Не-человеческое ужасное в фильмах боди-хоррора

Abstract

The article presents an attempt to theorize the modes of body transformation in body horror films, as well as their impact on the viewer's body experiences and, in a more complex perspective, on the understanding and conceptualization of the body. In doing so, the author includes the concepts of “horror body” and “non-human” in her research, considering new body horror films in a post-human and non-human perspective. In addition, the author turns to the concept of the “new flesh” by David Cronenberg to identify technological or specific mutations in body horror films. According to the author, body horror films have an impact on the viewers' body, forcing them to experience their body as deformed, going beyond its own boundaries. Therefore, the horror of the transformed body in these films is marked by a “shock identity”. The power of horror allows transcending the boundaries of human entity and, in this sense, horror unsettles the belief that this world is only created for human beings and their bodies. In the article, the author applies the concepts of “abjection” by Julia Kristeva, “grotesque body” by Barbara Creed and “unhuman” by Dylan Trigg to show that the holistic state of the human body is becoming more problematic, and the dominance and exclusivity of man is being questioned. The author makes the assumption that body horror films allow us to enter the context of a new posthuman era in which people and non-people form the “new flesh” (technological or specific). Thus, body horror visualizes the becoming of a new body connected to a new recombined or recomposed human flesh which may have to come in the future.