IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jfr/wjel11/v13y2023i8p76.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Modern Horror Thrillers: A Traumatic and Linguistic Study of the Movies The Little Stranger and The Boy

Author

Listed:
  • Aswathy Nair A S
  • LaxmiDhar Dwivedi

Abstract

Emerging as an exhilarating genre in the current film industry, horror thrillers are a new genre alongside science fiction. These genre forms captivate the audience because they offer a brief but exhilarating break from daily life and serve as an escape from reality. In these films, William Brent Bell and Lenny Abrahamson, directors of The Boy and The Little Stranger, respectively, demonstrated the modern horror thriller technique. This research intends to demonstrate how splendidly traumatic events are utilised in contemporary films, along with the ideal discourse change in those people who are suffering from mental trauma, which has inspired the current interest in horror thrillers. This study was based on two perspectives- the first was the destructive power of trauma and its impact on one’s language, which can ruin or bring about disaster in one's life, and the second was how the film industry makes use of this trauma for the commercial success of horror films. In both of these films, horror is portrayed through unusual settings and occurrences. Through discourse analysis and descriptive methods, this study can conclude with the idea that conventional belief in spirits and other supernatural beings was irreparably damaged in today’s films. These films may be compelled to depict the reality that each individual's suffering induces fear, resulting in the emergence of fantastical, eerie concepts and a change in their language.

Suggested Citation

  • Aswathy Nair A S & LaxmiDhar Dwivedi, 2023. "Modern Horror Thrillers: A Traumatic and Linguistic Study of the Movies The Little Stranger and The Boy," World Journal of English Language, Sciedu Press, vol. 13(8), pages 1-76, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:jfr:wjel11:v:13:y:2023:i:8:p:76
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.sciedupress.com/journal/index.php/wjel/article/download/24042/15173
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.sciedupress.com/journal/index.php/wjel/article/view/24042
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jfr:wjel11:v:13:y:2023:i:8:p:76. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sciedu Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://wjel.sciedupress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.