Monsters in The Mirror: Reflecting the Horror Within

In our Creatinuum Podcast Episode 23, "All Work and No Play": A History of Horror Adaptations,” we tackle the monsters we’re scared of, which aren’t what’s in the closet, under our bed, or the supernatural outside the comfort of our homes. Horror has evolved from jump scares. What terrifies us is actually what's within us.

Photo by Mariana Montrazi

As a society, what powers our actions often stems from pride, desire, ego, and hubris, and the weight of consequences are hidden under the veil of our own greed, selfishness, and trauma. Though it differs from person to person, and some more extreme than what is mentioned. However, our unawareness inspires a certain trope of horror that writers use to confront what terrifies us. There’s nothing more frightening than seeing ourselves become the very thing we fear, or sometimes, relate to the horrible monster.

Monsters Reflect the Self

Denial keeps us from recognizing our flaws; refusal to acknowledge further darkens our vision to what we see in the mirror. In therapy, writing down what makes you anxious or fearful helps you externalize those fears and see it take shape. It offloads emotions and the weight of your thoughts, helping you confront what’s visible to the paper instead of just letting it create noise in your head.

Storytellers—writers, filmmakers, and even game designers—use this practice of externalizing. They give shape to society’s worst flaws or sometimes glean from their own experiences. 

Take Weapons (2025) for example. Its monster is an unknown evil that kidnaps children, which leaves the parents scrambling for answers and pointing fingers at who they suspect. Draw deeper, then the movie feels like it’s made to represent and echo the question that kids are dying, and the problem is far from being solved. 

Or the Haunting of Hill House (2018), Nell has grappled with her fear of the Bent-Neck Lady, only to realize that her refusal to confront her fears would drive her into being the terror that haunts her. Her character arc serves as evidence that unacknowledged fear has a way of reaching toward the shallow waters, only to pull us back into the darkness. 

Then you have Steven, the eldest brother, who hid behind his denial and arrogance. His bravado is a thick veil that prevents him from seeing the irony. He wrote a fictional book that fed off of his family’s trauma. He penned about his experience in a roundabout way that reality slips past him: his book is the haunting, the mirror that he refuses to look at. Every memory he wrote about had ghosts all over them embedded in his quotidian routine growing up. His success is built on the thing he denied existed. In trying to write ghosts out of his life, he didn’t realize he was surrounded by them all along. His arc is proof that denial is just another kind of possession.  

Building The Mirror

Horror has always been the genre that spotlights our choices. Writing in this genre, moreover specifically this trope, requires a deep dive into our own internal flaws and weaknesses, and asks: What shape or form would it take? And how would it disrupt the life of the characters?

The creature or monster, should or can, at least, be traced back to the choices that brought it into being. 

Writers also must be aware that these stories don’t always lead to our idea of defeating evil. Sometimes, they teach us to accept and understand our flaws and their origins, in hopes that acknowledgement becomes its own form of redemption. When we allow our characters to see their monsters clearly, we invite readers to do the same—to recognize that what frightens us most is rarely evil incarnate, but pain left unresolved.