The return of the repressed through social disruption in horror films: Analyses of Don't Breathe (2016) and It Follows (2014)

Abstract

The independent American horror cinema has shown some major advancement in terms of artistic approaches to the genre and critical acclaim during the last ten years. In this new era of the horror genre in which horror films are appreciated not only by the audience but also by the critics, the manifestation of places and spaces has become more significant with the ongoing impacts of globalization. Moreover, the characters started to be portrayed as struggling modern individuals who are threatened by the disrupted society, and the objects of horror have turned into more ambiguous and dialectical figures with psychological implications. Within this context, psychoanalytic film theory becomes useful to explore what the society represses beneath the surface and how these repressed thoughts are portrayed in horror films which the audience continues to enjoy despite the worrisome effects. Hence, this study focuses on the formal analyses of two contemporary horror films, Don’t Breathe (Alvarez 2016) and It Follows (Mitchell 2014), and it is argued that the pleasure of horror films takes root in the fulfilment of the unconscious thoughts whose emergence through social disruption represents the return of the repressed.