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Horror in Literature and Film (NW)

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Horror: Themes and Tropes

These themes and tropes can serve as keywords while you search for sources:

  • Anti-hero
  • Black or Dark Humor Corruption (often of human nature)
  • Body-snatching, grave-robbing
  • Dark, often haunted settings (Abbeys, Graveyards, Castles, Crypts, Ruins)
  • Disintegration of the American Dream (American/"California" Gothic)
  • Doppelgangers
  • Dreaming / nightmares
  • Entrapment / imprisonment
  • ​Fascination with death, decay
  • Fascination with misdeeds of the past
  • Incubus / male demon
  • Madness
  • Modern in conflict with past
  • Not quite human (dolls, wax works, animals)
  • Paranoia
  • Power (over innocence or vulnerability, especially over females or children)
  • Religious Misdeeds or Guilt (Southern Gothic)
  • Spirits
  • Supernatural Forces
  • The Sublime (awesome, terrifying)
  • The Supernatural/Ghosts
  • The Vulnerable Young Woman
  • Weird or violent, explicit or “unnatural” sexual behavior or innuendo / masochism

Keywords to Try

Depending on your topic, different keywords can narrow down your search results. Here are some to try:

  • Women in motion pictures
  • Gender role in motion pictures
  • Sex role in motion pictures
  • Horror films
  • Horror AND Gender
  • Horror AND Guilt
  • Horror AND Moral*
  • Horror AND Penance OR Penitence
  • Horror AND Punishment
  • Horror AND Psychology
  • Horror AND Myth*
  • Fear AND Moral*
  • Fear AND Humor
  • Science AND Supernatural
  • Science AND Literature
  • Psychology AND Literature
  • Psychology AND Monster* 

FUN FACT: The asterisk (*) truncates a term and will search all forms of the word that follow the truncation symbol. For example, moral* will find moral, morals, and morality, while myth* will find myth, myths, mythology, and mythological. Using the asterisk means you don't have to search each of those terms individually.