French Nightmares - Contemporary Horror, Culture and Historical Trauma

A woman in the right foreground looking to the right. In the background with people next to a car with a the boot open surrounded by neon lights

Current academic writing on French horror cinema is rather disparate, with books/papers focusing generally on one area of interest such as New French Extremity or Jean Rollin’s cycle of films. There is a lack of a cohesive, comparative study of contemporary French horror cinema, through a cultural/historical lens.

The key aim of this project is to form a comparative study of modern French horror history by examining the following objectives:

To investigate how modern French horror allegorizes, and reconciles with, France’s history of cultural trauma, both inflicted upon and inflicted by France.
To form an understanding of the pervading thematic preoccupations of French horror cinema and their social, cultural and political contexts.
To analyse a corpus of films for clear binding themes/potential for application of theoretical lenses (e.g. post-colonialism, gender, allegorization, clear political engagement) in order to form thematic chapters.

The scope of the project will range from 1968 to the modern day, encompassing works from directors such as Jean Rollin and movements such as New French Extremity. The outcome of this study will be a thesis which examines the shifting preoccupations of French horror throughout its modern history; how it addresses the present, and how it reconciles with the past.