You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This article attempts to use Freud's revised theory of anxiety to account for the effects modern horror films have on their viewers. The first half is devoted to close textual analysis of what I call “representational strategies” of such texts, and this is, I feel, necessary for the argument to develop and unfold in the clearest possible way. The reader interested in the application of psychoanalytic theory to the arts and popular culture should, however, find him or herself in more familiar territory once close textual analysis merges with an examination of Freud's texts in the second half of the article.
The effect of horror is rarely produced through a single representational strategy. On the contrary, it seems possible to differentiate among at least four such strategies, which individually or, most often, together work to produce in the spectator that particular affect we call horror.
The names I give to these strategies are (1) the representation of the uncanny, (2) the representation of the monster, (3) the mise-en-scène of violent physical assault, and what I will provisionally refer to as (4) the mise-en-scène of “all hell breaking loose.” It must be noted that it is extremely rare for any one of these strategies to appear by itself. They are almost always combined