10 Ways Horror Movies Got Scarier By Accident
7. The Suit's Design Triggers Trypophobia In Some Viewers - The Invisible Man
Leigh Whannell's The Invisible Man turned out to be one of the most pleasantly surprising horror films of the last few years, a socially conscious and almost unbearably intense genre offering topped by a fantastic Elisabeth Moss performance.
And though the film does a fantastic job mining the suspense of Cecilia (Moss) being stalked by an invisible enemy, many viewers experienced an added discomfort once she actually discovers the invisible suit and manages to de-activate its cloaking.
This reveals a hi-tech suit covered in hundreds of small cameras which allow it to project a cloaked visual of the surrounding environment.
But it also activated anxiety and unease in viewers suffering from a condition called trypophobia, which is defined by having an aversion to small holes and clusters.
You might not even know you have it until you see an inciting object, and though for most sufferers the symptoms aren't any more extreme than mild revulsion and some body hairs standing up on end, for extreme cases it can be a mentally debilitating condition.
Some viewers reported that the cluster of cameras on the Invisible Man's suit activated a trypophobic response, which writer-director Whannell consequently apologised for on Twitter.