Escaping a dark house full of life-threatening evil has been seen time and time again. In The Babadook, The Invitation, and Crimson Peak, the characters become trapped in sinister homes that seem to have personalities of their own. The theme of isolation is prevalent in these stories, but each protagonist fails to escape until they confront the evils within the homes. In each film, this “evil” can be attributed to the trauma and grief carried by the characters. This narrative mechanism highlights not only the importance of confronting one's feelings but the connection of the emotional and the physical self. Kent, Kusama, and del Toro create associations between being physically trapped by the seclusion of the houses and being emotionally trapped by trauma and memory. I argue that in the cases of The Babadook, The Invitation, and Crimson Peak, the themes of memory and isolation can be combined into the singular theme of being trapped. 

Each character is trapped by their situation, relationship, or the state of their mental health. Additionally, the characters are tied to the houses they are isolated in through the trauma that was created in those spaces. By physically trapping the protagonists in their houses, the plot guarantees they will have to address their emotional response to the location and more broadly, their grief. The films show this challenge to be equally difficult as physically escaping the haunted houses. Each house is shown as an all-encompassing burden. The characters face grievous physical injuries and come close to death, but that is only half the battle. Equating physical restriction and harm to mental and emotional damage shows that both are legitimate, sometimes insurmountable, obstacles. This nuanced understanding of isolation in horror films, as more than just a physical confine, is a new direction for the genre. In conclusion, The Babadook, The Invitation, and Crimson Peak create a new understanding of what it means to be trapped. The films argue that it is not enough to run away from a monster, but rather, the message is to embrace emotional openness and treat mental suffering as equal to physical suffering.