Inhuman and Monstrous Gestations in Contemporary Horror Movies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54103/2039-9251/27921Keywords:
Horror Movies, Feminist Film Theory, Monster Studies, AbjectionAbstract
In cinema, the horror genre explores that grey area where balance and stability are lack- ing, especially through the representation of corporeality. This tendency is evident, above all, in so-called gynaehorror, made up of films that feature supernatural gestations and bloody pregnancies, which appeal to an aesthetic taste aimed at disgust and revulsion, as well as female figures coded as doubly vulnerable (Harrington 2016). The aim of this contribution is to identify how the gore and extreme legacy of the aforementioned genre is being recuperated today by films that are classified as gynaehorror in particular, from Julia Ducournau’s Titane (2021) and Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo’s À l'intérieur (2007), which explore the boundaries and spaces of the body in all its ramifications. It will then be traced the link between this mode of representation of the pregnant female body and what feminist theory holds that the body is a structure of dynamic relations that interact in a political and social space (Butler 1999) interrogating and deconstructing, horror as well as feminist science fiction, the same gender dichotomy (Braidotti 2022).
Downloads
References
Arnold, S., Maternal Horror Film. Melodrama and Motherhood, Palgrave Macmillan, London 2013. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137014122
Braidotti, R., Madri, mostri, macchine, Castelvecchi, Modena 2022.
Butler, J., Questioni di genere. Il femminismo e la sovversione dell’identità, Editori Laterza, Roma 2013.
Creed, B., The Monstrous Feminine. Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis, Routledge, London 1993.
Curti, L., La voce dell’altra, Meltemi, Milano 2018
Harrington, E., Women, Monstrosity and Horror Film, Routledge, London 2019.
Harvey, A., Studi femministi dei media, Meltemi, Milano 2022.
Kristeva, J., Poteri dell’orrore, Spirali, Milano 2006.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Elisa Del Guercio
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The authors who publish in Itinera are required to accept the following conditions:
1. The authors retain the rights on their paper and lincese the journal the right of first publication. The paper is also licensed under a Creative Commons License, which allows others to share it, by indicating intellectual authorship and its first publication in Itinera.
2. Authors may adhere to other non-exclusive license agreements for the distribution of the published version of the paper (ex. deposit it in an institutional archive or publish it in a monograph), provided that its first publication in Itinera is indicated.
3. Authors can disseminate their paper online (ex. in institutional repositories or on their website) before and during the submission process, since this can lead to productive exchanges and increase quotations of the published work (See “The Effect of Open Access”).
