-
The goal, she said, would be to give people “an opportunity to be introduced to various ways conflict can be recognized, moved, shifted and responded to.”
Although targeted directly at the legal profession, Reimer acknowledged the types of conflicts this book addresses are the ones that many people face in everyday life. At its core, conflict is a balance of positions and interests,
and Reimer explained this through a simple example. She agreed that at U of M “we’re one herd” and “despite its policies, there’s an effort inside the university to pull us back together.”
She suggested the success of the university’s “One Herd” mentality can be attributed to its ability to properly locate the interests of educators and students alike, despite their differing positions in life. This is the approach people should be taking on an individual level when it comes to their personal conflicts.
According to Reimer, this book works to explain that “if you can recognize what kind of conflict is in front of you, there are tools to help you transform it.”
The Other Side of the Bar will be released on Dec. 1. Reimer hopes to host a book launch at Robson Hall in January. Interested readers can now purchase the book on Amazon.com.
PHOTO BY EBUNOLUWA AKINBO / STAFF
Is AI dependency a choice or a trap?
OpenAI’s largest study on AI use reflects U of M students’ understanding of AI
Nawal Semir, staff
ChatGPT has become the leading artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) since its introduction in 2022. It now receives nearly six billion monthly site visits and 700 million active weekly users — the equivalent of 10 per cent of the adult population.
In September, OpenAI released the largest study to date of how people are using AI. Drawing on an analysis of 1.1 million conversations sent between May 2024 and June 2025, this study revealed that 27 per cent of messages are classified as “work-related.” Of that percentage, about 56 per cent of prompts are classified as “doing,” or performing job tasks, with nearly three-quarters of those relating to writing. Although the study attributes this domination to the LLM’s unique ability to generate large writing samples, these statistics raise concerns. One may argue that ChatGPT’s success is the product of computer-engineered innovation, leading the human race into a new age of productivity defined by efficiency — a new “Age of Enlightenment.” Critics, however, may attribute ChatGPT’s success to a lack of users’ own innovation,
resulting from a failure to control LLM usage, leading to an AI dependency.
University students, though not explicitly highlighted in the report, make up a healthy demographic of LLM users. An earlier report from OpenAI revealed that more than onethird of college-aged young adults in the U.S. use ChatGPT. At the U of M, students’ views on AI vary widely, revealing that students can be found on either side of the debate.
and a lot of people from other majors, and I’ve definitely seen it now more as a tool, something that you can use to help you study, create flash cards, summarize assignment instructions, clarify things, ask questions,” she said. “It’s more used as a tool now, but when it first came out, just because there [weren’t] really a lot of conversations about
that develops crucial organizational and time-management skills has been completely traded for the convenience of AI.
“AI is so limiting in a lot of the things that it outputs, so people limit themselves to the ideas that AI generates and [...] that reduces creativity.”
On the skeptical side is one fourth year computer science student in the faculty of science, who has observed how AI use at universities has evolved. She recalled, when ChatGPT first launched “no one was really talking about the morals or ethics of making it do your assignment, so [...] people would just jump the gun and just were using it for the entire thing rather than [as] a tool.”
— A fourth year student in U of M’s department of computer science
how to use it [...] it was probably abused in some [way].”
Three years into the post-ChatGPT world, she noted AI use among students is taking on a new form. “I have talked amongst my peers
Although this shift should signify increased efficiency in learning, this student argued it has only furthered dependency on AI tools. “I definitely think [AI dependency] has increased. Instead of doing the assigned readings, people just jump straight to getting AI to summarize it, getting it to do your flashcards for you, and this is all work that we were doing before.” She agreed the menial work of academia
In explaining how LLMs operate, she shared her belief that the largest threat AI poses is not to skill development, but rather to the creativity of minds. “The way AI generates text is by predicting what’s the most probable outcome of the next word based off of all the data that’s been generated, so it’s limited to what already exists in this world,” she said. “AI is so limiting in a lot of the things that it outputs, so people limit themselves to the ideas that AI generates and [...] that reduces creativity.” While some students remain cautious about AI, others view it with optimism. One second year JD candidate in the faculty of law explained her understanding of AI as a teacher. “Honestly, I’m a big advocate for the use of AI,” she said. “If you’re ever confused by anything and you have the facts and the right information, I think AI can
really help explain anything that you might be confused about. And I think that it also helps because it can be kind of scary going to profs and asking them questions.”
Common Sense Media’s 2025 AI Risk Assessment showed that AI teaching assistants — platforms specifically designed to aid teachers and students in learning — have a moderate risk of acting as “invisible influencers,” providing inaccurate and biased information to students. One can only imagine the risk with AI platforms that have not been designed to provide an educational service. This use of AI as a supplementary teacher then requires a great deal of discretion on the students’ part.
As generative AI becomes more integrated into everyday life, its influence continues to grow beyond the workplace. A recent study by Collis and Brynjolfsson (2025) suggested that ChatGPT is having a wide-reaching impact on the global economy, with non-work use growing even faster than professional use. While its long-term effects on education and work remain to be seen, its impact is already reshaping how people think, study and produce.
GRAPHIC BY EMMA GILLICH / STAFF
Horror is the most honest genre
With a bit of gore, fear and thrills, horror says what other genres won’t
Jesse Brogan, staff
Stories — films especially — are hyperbolic extensions of the things we experience in everyday life. They enlarge the feelings we experience like love, fear, shame, desire and the incessant ring of mortality. Horror takes this exaggeration the farthest. With death, existential symbols and maybe a bit of gore, horror seems to have become the most honest genre as it confronts what we repress head-on, and offers us a playground of profound truths.
John Truby’s The Anatomy of Genres argues that each genre performs a specific function. Memoir and the coming-of-age story teach personal responsibility and the making of the self while fantasy explores the wish to be more than we are (which makes me think about how Marvel dominates big-budget productions). Horror, by contrast, fulfills the religious function in storytelling by confronting us with ultimate questions like those about death, and challenges how we should live if we want to pur-
sue a good life that ensures a heavenly end.
In my opinion, the first biblical tale in Genesis is a horror story. When Adam and Eve eat the apple and learn they will die, a new acute awareness arrives, and with that comes the vertigo, the dizziness of choice. This disorienting experience lends to the insistence of questions like, “Who am I?” and “What should I do?”
Unlike genres that idealize human experience, horror strips away the familiar world and exposes the raw realities that people frequently ignore. I believe it forces audiences to confront uncomfortable truths which, as a result, require honest reflection.
John Carpenter’s Halloween was released in 1978, just before Oct. 31, and it reframed the suburban neighbourhood, which is regarded as generally safe, into a stage for pure terror. Michael Myers, also referred to as “The Shape,” does not run, speak, plan or explain himself. He simply is He isn’t a villain with motives — he’s a masked void in coveralls, a walking subtraction of
meaning. The movie’s point here is that in a rational, welllit world, unexplainable evil can exist and even thrive. Yet Laurie Strode, the movie’s protagonist, responds to that void. She protects, plans and fights back. She makes meaning by resisting meaninglessness. Here, horror’s religious function is in full motion, asking the question, “When confronted with the inexplicable, will we act with intention and courage anyway?”
We find these symbols in all horror films. The Exorcist dramatizes a crisis of belief as faith requires doubt the way courage requires fear. Ari Aster’s Hereditary insists that we inherit more than heirlooms — we carry family trauma, mental illness and, perhaps, spiritual doom. The film uses the supernatural as a delicate frame for the metaphor of what bloodlines and traditions pass down through the family. In A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy Krueger is the burgeoning bubble of denial inside us that, if left unattended, results in unforeseeable consequences. The parents in the movie burn
Freddy alive because he is suspected of killing children. In doing so, they evade justice, and their unconfessed violence returns in their children’s dreams. The villain in the movie is not just Freddy, it’s the lie the town has had to live with.
This is why the genre’s religious function matters. Horror asks us to look straight at death, then act as if goodness still matters. It exposes the reassurances we need to feel okay, such as, “The suburbs are safe,” “Science can explain everything” and “The past is over,” and replaces them with sturdier and, at times, exaggerated scares. But the truth is annealed around each horror story because evil can be senseless, reason can be limited and the past will resume until we face it. However, despite this, we as viewers (and the characters in horror films) can create meaning through responsibility, sacrifice, truth-telling and caring for others.
The idea of death results in the same response for us all. Fear is an emotion where the trigger is easy to define
— a shadowy figure stands in the doorway, a deep, unbecoming voice crawls out of a child’s throat, a modified glove scrapes metal in a dream — while other emotions, like happiness, begin from a messier origin. We recognize danger together and react together.
Halloween is here. Sit in a crowded cinema and you’ll feel it — the synchronized intake of breath with the shared laugh after a scare. I believe that timing isn’t an accident — it’s emotional honesty revealing itself with rhythm. Horror aligns our heartbeats around inescapable truths we all know but tend to avoid. It tells us that the void is real, but so is defiance, so is love, so is the will to protect. If every story amplifies life, horror enlarges the parts we’d rather ignore, and in doing so, it shows us how to live. This Halloween, put a candy bowl out on your porch, get in your costume and go see a horror movie at the cinema.
