An alien from an emotionless species hides from her own kind on Earth by stealing the skin of a young woman, but when the alien starts to feel that woman’s emotions, she finds that human impersonation is more than skin deep.

Under de senaste decennierna har ett stort intresse för att forska om film utifrån ett kognitivt neurovetenskapligt perspektiv växt fram. Inte minst intresserar sig forskare för vilka neurologiska processer som styr människors reaktioner på skräckfilm, men trots det stora intresset saknas forskning om hur skräckfilmsmanus påverkar läsaren. I denna uppsats undersöks vilka språkliga och formmässiga val, i skräckfilmsmanus med body horror-tema, som mest effektivt framkallar obehag, äckel och andra fysiska förnimmelser hos vana manusläsare, utifrån ett kognitivt neurovetenskapligt perspektiv. Förhoppningen är att resultaten kan vara användbara för manusförfattare som vill kunna gestalta body horror i text. I studien utfördes intervjuer med 14 informanter med professionell vana av att läsa filmmanus. Informanterna fick läsa scener med body horror-inslag och reflektera över sina egna upplevelser av dem. Svaren ställdes i relation till branschstandarden för filmmanus och analyserades utifrån ett kognitivt neurovetenskapligt perspektiv för att förklara varför vissa element i texterna framkallade starkare reaktioner än andra. Resultaten indikerar att branschstandarden är användbar för att framkalla mentala bilder hos läsaren, samtidigt som bildligt språk, få men specifika ord samt åverkan på vissa kroppsdelar i texten effektivt framkallar obehag, äckel och andra fysiska förnimmelser. Studien kan med fördel utvidgas till att omfatta vana manusläsare i andra länder samt inriktas på tydligt avgränsade yrkesgrupper inom filmproduktion för att göra resultaten generaliserbara i större utsträckning.

[pt] Numa conferência, em 1966, Michel Foucault afirmava que, para ele, as utopias teriam nascido do desejo do ser humano de se libertar da prisão do corpo, ou de apagar os corpos. Em seguida, o pensador se considerou equivocado, voltando atrás e concluindo que o que retira do corpo sua possibilidade utópica seria o peso e os contornos que somos ensinados a dar-lhe. Sob uma perspectiva contemporânea, David Le Breton, em Adeus ao Corpo (1999), observa que, com a aceleração dos avanços tecnológicos, cada vez mais as atividades do corpo são atrofiadas, substituídas por serviços e aparelhos, restando a ele o lugar de limitação ou doença. A presente pesquisa investiga como criações do cinema, das artes visuais e da literatura, principalmente das primeiras décadas do século XXI, dialogam com esses pensamentos, discutindo três imaginários acerca do corpo: como barreira a ser ultrapassada pelo ser humano por meio da tecnologia; como reflexo do antropocentrismo e de concepções de temporalidade, em diálogo com as noções de progresso, devir e performance; e como lugar de registro de memória, tanto pelas inscrições ou mutilações na carne quanto por sua ausência, transformada em falta espectral. Foram selecionadas narrativas em que o corpo é deformado, reformado, ou que visam superar o corpo, para compreender aspectos da contemporaneidade a partir dessas representações que tratam da unidade material mais elementar do ser humano. / [en] In a conference in 1996, Michel Foucault stated that, for him, utopias were born from the human desire to escape from the prison of the body, or to erase bodies altogether. Shortly after, upon reflection, the philosopher felt he was mistaken, concluding instead that what deprives the body of its utopian possibility would be the weight and the limits we are taught to give it. From a contemporary perspective, David Le Breton, in L Adieu au corps (1999), notes that, with the acceleration of technological advances, the body s activities have been increasingly atrophied, replaced by services and devices, forcing the body into a position of limitation or disease. The present research investigates how works from cinema, the visual arts and literature, mainly produced in the first decades of the 21st century, interact with those approaches, discussing three imaginaries concerning the body: as a barrier to be surpassed by the human being through technology; as a reflection of anthropocentrism and of temporality conceptions, in dialogue with the notions of progress, devenir, and performance; and as a place of memory record, through inscriptions or mutilations on the flesh, or through the lack of flesh entirely, turned into a spectral absence. Narratives in which the body is deformed, reformed, or that aim to overcome the body, were selected in order to understand certain aspects of contemporaneity from these representations that deal with the most elementary material unit of the human being.

White supremacy fundamentally organizes society in its own image. It places itself at the top of a social hierarchical order where everything defaults to its own likeness and desires. In this dissertation, I deconstruct the nature of White supremacy and highlight the conventions of Black horror that interrogate it as evil and monstrous. In the chapters that follow, I do this through a close reading of the television series Lovecraft Country (Misha Green, USA, 2020) and underline how Black horror brings to the surface the everyday experiences of Black subjects in a racist society. While several commentators had claimed that with the presidency of Barack Obama we had moved into a post-racial society, cultural texts like Lovecraft Country show that such claims are disconnected from reality.#White Supremacy #White Monstrosity #Whiteness as evil #Black horror.

Deivisceris is a four-player role-playing tabletop game that focuses on themes of horror. It looks into ideas from the horror genre as a whole while combining aspects from the body horror and cosmic horror subgenres to create a discomforting horror experience. The game features illustrations and written events with a choice-based narrative that can have multiple outcomes depending on a player's decisions, stats, and items. Deivisceris utilizes randomness in order to create a new experience each time it is played through randomized characters and a randomized game board that is built up as it is played. The game reveals its narrative through clues within the gameplay, illustrations, and written text as characters enter the game's world blindly. Deivisceris is an immersive tabletop horror experience that can be further expanded on in the future with the possibility of a larger production. / Master of Fine Arts / Deivisceris is a four-player tabletop game that looks into the ways horror can be created in a board game format. It examines various ideas from the horror genre as a whole while taking inspiration more directly from two subgenres of horror: body horror and cosmic horror, each of which has very different ways of evoking horror. The game includes a variety of full-color illustrations and written situations that give players a chance to make their own decisions. Deivisceris utilizes randomness in order to create a new experience every time it is played. The game board is built up differently every time it is played and characters' stats, such as strength, intelligence, and endurance, may be different in each game. The game's story is revealed through clues within the gameplay, illustrations, and text. Deivisceris is a tabletop role-playing horror experience that can be further expanded on in the future with the possibility of a larger production.

This thesis will analyze how masculinity is depicted in the French-Argentinean director Gaspar Noé’s movie Love (2015), and how it is orientating and disorientating through an intersectional lens. In his films, the filmmaker often uses haptic images and sound traversing to interrogate the existence and to express a clear and abject visuality to expose the flesh. On that notion, the study will use a psychanalytic theoretical framework with hegemonic masculinity, and a phenomenological methodology with Bertolt Brecht’s theories on theatre to examine the bodily performances of the cinematic body, the bodies of the characters on screen, and the spectator’s body to reflect on the film’s thematic, aesthetic, and ideological features. Additionally, this study will explore how the viewer embodies the self-images and memories of the characters on the screen, and how that affects the spectator.

Autobiographies and documentaries usually aim to elicit a discussion about social issues by shocking and horrifying readers and viewers, often through graphic imagery. This study's ambition is to examine how literary documentary borrows from the gothic tradition to depict real societal issues. My aim is to show how the gothic style transcends the borders of the genre and that literary documentary about self-harm tends to work through the same thematic and narrative structures as the literary gothic. With a focus on contemporary depictions of self-harm and mental illness in young women and girls in Sweden, this analysis explore how the function of sexuality, gender and self-harm in gothic horror can be applied on these texts. At the same time this study explores how selfharming women tend to use gothic imagery to portray the horrors of their own reality that is saturated with extreme and negative emotions. For comparison, two famous depictions of girls going through puberty from the literary horror genre; Carrie and The Exorcist, are examined to further anchor the connection between femininity, blood and puberty in the gothic theoretical field.

Diploma work New Flesh? The Limits of the Body in the Films by David Cronenberg deals with the human body as one of the main motives in the filmography of the Canadian director David Cronenberg. Its mission is to implicate new approaches to the human body in the theories of postmodern philosophy, philosophy of media and posthuman therories, which fundamentally transform the principles of previously applied concept of body and mind dualism and point out that media and new technologies has a significant influence on our perception of a human body. New approaches to the human flesh and fleshliness are applied in the final part of this work through the interpretation of selected movies by David Cronenberg - Videodrome and eXistenZ. The main point of this work is to show the complete change of conception and perception of the human flesh, which is summary reviewing here as a "new flesh". Key words body - controlled body - body extension - reality - hyperreality - media - new technologies - cyborg - post-human - body horror - new flesh

No description available.