This thesis examines the depiction of warfare in post-9/11 ancient world epics and assesses the extent to which these films engage with contemporary events by means of allegory and analogy. Inspired by scholarship on allegorical and analogous interpretations of 1950s-60s ancient world epics, I explore how the current cycle engages with the American socio-political landscape in the wake of 9/11, with particular emphasis on the War on Terror and ensuing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I chart the genre’s evolution in relation to the combat film, and examine how the current cycle of ancient world epics integrates the tropes of other genres into its portrayal of warfare, invasion, occupation and imperialism. Within this context, I explore the recurrent motif of the father-son dynamic, and assess how its use in combat films corresponds to that in ancient world epics. I also discuss how this motif was employed in 1980s Vietnam War films, and what its use in these modern epics suggests about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore, I discuss the use of the unreliable narrator to engage with wider debates on the value of historical films compared to written history. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that the ancient world epic is a malleable construct with which filmmakers can engage with the present while depicting the past. I build on existing studies of the ancient world in cinema, contributing new understanding of the current cycle’s relationship to its predecessors, to other genres, and to post-9/11 American society. In so doing this thesis contributes to notions of film as art, as industry, and as history, and how they intersect in cinematic depictions of the ancient world.

This study sets out to investigate the extent to which slasher movies can be said to carry out linguistic female stereotyping in their portrayal of female characters. It has been proposed (cf. Coates 1993)that female speech is often associated with politeness, tentativeness, talkativeness and weaker expressions in comparison with men, descending from a female subculture (Graddol & Swann 1989: 90). Considering this, a stereotypical profile was created, consisting of linguistic features such as hedges, questions, expletives, empty adjectives and verbosity, through which the former characteristics may be manifested. The stereotypical profile was then applied to the corpus consisting of the transcripts of the two slasher movies "Halloween" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer". Evidence of all linguistic features mentioned above was found in the corpus, and the female characters' use of these features did match, to a considerable extent, the stereotypical profile. Keywords: linguistics, female stereotyping, gender, horror

The purpose of the study was to try and see how the usage of game elements in games, affect our experience in horror games. We used the fundamentals of the 12-Item Narrative Engagement Scale to gather the data, and also changed the model a bit to better fit the subject. By having test subjects answer a questionnaire about their engagement after having tested three horror games; results could be calculated by the use of Linear Mixel Model. The results were compared in a qualitative manner to the three elements of survival horror games mentioned above, to see if each element could impact the way a player perceives a horror game. It became clear here that there is a big possibility that the way game elements are presented in horror games can have an influence on a player’s immersion and experience in horror games. However it’s still unclear which specific elements affect which aspects of the player’s immersion and experience. / Syftet med den här studien var att försöka se hur spelelement i spel kan påverka upplevelsen i skräckspel. Studien använder grunderna av 12-Item Narrative Engagement Scale-metoden, men vi vidareutvecklade den genom att öka antalet deltagare samt sättet resultatet analyserades och jämfördes. Genom att låta deltagare besvara en enkät som handlade om deras engagemang efter att ha testat tre skräckspel, kunde resultat beräknas med hjälp av Linear Mixel Moxel. Resultaten jämfördes sedan på ett kvalitativt sätt med de tre element av skräckspel, som nämnts ovan, för att se om varje element kunde påverka sättet en spelare upplever ett skräckspel. Det framgick här att det finns en stor möjlighet att sättet spelelement presenteras i spel kan göra en inverkan i spelarens inlevelse i skräckspel. Däremot är det fortfarande oklart exakt vad för element som påverkar vilken del av en spelares inlevelse.

[Material:] Uppsatsen analyserar Gun-Britt Sundströms svensköversättning av Charlotte Brontës roman Jane Eyre (1999) och två filmatiseringar från år 1997 och 2011.[Syfte:] Att studera och jämföra vilka gotiska grepp som används i romanen Jane Eyre och filmatiseringarna från 1997 och 2011, och vilka gotiska effekter som dominerar samt om effekterna påverkas när texten blir film?[Teori/Metod:] Uppsatsen utgår ifrån valda gotiska begrepp som: det sublima, terror, horror och spänning (suspense).[Resultat:] Analysens resultat visade att samtliga valda gotiska begrepp och dess effekter finns i samtliga verk. Det sublima och terror är de effekter som visade sig dominera i romanen och filmatiseringarna. Avslutningsvis visade det sig att de gotiska effekterna minskade på grund av filmatiseringarnas komprimerade handling.

Avec la dramaturgie colombienne des trente dernières années, nous nous trouvons devant deux itinéraires qui semblent s’entrecroiser, ou mieux, se superposer : le réel, qui correspond au contexte socio-politique colombien et le fictionnel, qui nous permet d’entrevoir un paysage de fiction singulier se dessiner à travers certaines pièces contemporaines colombiennes. Cet entrecroisement entre le réel et le fictionnel nous amène à la figure récurrente de l’enfermement. Nous assistons à la représentation d’un monde où les prisons n’ont plus de barreaux, où l’enfermement est présent au quotidien. Sur scène les personnages sont clôturés leurs espaces physiques et métaphoriques, intérieurs ou extérieurs, qui leurs interdisent toute possibilité d’issue et de conciliation entre les forces opposées qui maintiennent leurs conflits. L’enfermement conduit donc les personnages au sentiment tragique, à la perte du monde et de soi, c'est-à-dire que le tragique perd dans ces pièces le sens transcendant de l’humain. D’où les questions initiales dont nous sommes partis : comment l’enfermement dans un espace dramatique contemporain nous permet-il de retrouver le tragique ? Et où va ce tragique, aujourd’hui, quand la tragédie n’existe plus ? Cette forme actuelle du tragique ne pourrait-elle pas être une nouvelle façon de retrouver l’essence de la tragédie et le « sens de l’humain » ? Ce sont ces interrogations qui donnent leurs lignes directrices à notre recherche. / With Colombian drama of the last thirty years, we face two routes intersect that appear, or better, overlap: the real, which corresponds to the socio-political context of Colombia and the fictional, which allows us to glimpse a singular landscape of fiction to emerge through some contemporary pieces Colombia. This interplay between reality and fiction, brings us to the recurring figure of confinement. Thus we attend the performance of a world where prisons have no bars, where the confinement is daily. On stage the characters are enclosed in their physical and metaphorical, indoor or outdoor spaces, which prohibit any possibility of completion and reconciliation between the oposite forces that maintains their conflicts. Then, confinement leads characters to a tragic feeling, the loss of the world and oneself, that is to say that the tragic lost in these pieces, meaning transcending the human. Hence the initial questions which we started: how to confinement in a dramatic contemporary space enable us to find the tragic? And where will this tragic go, when the tragedy is over? The current form of tragedy could it not be a new way to recapture the essence of the tragedy and the « sense of humanity » ? These are questions that give their guidance in our research.

The topic of this thesis is architecture and settings of gothic horrors, particularly in films. The work explores the relationship between the genre of gothic horror and gothic architecture, mainly within examples of haunted castles. The aim of the work is to study in what way the haunted castles are depicted in films and how the gothic architecture is applied in their appearance. The thesis is divided in two parts. The first one is an analysis of some of the gothic horror tendencies which have an influence on the image of haunted castles. These can be observed in films as well as in literature and theatre since the beginnings of gothic horror in the second half of the 18th century until today. The second part uses these tendencies to analyse images of haunted castles in films Dracula (John Badham, 1979), Bram Stoker's Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992) and Van Helsing (Stephen Sommers, 2004).

Virtual Reality har existerat i olika former runt 80 år tillbaka, men i dess nuvarande form har den en mer signifikant plats på marknaden. Med detta behövs mer forskning på hur VR fungerar och hur människor påverkas av VR för att kunna utveckla produkter till detta växande medium. Forskningen är idag bristande, så för att bredda förståelsen om VR och framförallt VR som konsol för spel har den här kvalitativa studien undersökt hur skräckelement upplevs i en VR-miljö. Studien undersökte även vad som kan påverka “immersion”, fördjupning i miljön, samt om tidigare erfarenheter kan påverka upplevelser i en VR-miljö. Dessa frågor analyserades utifrån två speltest som gjordes på VR-konsolen HTC Vive. Första speltestet fokuserade på kontroller och “immersion” för att se hur pass lättförstådd och intuitiv konsolen är. Det andra testet undersökte skräckelement i VR och vad för slags element kunde bidra till en mer effektiv och intensiv skräckupplevelse. Totalt deltog 16 personer mellan 19-26 år i speltesterna. Deltagarna var studenter vid Karlstad Universitet eller hade tidigare varit det. Deltagarna blev indelade i olika grupper baserade på tidigare erfarenhet inom spel (första testet) och skräck (andra testet). Med hjälp av observation av videoinspelningar och intervjuer kunde den insamlade datan delas in i teman. De teman som användes för att analysera datan var kontroller, obehag/desorientering, “immersion” och skräckelement. Resultaten visade att HTC Vive har goda förutsättningar för “immersion”. Dock med några problematiska faktorer, utrustning exempelvis, som störde upplevelsen. Trots detta skapade konsolen en stark känsla av “immersion” då deltagarna upplevde sig närvarande i VR-miljön på grund av sådant som bakgrundsljud och naturligt perspektiv på VR-miljön i headsetet. Det som spelade störst roll för “immersion” var att miljön behövde agera verklighetstroget, alltså som spelaren förväntar sig. Den sortens närvaro bidrog positivt till skräckupplevelsen då spelarna tycktes uppleva sig hotade av skräckelementen som att det var riktat mot dem personligen och inte bara en karaktär i ett spel. Gällande skillnader mellan grupperna i erfarenhet fanns det inte många substantiella skillnader. Det kunde märkas lite skillnad i hur kontrollerna hanterades mellan de spelerfarna och icke erfarna. De med tidigare erfarenhet tycktes ha med sig förväntningar om hur kontrollerna skulle fungera. Studien hade, på grund av dess kvalitativa natur, inte möjlighet att få fram generaliserbara resultat. Dock så öppnade den upp för frågor till framtida forskning gällande både VR-spel och dess användare samt om VR-konsoler. / Virtual Reality has existed in different forms since around 80 years ago, but in its current form it has a more significant place on the current market. With this change, more research on how VR works and how humans are affected by it is needed to be able to develop products for this growing medium. The research today is lacking, so to expand the understanding of VR and specifically VR as a console for games, this qualitative study has researched how elements of fear are experienced in a VR-environment. The study also studied what can affect “immersion”, depth in the environment, as well as if previous experience can affect experiences in a VR-environment. These questions were analyzed based on two game tests that were made on the VR-console HTC Vive. The first test focused on controls and “immersion” to see how intuitive and easily understood the console is. The second test examined horror elements in VR and what kinds of elements could contribute to a more effective and intense horror experience. A total of 16 people between the ages of 19-26 participated in the game tests. The participants were students at Karlstad University, or had previously been so. The participants were divided in different kinds of groups depending on previous experiences in digital games (the first test) and horror (the second test). With the help of observation of the video recordings and the interviews the collected data could be divided into themes. The themes used to analyze the data were controls, disorientation/discomfort, “immersion” and horror elements. The results showed that HTC Vive have good qualifications for “immersion”. Though with a few problematic factors, the equipment for example, which disturbed the experience. Despite this, the console created a strong feeling of “immersion” as the participants experienced themselves to be present in the VR-environment because of factors such as background noise and a natural point-of-view of the VR-environment through the headset. The biggest contributor for “immersion” was that the environment needed to have a natural and believable behavior, acting the way the user expects it to. This kind of presence contributed positively to the horror experience as the participants seemed to believe themselves to be threatened by the horror elements as if it was directed at them personally and not just a character in a game.   In the subject of differences between the groups in experience there not a lot of substantial differences. A small difference could be found regarding how the controls were handled between the different groups of game experience. The participants with previous experience seemed to bring expectations about how the controls should work. The study had, because of its qualitative nature, no possibility to receive generalizable results. But the study did open up for questions for future research related to VR-games and their users, as well as VR-consoles.

This paper is an examination of the horror elements found in Peter Watts’ Blindsight. In depicting an encounter with aliens, this science fiction novel explores topics such as the nature of sentience, mankind’s relationship with technology, posthumanism, and the limitations of the human body and mind. Blindsight also envisions entities (aliens, vampires, and artificial intelligences) capable of interacting with material realities inaccessible to human beings. Using Levi R. Bryant’s machine-oriented ontology, this thesis demonstrates how Watts employs these themes and issues to problematize anthropocentrism and the notion of selfhood. These elements—and more—will be discussed and shown to match the criteria associated with ontological horror.

This thesis is focused on the motivations and influences on the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Poe's work and letters are used to support the hypothesis that his work resulted from a desire to be recognized.

Amparo Davila's writing style is characterized by circumventing the boundaries between the real and the fantastic and between the known and the unknown. The author creates a narrative that evokes horror in the reader by mixing the uncanny of the unknown with the reality of the world. This study proposes that the sinister in Davila's stories are created by abandonment. This abandonment is the peremptory element of Davilian narrative and can be seen and examined throughout the author's literary work. The abandonment wields a mechanism of loneliness, madness, hopelessness and chaos that eventually provokes the sinister. The element of abandonment disturbs the main character of the story and makes him fall into an abyss from which he or she cannot escape. This abandonment is not always obvious, since most of the time the abandonment is veil by a halo of gothic and fantastic elements. The present thesis has the task of breaking down the different types of abandonment that are presented throughout this narrative, its sinister function and the theoretical and historical interpretation of the various abandonments both personal and collective that Amparo Davila presents. The route of abandonment proposed in this thesis is explained in the following three stories: "El desayuno" (1961), "La quinta de las celosías" (1959) and "La señorita Julia" (1959).