Le personnage principal féminin actif du film d'horreur voit le jour dans les années 1970. Sa naissance a eu un impact important sur le genre : elle est à l'origine de l'émergence de nouveaux sous genres(le slasher, le woman's horror film, le film d'horreur/mélodrame familial et l'action/horror auquel la série Alien donne naissance dans les années 2000). Ces sous-genres se distinguent par leur structure narrative, leur mode de production et le public auquel ils s'adressent. Chacun d'entre eux accorde du reste son rôle principal à un modèle différent de personnage féminin. Le traitement réservé par ces sous-genres à la question de la relation de leurs protagonistes féminines à la société, à leur corps et à leur sexualité évolue entre 1970 et 2007. Alors que dans les années 1970, la majorité des personnages féminins héroïques du genre étaient des femmes indépendantes, entre 1980 et 1995, elles sont remplacées par des mères sacrificielles, tandis qu'entre 1996 et 2007, les femmes indépendantes refont surface et se mettent à partager le devant de la scène avec des mères-célibataires. La mutation monstrueuse ou héroïque de ces personnages dépend aussi de leur relation à leur corps : celles qui ne parviennent pas à contrôler la "nature transformable" de leur biologie féminine (celles qui tombent enceintes ou qui ont leurs règles) deviennent des monstres, alors que celles qui sont disposées à contenir leur corps, ses mutations et leurs désirs sexuels parviennent à survivre. Notre analyse chronologique de ces sous-genres montre que l'évolution de leur discours sur leurs personnages féminins est due à l'impact que les différents courants féministes qui ont traversé l'histoire des États-Unis et le(s) backlash(s) contre le féminisme ont eu sur le genre de l'horreur. / The birth of the active female main character of the horror film in the 1970s has a significant impact on the genre of horror : this phenomenon prompted the emergence of new sub-genres (the slasher, the woman's horror film, the horror film/family melodrama and the action/horror to whom the Alien series gives birth in the 2000s). These sub-genres differ in their narrative structure, their production mode and the type of audience they address. Each of them grants the leading role to a different type of female character. From 1970 till 2007, the relationship of the female protagonists of horror film to the society in which they live, their body and their sexuality evolves. While in the 1970s, most of the heroic women of the genre are independent women, between 1980 and 1995, they become sacrificial mothers, and from 1996 to 2007, the independent women resurface again but are often single mothers. The ability of these female characters to become heroes or monsters is also affected by their relationship to their body : those who cannot control the "changeable nature" of their biology (i.e. those who become pregnant or have their period) turn into monsters, while those who can contain their bodies and sexual desires survive. The chronological analysis of these sub-genres shows that their discourse on their female main protagonists and the way it evolves are influenced by the different feminist currents that come to birth in the United States from 1970 till 2007 and by the backlash(es) against them.

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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