Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Gremlin Theory: A Film Art Of Joe Dante, Frank Falisi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis seeks to establish the work of the filmmaker Joe Dante as a catalyzing and anarchic force let loose inside larger, dumber superstructures: linear narrativity, Hollywood, America, etc. It works to read the genre films he worked on—many of them made as popular entertainment for mainstream movie studios—as moments of actual subversion, allocating status quo (studio system) resources to create a biting-back against American imperial norms in the lingua franca of Marx and the Marx Brothers: gummy leisure-seeking stupidity and Gremlin transformation. This thesis seeks to argue that to understand Dante’s work is to understand pop transfiguration itself. This …

Racial Identity In Horror: The Fear Of Black Female Sexuality, Charniece D. Bacon

Honors College Theses

The Jezebel stereotype is a racial stereotype with biblical ties that portrays black women as seductive, sexually insatiable beings. The horror genre explores humanity’s biggest fears and anxieties by looking at subgenres such as blaxploitation and vampirism. In this essay, I'll explore the intersectionalities of race, gender, and religion through the portrayal of black female sexuality in the horror genre. In films such as Ganja & Hess (1973), Abby (1976), and Def by Temptation (1990), they all depict the Jezebel stereotype. In an in-depth analysis of these films, I'll go over the ways in which they reinforce the Jezebel stereotype, …

Being Scared In A Secondary Universe: Experiencing The Self Through The Horror Film, Emily C. Hueser

Media and Cultural Studies Honors Projects

This paper explores the horror film as a site of self-creation. Using Michel Foucault and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, I argue that the horror genre primes the viewer for an embodied, affective experience, and the resulting interaction between self and screen constitutes and redefines the self. By engaging with Jordan Peele’s Get Out, David Cronenberg’s Videodrome and The Fly, and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, I explore how horror films engage our physical bodies and rework our experience and understanding of race, disability, and collectivity. These interactive experiences of filmviewing allow us to conceptualize the cinema as a tangible site of identity creation, …

Compositional Techniques For Horror Film Soundtracks, Malia L. Hernandez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

With this paper, I aim to explore the history of horror film soundtracks and discover the various compositional techniques that are used to trigger physical responses from a viewer. I also intend to describe how horror scores have adapted and changed over time as our social and political climate continues to evolve by examining several different kinds of sources including academic studies, articles, and film reviews. While every viewer is different, a film scorer can properly build suspense by using specific compositional methodologies to briefly alter responses of the human mind and body.  This type of research would provide useful …

The Absent Monster: Personal And Cultural Fears Through Kiyoshi Kurosawa’S Pulse, Gracie J. Huras

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Anemoia, Emily A. Macdonald

Screenwriting and Film Studies Theses (MA/MFA)

Many girls would kill for the opportunity to make it in the modeling world, but with one foot in the door already, Sloane seems less than thrilled. When the chance arrises to visit the famed Arion Hotel, a training ground for up-and-coming models run by the mysterious photographer Louis Lord, even she cannot pass it up.

However, the hotel does not appear to be all it was promised. Outdated, isolated and nearly empty-- save for a small group of Lord's friends and employees, Sloane finds herself in an unfamiliar and strange world. All this she could bear, but the appearance …

28 Years Later, Dennis Etzel Jr

Journal of Religion & Film

In 28 Years Later, Alex Garland creates another screenplay of mythological elements based on Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey and archetypal characters. The family unit of son, mother, and father are examined alongside the two Hero's Journeys the son Spike takes--a false one and a true one. Ultimately, the positive trickster of the scientist-priest sage represents the example using rituals of being human in a chaotic world.

The Monstrous Other: Exploring Negative Representations Of Queerness In Genre Cinema, Mark Gambino

Imaginings: creative practice and inquiry

The following literature review is an extract from my SAE University College Masters thesis, Disrupting negative representations of queerness in genre cinema, conferred in September 2024. The project explored representations of the queer Other in film horror, through artefact-exegesis, with the creative artefact, horror film Shadows, interrogating the coding of trans / queer characters as the ‘monstrous Other’ in the horror film genre, and how this notion can be subverted and transcended.

Fancy Mice, Damian Aguilar

University Honors Theses

In this proof-of-concept screenplay, a family becomes the subject of an isolating experiment that observes their behavior changes after remaining in their home for an extended period of time with all their basic needs met. The first twenty-pages of this psychological horror lays the foundation for a larger work that explores existential themes related to purpose, competition, and play.

The Sauce To Meat Is Ceremony: Cannibalism And Hospitality Serve As Horror And Culture Tropes In Hannibal And Macbeth, Shay Williams

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

When examining Macbeth (1623) as a case study within Shakespeare’s canon, we see all the obvious horror tropes - murder, witches, a ghost, bodies, blood and gore. What is less pronounced is the horror that lies within eating, drinking, feasting, and the ceremony of banquets. On the other side of the spectrum, and unlike the character of Macbeth, we have a figure that epitomizes all things horror, and has been read about in novels, watched on film, and as of late (2013-2015) has been the subject of a Television show, aptly named: Hannibal. In both works, we encounter men/monsters/killers …

As Above, So Below: The Cognitive Impact Of Found Footage Horror, Josephine Railston

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

What makes a horror movie good? Why do we like horror movies? Using the 2014 movie As Above, So Below my poster presentation explores the cognitive impact of found footage horror on its viewers. Employing the use of a handheld camera and first person perspective, the film is able to immerse its audience in a supernatural version of the Paris Catacombs. I discuss found footage as a narrative tool, particularly focusing on how it amplifies psychological and physical responses like fear and anxiety.

All You Can Eat, Kelly Schiesswohl

Theses and Dissertations

All You Can Eat is a 2D-animated horror short following the patrons and inhabitants of a bakery as they prepare for its annual pie-eating contest. As the contest nears, tensions rise after the discovery of a dark secret amongst the staff inspires rebellion. Through the visual metaphor of pie and the pie-eating contest, this film explores how sexual violence functions on a systemic level. It explores our collective conditioning to a range of behaviors that contribute to patriarchal oppression and the social cycles that reinforce them across generations. Through design and surreal storytelling, this film captures the urgent threat of …

Michigan Fiction, Bryce Durfey

Honors Theses

The screenplay Michigan Fiction follows a failing children's book author who is desperate for another taste of success. His father has told him his entire life that success by any means is all that matters. After a chance meeting with a more successful crime-novelist colleague, and learning of his next book idea, he decides to follow him to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to steal his idea for a book. He stays in a motel where the original killer once stayed and killed. Things go awry when he accidentally murders someone. After the town thinks it's the old killer returning, …

'She Hys Dwelling-Place': Corporeality And Female Sanctity From The Medieval To The Post-Modern, Noelle Trejo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The intention of this thesis is to explore the ways that medieval sanctity has been performed by the female body in the Middle Ages and now, and how the sanctity represented and received in the hagiographical writings of the Middle Ages is redeployed in the visual culture of 21st century horror film. In other words, it will trace how medieval hagiographical conventions surrounding sanctity either persist in their original forms or are altered for 21st century audiences, to the end of contributing to ubiquitous discourses of femininity as it relates to the corporeal body.

The Wicker Man, Laurel Zwissler

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Steve A. Wiggins, The Wicker Man (Liverpool: Auteur, 2023)

David Lynch Exposed The Rot At The Heart Of American Culture, Billy J. Stratton

English and Literary Arts: Faculty Scholarship

Stratton discusses cultural commentary and impact in the films of David Lynch, following the director's passing.

Personification: A Short Film, Charles R. Adams

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Personification follows a group of college students as they receive news that mysterious shape-shifting creatures are posing as humans. They quickly turn on each other, realizing there is no one they can trust. In the style of mid-20th - century horror films, notably Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), the short film explores themes of paranoia and the value of human expression in a time when generative AI seeks to replace the creative method. In keeping with this theme, the emphasis for this project was on the act of creation. Pre-production—which included scriptwriting, casting, and various organizational tasks—ran …

Bodies Of Horror In Judges 19-21 And Evil Dead Ii (1987), Jennifer M. Matheny, Aaron Bohn

Journal of Religion & Film

Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II (1987), a horror film, demonstrates key thematic parallels with Judges 19-21. Evil Dead IIidentifies with the film genres of “splatter horror” and “dark comedy” with a B-movie cult classic vibe. Placing the Bible’s body horror (Judges 19) and horror film in dialogue on their own terms creates an intertextual dialogue that can be fruitful when dealing with violent biblical texts that communicate an excess state of terror (Phyllis Trible). Through the lens of postbiblical intertextuality (Marianne Grohmann and Hyun Chul Paul Kim), this paper will explore thematic parallels and connections in conversation between Evil …

Entwined Derelict, Alex Teeple

Harrisburg University Other Works

"Entwined Derelict" was my first delve into the Twine interactive fiction engine, and the second game that I consider "feature complete". While a significant focus was put on learning the engine as a whole, particular effort for me was put into a sidebar "journal" of sorts, that took narrative flags from the game and recorded the events in a way that allows players to read back what they have experienced in-game at their leisure. While I greatly enjoyed making the game, and I do consider it a complete experience with some unique pieces within, it is a short adventure without …

Trial By Rat Infestation, Elias Lunsford

University Honors Theses

Wanna make a rat movie?! From Ashton Livingston handing me his script in class to a week of December night shoots, his vision for a 1980s-inspired horror comedy called Rat Problem was a joy of a challenge for me to take on as his cinematographer. Watching reference films, renting and borrowing equipment, and managing the crew all culminated in creating this film's unique vintage-inspired ultra-wide and high-contrast aesthetic. The process of making this film, from equipment technicalities to creative problem-solving, forged my values as a creative collaborator. I learned to always protect the essence of the film as campy and …

Consciousness And The Reality Of Monsters In Horror Movies: Dehumanization And What Monsters In Horror Films Say About Us, Leila Kincaid

Journal of Conscious Evolution

This essay responds to Carroll’s The Nature of Horror from the perspective of transdisciplinary phenomenological film theory, largely developed by Edgar Morin in the 1950s. It argues that Carrolls’s reduction of the phenomenological value of horror films to an unreal category minimizes and even dismisses the inherent value of horror films. Morin, Allan Combs, and others offer more integral and transdisciplinary methods for art interpretation and functionality. They help us understand how monsters in horror films can stand as mirrors and reflections of the monstrous in ourselves and society. Thus, the transformational function and value of film is revealed and …

A Taste For The Distasteful: The Aesthetics Of Gore In The Giallo And Horror Films Of Mario Bava, Thais Casado Bignardi-Engstrom

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the Italian experience with horror in cinema in both psychoanalytic feminist and cognitive Marxist critical film theories through a study of visual renderings of excessive violence and sex in gothic and thrillers known as giallo films created by the film director Mario Bava. This is an art historical study that looks at Bava’s work against the Italian cultural landscape in the post war period.

Scare If You Dare: A Look Into Scare Acting, Hana Goss

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Scare acting has always been the unsung villains of the entertainment industry. For three months of the year, for about five minutes of a haunted house, they get attention. However, the work scare actors do to is way more than just a five second “boo.” Scare actors have been at the beginning of theatre and continue to influence modern entertainment. Even though the patrons may be the ones feeling the danger, scare actors may be even more in danger than them. Each scare actor is unique from their looks to their moves. It might be take a lot of nerve …

Embracing The Wound Of Contingency: Transcribing Reality In Supernatural Horror And Found Footage, Mason Dax Dickerson

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

To counter both the form of critical thought first outlined by Kant that dispels absolute knowledge, as well as the dogmatic necessitarianism that asserts the universe must be one way for an absolute originary reason, Quentin Meillassoux argues for the “non-facticity of facticity” to implicate an absolute contingency or unreason structuring reality: in effect, anything could happen for no reason at all. Meillassoux suggests the trauma of the contingent event and the sudden impossibility of inductive science in its wake may be explored in an “Extro-Science Fiction” text (XSF) – but limits his examples to science fiction literature. Framing the …

Boat Dad, Scotty Villhard

LMU Theses and Dissertations

A divorced dad returns home to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter, but there’s one problem: she’s a serial killer who feeds tourists to the local lake monster.

Laughter And Madness: The Comic Horror Of Evil Dead Ii, David Gowan

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

The Looming, William L. Blizek

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of The Looming (2023), directed by Masha Ko.

Handling The Undead, Christopher R. Deacy

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Handling the Undead (2024), directed by Thea Hvistendahl.

Horror Stories: Oblivious Women In Luis Puenzo’S La Historia Oficial (1985) And Santiago Mitre’S Argentina 1985 (2022), Stephanie R. Orozco

The Coastal Review

Adriana Cavarero's conceptualization of Medusa serves as a potent metaphor for the subtle redirection of violence of oblivious women who ignored the brutalization of pregnant victims during Argentina’s military dictatorship (1976-83). In Luis Puenzo’s La historia oficial (1985) and Santiago Mitre’s Argentina 1985 (2022), skillfully unveil the ghastly practice of torturing pregnant women, unraveling the vulnerability of both mothers and their infants, evoking a sense of disgust and repugnance that is eventually shared by oblivious women. Beyond mere storytelling, these films challenge prevailing power dynamics and discourses, shedding light on the complicit ignorance of elite women during an era marked …

A Comparative Analysis Of Music And Sound In J-Horror Films And Their American Remakes, University Of Denver

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

It has been long established that music has the potential to influence a listener’s emotions. Likewise, visual stimulation can influence our emotions. Horror movies rely heavily on the combination of these two systems working together to create tension and fear. This essay will analyze the use of sound, music, and silence in Japanese horror films as compared to their American remakes. I will explore the instrumentation and compositional methods through the lens of traditional Japanese kabuki theatre conventions as well as classical American film scoring to compare my perceived scariness of each film’s most stressful scenes.