Bending and breaking the boundary between horror and comedy: an exploration of the existentialist function of the abject in the works of John Landis and Woody Allen

Abstract

This thesis explores the line between comedy and horror in an increasingly postmodern world through the cinema of John Landis and Woody Allen. Chapter One explores the theoretical and historical material that link Landis and Allen, namely in their dealing with (1) Edgar Allan Poe’s effect, (2) Julia Kristeva and Judith Butler’s abject, (3) Sigmund Freud’s “uncanny,” and (4) Mikhail Baktin’s carnivalesque. The chapter will conclude with John Landis’ portions of The Twilight Zone: The Movie, as a linked history that welcomes exploration of Landis alongside Allen. Chapter Two conducts a comparative study of two horror-comedies: John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London (1981) and Woody Allen’s Shadows and Fog (1991). Chapter Three explores Allen’s Alice (1990) and Deconstructing Harry (1997) to posit a potential method for future creations of horror-comedies. Keywords: existentialism, religious anxiety, the abject, Julia Kristeva, Judith Butler, Woody Allen, John Landis, Freud and the uncanny, carnivalesque