Horror Film and Psychoanalysis: Freud's Worst Nightmare

by Edited by Steven Jay Schneider

• ISBN13: 9780521107853
• ISBN10: 0521107857
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-01-29
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This volume finds the proper place of psychoanalytic thought in critical analysis of cinema through a series of essays that debate its legitimacy, utility, and validity as applied to the horror genre. It distinguishes itself from previous work in this area through the self-consciousness with which psychoanalytic concepts are employed and the theorization that coexists with interpretations of particular horror films and subgenres.

Table of Contents

Preface: what lies beneath?

Introduction: Psychoanalysis in/and/of the horror film

The Question of Horror-Pleasure

'What's the matter with Melanie?': reflections on the merits of psychoanalytic approaches to modern horror cinema

A fun night out: horror and other pleasures of the cinema

Excerpt from 'Why Horror? The New Pleasures of a Popular Genre' (with a new afterword by the author)

Philosophical problems concerning the concept of pleasure for future psychoanalytical theories of (the horror) film

Theorizing the Uncanny

Explaining the uncanny in The Double Life of Véronique

Manifestations of the literary double in modern horror cinema

Heimlich maneuvers: on a certain tendency of horror and speculative cinema

'It was a dark and stormy night " ': horror films and the problem of irony

Representing Psychoanalysis

'What does Dr. Judd want?': transformation, transference and divided selves in Cat People

'Ultimate formlessness': cinema, horror, and the limits of meaning

Freud's worst nightmare: dining with Dr Hannibal Lecter

New Directions

Doing things with theory: from Freud's worst nightmares to (disciplinary) dreams of horror's cultural value

The darker side of genius: the (horror) auteur meets Freud's theory

Violence and psychophysiology in horror cinema

Afterword: psychoanalysis and the horror film

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.