Supernatural/psychological horror that isn't necessarily threatening?

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tammay

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Hi everyone,
I'm not sure I can really put this in a way that makes sense, but I'll try.

I am not strictly a fan of horror fiction, although I do love some classic horror stories that are more on the psychological side (like Frankenstein and Henry James' Turn Of The Screw) and psychological horror classic films (like Rebecca and Val Lewton films). The truth is, I'm the kind of person who has to go to bed with the lights on if I read a book or see a film that has the kind of physical gore that typical horror has. For example, I can't watch something like Night Of The Living Dead (with the flesh-eating zombies) but I love the Val Lewton film I Walked With A Zombie because the zombies there are more about people who have no will but who aren't harmful.

I've been playing around with an idea for Nano this year that I think is more on the side of psychological horror and even has some supernatural elements (such as a the young third wife of a prominent doctor who believes that the doctor's dead second wife is influencing the daughter to want to harm her in a supernatural way). But I've been wondering whether the supernatural and horror always has to be something evil and threatening.

I know it's a weird question to ask and I'm probably not asking it correctly at all. But can such elements exist as a way of showing characters the way to, say, better themselves or help others or something else that is more positive? Or is the nature of horror and supernatural always negative?

In my idea, for example, the fact that the first wife is influencing the daughter even though she is dead has some truth in it, but my idea is that it turns out that the daughter isn't trying to harm the wife but to help her (the fact that the wife thinks she wants to harm her is part of her psychological makeup).

I saw a film from the 1970's recently about a woman who was living the perfect life of a housewife but was not happy and suddenly began to do things that she never did before (such as buy a blond wig and different clothes and rent a beach house), as if she was possessed by someone else. It turns out that she really wasn't possessed but that she actually took the identity of a friend of hers who was killed. The realization she comes to in the end is that she felt lost before but now she has found out who she really is. So there is some supernatural element there but it's not threatening.

Are there writers who write such things? I'd love to read them just to get an idea of whether I am totally crazy or not.

Tam
 
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