Horror and comedy. Screaming and laughing. Two genres and the visceral responses which they provoke, broadly considered to be polarised, apparently juxtaposed. This thesis argues that horror and comedy can be significantly more cohesive in their thematic traits, visual presentation and narrative events, than might initially be considered. Expanding a relatively underexplored academic field and building on the work of Paul (1994), the doctorate explores gross-out cinema and television in both theory and praxis. Part One opens with scholarly exploration of core theories of genre, horror and comedy. Semiotic and historical analysis and close reading of key texts in the horror, comedy, and hybrid horror comedy genre identifies and considers shared representation across the genres. Analysed texts include The Evil Dead series (1981-1992), Grimsby (2016), Nighty Night (2004-2005) and Braindead (1992). The core shared themes and representations across the genres are posited as abjection, excess and absurdity. Each of these elements is then explored in context of the tension of horror and humour co-present in the grotesque (Thomson, 1972). The paradoxical pleasure in reception (often in the disgust response) is found to align to the transgressions of the carnivalesque, and moreover, the carnivalesque grotesque (Danow, 1995, Bakhtin, 1974 et al.). These findings are then uniquely applied in praxis in Part Two in the original feature length film script Knitters! in which the women of the Potter’s Bluff Townswomen’s Guild must face an indestructible supernatural foe in an isolated Lake District resort. In the Lake District no-one can hear you scream! The Part Three exegesis reflects rigorously on the application of thesis findings in praxis, alongside detailed gnosis of the practical construction of a feature length script including close consideration of plotting, narrative pacing and characterisation.
Forgotten Memories: Stephanie Ye’s Seascrapers