Julian Menendez | Staff Writer
The week leading up to Halloween is always an especially spooky time. This year, the Psychology Ambassadors for Student Success (PASS) organized an event to match the spirit of the holiday.
Held in GC 316, the event welcomed club members and FIU students to gather for a night of crafts, food, and a screening of the stop-motion cult classic “Coraline.” It’s a film well-suited for this time of year, and packed full of interesting psychological themes that felt right at home with FIU’s psych majors.
The night began with a quick general body meeting where students arrived in Halloween-themed pajamas and costumes, grabbing pizza and candy before settling in for the movie. Craft supplies, rock painting, coloring books, and origami were laid out for those who wanted a creative outlet during the screening.
The lights dimmed as the film’s haunting opening scene began: the Beldam sewing together the Coraline doll, setting the underlying tone for the film. The room was filled with students chatting, crafting, and cracking jokes about the movie, and focusing intently on the action-packed sequences.
Attendees craft and eat snacks at the movie screenings | Julian Menendez, PantherNOW
While not a traditional bloody slasher movie, “Coraline” is steeped in psychological tension. Themes of escapism, neglect, and manipulation are stitched throughout the movie’s colorful “Other World.”
For a psych student, its symbolism may cut deeper, from Freudian dynamics between the other mother and the real mother, themes of the uncanny, wish fulfillment, the id, to the use of buttons-for-eyes that render the familiar, alien.
“I mean, it was just Halloween-themed in general,” said Nicole Viera, a psychology major with a minor in statistics and the president of PASS. “We gave various options to our audience, and, you know, it was the audience’s pick at the end of the day. Just fun. I feel like scary Halloween movies [are] always the way to go… It was just fun to engage in our community in this way, in a way that they liked.”
Even without a career or academic focus, she believes events like this matter. “It’s like a bonding moment,” Viera said. “Even if it isn’t… academic or career focused, it’s still like bonding, networking in a sense. You’re getting to know other psychology majors… For a lot of people, it’s hard to make friends like that.”
Sierra, a junior studying psychology and criminal justice, echoed that sentiment. “I feel like I should get more involved with clubs, and I haven’t really been… so I wanted to get more experience, like networking with people in my major.”
Living on campus without a car, she said, events like these help her feel more connected. “Sometimes I have nothing to do… and I don’t have a car, so I have nowhere to go. You feel stuck when you live here,” she said. “Everyone else gets to, like, go and… separate from school… but I’m just here all the time.”
Asked if psychology changed how she watched horror, she said, “Yes, because it makes me… more selective with what horror movies I like… I don’t just like gory, like Scream… I need something that’s way more intricate to be scared.”
Looking ahead, PASS plans to continue balancing fun with development. “We’re doing a Rate My Professor event next week,” Viera said. “We’re gonna make a poll… and we’re gonna either have, like, an APA workshop, a résumé workshop, or a CV workshop, whatever works best for… the students, what they need.”
Whether through horror movies or resume workshops, PASS is helping students connect, both with each other and their future.
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