Season 5 Episode 4

The Hunt, Hunger & Disgust

What does a shark have in common with a cannibal?

I open up the three ugliest appetites in horror & show you they're all running the same program. The chase that gets your heart pounding, the hunger that makes dinner guests the main course & the disgust your body decides for you before your brain can argue.

Jaws & Predator, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on the hunt. Hannibal Lecter, Raw & The Menu on hunger. The Fly & The Thing on the exact moment your stomach says absolutely not, & psychologist Paul Rozin on why you can't argue your way out of disgust.

The answer at the end changes how every stomach turning scene hits you from now on.

Join the Dominion.

Where do evil kids in horror actually come from? They don't just appear out of nowhere.

Horror loves to sell you the bad seed. The perfect little killer who just showed up that way. But look closer. Every one of those kids had adults standing behind them first. Fathers who handed down rage, ambition, or grief like it was inheritance. Mothers who locked the door or never left the room. The child is just the proof. The house was already rotting. This is the dark psychology of how a family becomes the first haunted house.

In this episode of Father, Mother, & Child, Dr. Nika breaks down the dark psychology behind horror's most infamous children, from Damien and Carrie to Gage Creed & Samara.

Using Diana Baumrind’s parenting styles and John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory, we dissect how rage, ambition, grief, and fanaticism turn the family home into the ultimate haunted house.

Topics Covered:

• The psychological rot of horror fathers (Jack Torrance, Ellison Oswalt, Louis Creed)

• Motherhood, trauma, and control (Carrie White, Norman Bates)

• Why the "Bad Seed" narrative lets adults off the hook

• Attachment theory, childhood development, & dark psychological traits

Next Week: The Hunt, Hunger & Disgust.

Why do we relate to horror villains?

In Season 5, Episode 2 of Dominion of Fear, Dr. Nika explores the dark feminine & dark masculine through ten disturbing characters from Pearl, The Witch, Black Swan, Hannibal Lecter, American Psycho, & more.

Discover the psychology of power, obsession, repressed desires, & Carl Jung’s shadow. What makes these characters terrifying isn't just what they do, but how much we understand why.

⚠️ Spoilers ahead.