This thesis takes up the genre of the “Asian horror film remake” as a nexus for the illustration of the intersection between two significant theoretical perspectives that inform contemporary film theory: Lacanian psychoanalysis and Deleuzian transcendental empiricism. It employs concepts such as Lacan’s registers of the Real and Symbolic alongside Deleuze (and Guattari’s) theories on the actual present and the virtual past to interrogate terms such as ‘originality’, ‘authenticity’, ‘repetition’, and ‘difference’ in an attempt to account for the role of genre in the production of meaningful reality, both within the bounds of the text and in cultural life more generally. It first deconstructs the term genre as it has been employed throughout classical, structuralist and post-structuralist genre theory, in order to reveal its ephemeral nature, and to show it to be worthy of investigation in its own right as a central component of language, more than simply a critical tool. It goes on to elaborate the contingency of discourse that constructs verisimilitudinous reality, and explicates these ideas through analysis of the Asian horror remake films. It then turns to Lacan’s division between the registers of the Symbolic and the Real in order to explore the function of the repetition that is visible in generic film in relation to the subject’s experience of a coherent and authentic reality. Finally, it proceeds to engage with Deleuze’s ideas regarding virtuality and asignification and argues, with reference to the Asian horror remake, that it is the perpetual tension between sameness and difference that sustains meaningful life. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermartizburg, 2013.

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 137-142). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

In the eyes of Hollywood producers, film remakes are popular endeavors to undertake. Part of the logic behind remakes is that they will likely perform successfully in the domestic box office because of the tried-and-tested formula that was the remake’s source material as well as the pre-existing fanbase. In addition, over the past two decades the international box office, particularly countries like China and Russia, are overtaking the United States in generating box office revenue. Hence, with the increasing popularity of producing remakes, as well as the growing significance of foreign markets for the entertainment industry, I test whether the international share of the box office is higher for remakes compared to other types of films. I control for several standard variables including type of film, genre, production budget, critical review score, recency of film, and number of installments in the film franchise. In conclusion, I find that although film remakes do not achieve significantly higher foreign box office shares, factors like sequel films, the horror genre, production budget and critical review scores play a significantly positive role in determining foreign box office share, thus indicating the preferences of foreign film audiences.