Whatever else it may be, and from a variety of perspectives, it is indeed a work of horror. Typically, horror is associated with the traditional slash and gouge film. However, horror can also reflect an individual's view of everyday life, of world history, or of the ultimate. In an interview, Michael Tolkin credited Melville as a source of his inspiration. Intriguingly, he quoted from Melville's Pierre , a particularly dense and bleak work, in which Melville seems to equate God with a depressing sense of fate.
Horror focuses on the deepest fears that people encounter.
Horror is sometimes associated with psychotic episodes. Psychologists and psychiatrists have high-lighted persistent human fears associated with loss of identity, loss of a beloved person, loss of a love object, or loss of regard for oneself. Religion traditionally has served an important role against such fears, by providing comfort and solace in times of loss. Two approaches to The Rapture prove instructive. The viewer may see it as the psychological biography of a disturbed woman falling into psychosis.