Most films use patterns or specific objects as metaphors for a concept that the filmmaker is trying to convey. In horror movies, many such objects are used to intensify mood, identify character traits, emphasize themes and concepts (e.g. good vs. evil), and foreshadow events. Objects can be powerful symbols that add depth and meaning to a story.

Horror films try to capture our worst nightmares. As Carl G. Jung observed in his book Man and His Symbols (1979): "Commonplace objects or ideas can assume such powerful psychic significance in a dream that we may awake seriously disturbed, in spite of having dreamed of nothing worse than a locked room or a missed train" and "As a general rule, the unconscious aspect of any event is revealed to us in dreams, where it appears not as a rational thought but as a symbolic image."