The aim of the study was to determine if interactivity would affect how immersed and aroused the participants would become when exposed to horror media with different levels of interactivity. Two groups of participants were asked to either play or watch a virtual scenario. The participants had their heart rate measured using an activity bracelet and eyes tracked using a Tobii 4C eye tracker. The study found that as interactivity increased, so did arousal, whilst immersion did not. The results indicated that cutscenes may result in significantly lower levels of arousal, compared to interactive gameplay. / Målet med studien var att fastställa om interaktivitet skulle påverka hur inlevelsefulla och upphetsade studiedeltagarna skulle bli inför skräckmedia med olika nivåer av interaktivitet. Två grupper studiedeltagare blev tillfrågade att antingen spela eller titta på ett virtuellt scenario. Studiedeltagarnas hjärtrytm mättes sedan med ett aktivitetsarmband med inbyggd hjärtmonitor. Studiedeltagarnas ögonrörelser spelades in med hjälp av en Tobii 4C eye tracker. Studien fann att upphetsning ökade när interaktivitet ökade. Inlevelse ökade inte när interaktivitet ökade. Resultaten indikerade att cutscenes kan ha signifikant lägre nivåer av upphetsning, jämfört med interaktiv gameplay.

Cette thèse se propose d’étudier les enjeux et les stratégies à l’œuvre dans l’apparition de la peur dans les œuvres littéraires et vidéoludiques. Il s’agit de théoriser, dans une démarche comparatiste, le rapprochement des deux médiums ainsi que les paradigmes structurant les fictions horrifiques. La capacité du jeu vidéo et de la littérature à produire de l’incertitude et de l’étrangeté à partir d’un code rigoureux (textuel, informatique, ludique) durant son actualisation en œuvre par l’interaction du lecteur/joueur et l’interdépendance conflictuelle entre mimesis (mise en forme du réel) et phantasia (résurgence d’un réel défiant la rationalité) forment les fondations de ce travail.En tant que catalyseur de la peur, le monstre constitue le point central de l’analyse formelle des œuvres étudiées. La synthèse d’un large corpus permet d’identifier quatre archétypes à partir desquels se déploient les multiples actualisations de la monstruosité : le Barbare, la Gorgone, le Revenant et la Chimère. Ces figures incarnent les zones d’ombre de la culture occidentale. Le Barbare exprime la confrontation à une étrangeté envahissant l’environnement familier mais aussi le soubassement violent et chaotique de la civilisation. La Gorgone représente l’Autre radical, fascinant et terrifiant. S’en approcher suppose de s’aventurer hors du monde et de courir le risque d’être contaminé par la monstruosité, incapable de regagner la demeure. Le Revenant figure les enjeux de la hantise, d’un passé qui, constitutif du présent, reste vivant. Fruit d’une rupture de la continuité temporelle, il ne peut qu’y être réintégré par la résolution de l’énigme qu’il pose. La Chimère est, quant à elle, celle qui transgresse les catégories. Monstre aux multiples visages, elle défie l’organisation rationnelle du réel.Enfin, une étude de la figure de l’auteur, des processus d’adaptation et d’extension des univers fictifs permet d’aborder la mobilité des figures monstrueuses et leur capacité à franchir les frontières, qu’il s’agisse des intentions de création, des cadres médiatiques ou des mondes fictionnels. Ces conclusions s’appuient sur une mise en dialogue d’œuvres littéraires et vidéoludiques sélectionnées dans un corpus varié visant à concilier rigueur de l’analyse et vision englobante. / The aim of this thesis is to study the stakes and strategies behind the apparition of fear in novels and video games. Through a comparative approach, I intend to theorize the bridging of these mediums and the paradigms structuring scary fictions. At the core of this work lie the ability of video games and literature to create uncertainty and strangeness from a rigorous code (be it textual, digital or game rules) during the interaction with the reader/gamer and the conflicting interdependence between mimesis (as a shaping of reality) and phantasia (as a resurgence of a reality that defies reason).As fear’s catalyst, the monster is at the heart of my formal analysis. The synthesis of a large corpus allows for an identification of four archetypes from which the various manifestations of monstrosity spread: the barbarian, the gorgon, the phantom and the chimera. These figures personify the dark corners of western culture. The barbarian embodies the confrontation with an alien whom invades a familiar environment as well as the violent and chaotic base upon which rests civilization. The gorgon represents the radical otherness, fascinating and terrifying. To go near it is to venture out of the world and to run the risk of being contaminated by the monster, becoming unable to go back home. The phantom conveys the stakes of the haunting, of an undead past that is still part of the present. As the baring of a tearing in time continuity, it is to be reintegrated through the solving of the enigma it poses. Ultimately, the chimera is the one who transgresses categories. With its numerous faces, it defies the rational organisation of reality. Finally, a study of the author’s figure, of the adaptation process and of the fictional worlds extensions offers an outlook on the mobility of monsters and their capacity to cross borders, whether they are creative intents, mediatic frames of worlds of fiction.These conclusions are based on a dialogue between literary works and video games selected in a diverse corpus that aims to merge analytical thoroughness and an encompassing vision.

Bodily Sensation in Contemporary Extreme Horror Film provides a theory of horror film spectatorship rooted in the physiology of the viewer. In a novel contribution to the field of film studies research, it seeks to integrate contemporary scientific theories of mind with psychological paradigms of film interpretation. Proceeding from a connectionist model of brain function that proposes psychological processes are underpinned by neurology, this thesis contends that whilst conscious engagement with film often appears to be driven by psychosocial conditions – including cultural influence, gender dynamics and social situation – it is physiology and bodily sensation that provide the infrastructure upon which this superstructure rests. Drawing upon the philosophical works of George Lakoff, Mark Johnson and Alain Berthoz, the argument concentrates upon explicating the specific bodily sensations and experiences that contribute to the creation of implicit structures of understanding, or embodied schemata, that we apply to the world round us. Integrating philosophy with contemporary neurological research in the spheres of cognition and neurocinematics, a number of correspondences are drawn between physiological states and the concomitant psychological states often perceived to arise simultaneously alongside them. The thesis offers detailed analysis of a selection of extreme horror films that, it is contended, conscientiously incorporate the body of the viewer in the process of spectatorship through manipulation of visual, auditory, vestibular, gustatory and nociceptive sensory stimulations, simulations and the embodied schemata that arise from everyday physiological experience. The phenomenological film criticism of Vivian Sobchack and Laura U. Marks is adopted and expanded upon in order to suggest that the organicity of the human body guides and structures the psychosocial engagement with, and interpretation of, contemporary extreme horror film. This project thus exposes the body as the architectural foundation upon which conscious interaction with film texts occurs.

Uppsatsen analyserar fyra noveller i John Ajvide Lindqvists novellsamling Pappersväggar som utkom 2006. Novellerna som analyserats är ”Gräns”, ”By på höjden”, ”Equinox” och ”Vikarien”. Syftet med analysen är att undersöka hur Ajvide Lindqvist arbetar för att göra sina noveller skrämmande och vad som är skrämmande. Uppsatsen utgår från en etablerad begreppsapparat som definierats av olika teoretiker och författare, som skriver inom genrerna gotik och skräck. Analysen visar att Ajvide Lindqvist använder sig av karaktärsdrag och grepp som går att finna inom genrerna gotik och skräck. Jag finner även att det som framför allt skapar skräckeffekt i hans noveller är vardagsförankringen. De drag och grepp han använder sig av får en större verkan på grund av att det utspelar sig i välbekanta miljöer som nog de flesta läsare kan relatera till.

Student Number : 9803476V - MA research report - School of Arts - Faculty of Humanities / By drawing on contemporary scholarship that addresses spectatorship in the cinema generally, and in the horror genre specifically, I analyze the perverse pleasure afforded by The Blair Witch Project. To do this I argue that pleasure in horror is afforded through the masochistic positioning of the viewer, especially in relation to psychoanalytic theories surrounding gender in spectator positioning. I also look at the way the film re-deploys conventions, both documentary conceptions of the ‘real’, as well as generic expectations of horror, to activate the perverse pleasure of horror.

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This essay explores how the reader cognitively reacts to reading H. P. Lovecraft’s horror story “The Shadow Out of Time” (1936). I analyse the text to see how it invites readers to beaffected by it. I specifically look at invitations to envisionment, subjective experience andintersubjectivity. The literary horror terms uncertainty and uncanniness are used inconjunction with cognitive theory to explain how the readers may react to readingLovecraft’s stories. These are in turn reinforced by the reader's ongoing envisionment of thestory, and their sharing of the character’s experiences via subjective experience. For example,the separation between the mind and body of the protagonist creates an uncanny dissonanceto his own identity, which disrupts the reader’s understanding of the character. This maycause distress in the reader due to the subjective experience that connects the reader to thecharacter. Additionally, the disrupted sense of reality in the book affects the narrator'sperceptions of both his surroundings and his own mental faculties. Subsequently, the reader’sunderstanding of the text is also in a state of flux which affects their envisionment of thestory. This disrupts understanding and may enhance feelings of unease. My theory istherefore that unease is invited by certain horror techniques, such as uncertainty anduncanniness, which in turn influence the reader specifically through subjective experienceand envisionment.

This dissertation documents how a series of cynical 1940s Hollywood films set in historical eras served as a forum for Hollywood to reconcile the complex relationship between America and its European past. While these films are rarely discussed in the ongoing discourse surrounding film noir, this study posits that they function as “noirs of the past” by transposing the pessimism and trauma surrounding World War II to the distant American and European past in a narrative and stylistic manner consistent with film noir. Film noir is a branching term to describe a group of 1940s and 50s Hollywood crime melodramas that are known for their cynical worldviews and femme fatales. Produced during the war and postwar era, film noirs primarily depict squalid urban settings that underscore the broken promise that is the American Dream. However, this project maintains that many of these noirs also critique American society through historical settings that trace present-day class and gender problems back to the European aristocracy and its excesses. Noirs of the past are universally ignored in debates surrounding historical films because they appear at first blush to have little interest in depicting historical events in a precise manner. This is for good reason: they openly resist historical accuracy by employing devices that highlight their artificiality. The noir of the past’s lack of historical verisimilitude further extends to character types, dialogue, costumes, and aesthetics that feel closer in spirit to the gloomy shadows of contemporary-set film noirs than the glossy and monumental historical films of the 1940s. Through their overlap of historical and contemporary 1940s signifiers, “noirs of the past” construct a sense of location and time that borrows from both the past and present to demonstrate the cyclical nature of events and figures across history.