The fear within: early scientific film and its influence on the horror genre

OF THE THESIS The Fear Within: Early Scientific Film and its Influence on the Horror Genre by Lacey Joy Langston Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences San Diego State University, 2010 The human body has been an essential part of the evolution of film history. From the motion study photographs of Etienne-Jules Marey and Eadweard Muybridge in the nineteenth century through modern day medical reality television, the human body has proven to be an element of fascination and focus within media of all types. This thesis argues that early scientific film that examines nature and the body has influenced the development of the horror genre. The connections between science and film continue to be underresearched. Rather than focusing on film’s influence on science, this thesis finds that science has shaped the history of the film genre. Using the previous work of film scholars and theorists like Lisa Cartwright, Virgilio Tosi, Rick Altman, and Tom Gunning, this thesis will consider two horror films for case studies: The Unknown (1927) and Nosferatu (1922). This research finds that in these two case study films, many elements of horror are based on societal and cultural knowledge about nature and the human body. The Unknown, portrays the fragmented and excessive body as an object of fear for the viewer and the characters within the narrative. Nosferatu, depicts the villain and his evil counterparts through their out of control bodies and their misunderstanding of nature. Both of these films project the human body as something to be frightened of, and this study pinpoints the moments in which evidence of this correlation can be found. These films are analyzed using an interdisciplinary perspective that examines film using historical, sociological, and theoretical frameworks to show the influence of turn of the century scientific film upon horror genre development. This project thus examines the early scientific film during the turn of the century and how unintended screenings to uninformed audiences contributed to societal fears of nature and the body, and how these fears in turn contributed to the horror genre.