HYBRID HORROR: THE INTERSECTION OF HORROR FILMS WITH SCIENCE FICTION AND CRIME FILMS, SUMMER 2023

Of all film genres, horror has proven perhaps the most difficult to define. There are certain iconic sorts of images that one associates with horror film, including classic supernatural “monsters” such as ghosts, demons, witches, vampires, and werewolves. There is also a whole series of manmade monsters that emanate largely from the Frankenstein story and that are often created by the activities of mad scientists of one kind or another. But this second type of horror story already tends to spill over into the territory that is usually occupied by science fiction. Meanwhile, many horror films involve monsters that are entirely human but whose activities are so extreme as to spill over into horror, suggesting overlap between horror and the crime drama.

Horror film, in fact, quite often intersects with other genres, partly because it is defined more by the emotional reactions it is designed to produce in audiences than by any specific images or plot elements within the genre itself. In this course, we will view and discuss a number of important horror films that intersect either with science fiction or with crime dramas. In considering these horror films, we will want to think about what their intersection with these other genres tells us about the porousness of the boundaries of the horror genre as a whole.