Tam, gdzie czai się zło. Przestrzeń w horrorze jako mechanizm budzenia strachu

Abstrakt

Where evil lurks. Space as a mechanism of fear in horror

The paper is an attempt to describe the space presented in horror genre as one of the major mechanism of fear. Although space appears in many different forms there e.g. a haunted house, a cemetery, a mental hospital, woods, a village, we may notice some common features in these spatial motives, which allow us to select and create a universal model of the terror space. Among the most common themes there are, inter alia, unusual look of an evil place, strange vegetation or animals around the place or isolation from the outside world. It is also important to note the everrecurring metaphorical images, like a figure of a labyrinth, or some kind of animization of the space. An analysis of the common spatial themes is based on the examples from literature and film.