While it is very common for supermodels to make the occasional foray into cinematic performance, and some of them manage to turn these forays into full-time careers in acting, it is very rare that supermodel-actors are afforded any academic attention. This thesis seeks to change this through a case study of two supermodel-actors: Devon Aoki and Abbey Lee. Using a methodology that combines extratextual contextualization with close analysis of image and film materials, and grounded in a perspective that centers the body, it analyzes Aoki and Lee’s careers as they cross over from one form of stardom to another. The focus of the analysis lies in the way that the bodily capital which is the basis of their modelling work also informs their acting personas as they are shaped through their on-screen work, publicity and reception. Furthermore, the thesis applies the concept of niche stardom, adapted from Diane Negra, to illustrate how Aoki and Lee inhabit a stardom which is specific to certain audiences with specific values and tastes. The analysis finds that there is a significant overlap between Aoki and Lee’s modelling and acting personas, and that this overlap is channeled through the representations of their bodies which, are the sites of heterogeneous discourses of gender, sexuality and race.

"It Follows" (2014), written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014. It chronicles the story of Jay, a college student who contracts a curse through sexual intercourse. The curse manifests itself as a human whom only the infected persons can see, always following at a walking pace, and determined to kill if it catches up. This thesis demonstrates the score's crucial role in establishing affect, setting, and character in a film with sparse dialogue and a silent monster. Moreover, the score creates a sense of the uncanny by complicating the binary between music and sound effect and fulfills the need to create dread without resorting to the loud or sudden sounds traditionally heard in horror films. The score's composer, Richard Vreeland, achieves this effect by drawing on both classical film scoring techniques as well as more modern horror scoring styles. It is this interaction between styles that enhances the viewers' experience of dread and horror in the film. This thesis analyzes how Vreeland's score for "It Follows" exploits the poetics of the fantastical gap, of the uncanny, and of musical semiosis. I primarily focus on the "Heels" theme and use of drones in "It Follows," tracing how these musical features blur the distinction between what is score and what is sound effect. I also examine the use of melodic themes in a primarily non-melodic score. By analyzing these elements, I show how Richard Vreeland uses both classical and modern scoring techniques to answer his own question: "Why is this scary? What could push that emotion even further?"

This thesis offers an analysis of women in horror film through an in depth exploration of what I term ‘gynaehorror’ – horror films that are concerned with female sex, sexuality and reproduction. While this is a broad and fruitful area of study, work in it has been shaped by a pronounced emphasis upon psychoanalytic theory, which I argue has limited the field of inquiry. To challenge this, this thesis achieves three things. Firstly, I interrogate a subgenre of horror that has not been studied in depth for twenty years, but that is experiencing renewed interest. Secondly, I analyse aspects of this subgenre outside of the dominant modes of inquiry by placing an emphasis upon philosophies of sex, gender and corporeality, rather than focussing on psychodynamic approaches. Thirdly, I consider not only what these theories may do for the study of horror films, but what spaces of inquiry horror films may open up within these philosophical areas. To do this, I focus on six broad streams: the current limitations and opportunities in the field of horror scholarship, which I augment with a discussion of women’s bodies, houses and spatiality; the relationship between normative heterosexuality and the twin figures of the chaste virgin and the voracious vagina dentata; the representation and expression of female subjectivity in horror films that feature pregnancy and abortion; the manner in which reproductive technology is bound up within hegemonic constructions of gender and power, as is evidenced by the figure of the ‘mad scientist’; the way that discourses of motherhood and maternity in horror films shift over time, but nonetheless result in the demonisation of the mother; and the theoretical and corporeal possibilities opened up through Deleuze and Guattari’s model of schizoanalysis, with specific regard to the 'Alien' films. As such, this thesis makes a unique contribution to the study of women in horror film, while also advocating for an expansion of the theoretical repertoire available to the horror scholar.

Le slasher est un sous-genre du film d'horreur reposant sur une figure de tueur masqué punissant en apparence la sexualité adolescente. Très populaire auprès du public adolescent de 1978 à 1984, il serait, selon de nombreux critiques, une expression de sadisme « gratuit ». Cependant, toute production culturelle possède une légitimité qui peut lui être conférée en trouvant une clé de lecture adéquate. Cette clé est selon-nous un archétype culturel que nous nommons foolkiller, et qui figure une victime marginale sanctionnant les actes irresponsables mettant en danger les membres les plus faibles de la communauté. Cet archétype convoque l'imaginaire médiéval du charivari, un rite de justice folklorique punissant les manquements à la morale. Pour parvenir à cette référence, il est nécessaire de montrer que le slasher a masqué un genre plus large qui gravite autour d'une victime humiliée se vengeant de ses persécuteurs et qui inclue des films comme Willard (1971), Carrie (1976), ou encore Fade to Black (1980). Or, on peut trouver une formulation prototypique de cette histoire dans Hop-Frog (1849), une nouvelle d'Edgar Poe racontant la vengeance d'un bouffon difforme persécuté par un roi sadique. Nous envisageons cette nouvelle comme un artefact prototypique de l'archétype culturel du foolkiller dont le genre masqué par le slasher est une expression contemporaine. L'étude de cette nouvelle et de ses références culturelles permet de comprendre le fonctionnement de l'archétype et son apparition en réponse à une crise sacrificielle au sens où l'entend René Girard. Une crise du même genre est repérable dans la culture américaine des années 1970, ce qui explique la résurgence de l'archétype à cette période. / The slasher movie is a horror film sub-genre featuring a masked killer supposedly punishing teenage sexuality. Extremely popular among teens from 1978 to 1984, it is generally discarded by serious critics as a spectacle of gratuitous violence. However, the genre can be granted some legitimacy once it is seen as a contemporary form of a cultural archetype which we call "foolkiller". This archetype revolves around a freak avenging its own humiliation at the hands of bullies and punishing irresponsible acts endangering the weakest people in a community. Culturally speaking, this archetype has roots in the medieval practice of "rough music", a masked demonstration organized to humiliate some wrongdoer and to punish moral transgressions in the community. In order to access this cultural reference, it is necessary to show that the attention given the slasher film has concealed the existence of another genre, comprising slasher films but also movies such as Willard (1971), Carrie (1976), and Fade to Black (1980), whose protagonist is a victim avenging its persecution. This plot can also be found in "Hop-Frog", a short-story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1849. It tells the story of a jester dwarf bullied by a cruel king. We argue that this tale is a prototypical artifact of the foolkiller archetype, which also informs the genre concealed by the slasher film. The cultural frame of this short story enables us to understand how the archetype functions and its relationship to what René Girard calls a "sacrificial crisis". Such a crisis is at work within 1970's American culture, which explains why the archetype reappears during this time.The slasher movie is a horror film sub-genre featuring a masked killer supposedly punishing teenage sexuality. Extremely popular among teens from 1978 to 1984, it is generally discarded by serious critics as a spectacle of gratuitous violence. However, the genre can be granted some legitimacy once it is seen as a contemporary form of a cultural archetype which we call "foolkiller". This archetype revolves around a freak avenging its own humiliation at the hands of bullies and punishing irresponsible acts endangering the weakest people in a community. Culturally speaking, this archetype has roots in the medieval practice of “rough music”, a masked demonstration organized to humiliate some wrongdoer and to punish moral transgressions in the community. In order to access this cultural reference, it is necessary to show that the attention given the slasher film has concealed the existence of another genre, comprising slasher films but also movies such as Willard (1971), Carrie (1976), and Fade to Black (1980), whose protagonist is a victim avenging its persecution. This plot can also be found in "Hop-Frog", a short-story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1849. It tells the story of a jester dwarf bullied by a cruel king. We argue that this tale is a prototypical artifact of the foolkiller archetype, which also informs the genre concealed by the slasher film. The cultural frame of this short story enables us to understand how the archetype functions and its relationship to what René Girard calls a "sacrificial crisis". Such a crisis is at work within 1970's American culture, which explains why the archetype reappears during this time.

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