Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 From the Semantic to the Somatic: Affective Engagement with Horror Cinema
- 2 From Identification to Embodied Spectatorship in the Found Footage Horror Film
- 3 Camera Supernaturalis
- 4 Perception and Point of View in the Found Footage Horror Film: New Understandings via Deleuze’s Perception-Image
- 5 Horrific Entwinement: Affective Neuroscience and the Body of the Horror Spectator
- 6 What Hides behind the Stream: Post-Cinematic Hauntings of the Digital
- 7 The Evolving Screen Forms of New Media Horror
- 8 The Embodied Player of Horror Video Games
- 9 The Spectator-Interactor of Virtual Reality Horror
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Perception and Point of View in the Found Footage Horror Film: New Understandings via Deleuze’s Perception-Image
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 October 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 From the Semantic to the Somatic: Affective Engagement with Horror Cinema
- 2 From Identification to Embodied Spectatorship in the Found Footage Horror Film
- 3 Camera Supernaturalis
- 4 Perception and Point of View in the Found Footage Horror Film: New Understandings via Deleuze’s Perception-Image
- 5 Horrific Entwinement: Affective Neuroscience and the Body of the Horror Spectator
- 6 What Hides behind the Stream: Post-Cinematic Hauntings of the Digital
- 7 The Evolving Screen Forms of New Media Horror
- 8 The Embodied Player of Horror Video Games
- 9 The Spectator-Interactor of Virtual Reality Horror
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
For just a moment, it feels like we‘re getting to the truth. Caught on camera in the glare of the spotlight, Josef appears to be about to break. Then suddenly he shoves past us, darting back into the house and down the main stairwell – towards the only viable exit.
We are witnessing this scene through the lens of a camera, somewhat reluctantly operated by Patrick, a modest and docile man in his thirties. We hear the anxiety in Patrick's breathing.
This odd man, Josef, alternately charming and unsettling, has lured us to the house and conned us with his lies, and now stands between us and escape. We enter the house from the porch, furtively. We creep forward, past the dining table to the head of the stairs. Then we descend, slowly, tentatively, down the stairwell. We turn each corner with great trepidation, until finally – the doorway. The exit.
Blockading the door, wearing the cartoonish yet somehow terrifying visage of a hungry wolf, is the man. The wolf is called Peachfuzz. We know this because Josef has told us of how his father created the ‘friendly wolf ‘ when he was a child.
Patrick says: ‘Josef. Please let me go. Are you going to let me go?’
Josef (or is it Peachfuzz?) shakes his head.
Patrick says: ‘Why are you doing this to me? Are you just trying to scare me, or …?’
Josef/Peachfuzz nods vigorously, his arms and legs spread out to barricade our point of escape.
Patrick says: ‘Well, I’m terrified, okay. You won. Now will you just step aside and let me go.’
Josef/Peachfuzz begins to growl, a repetitive low moan. We watch as he begins to rub himself against the door, gyrating his hips. The performance of his movements is a mélange of three disparate tendencies: they are somehow all-at-once threatening, comical and erotic.
With repetitive cries to stop, each cry becoming more plaintive, Patrick reaches a breaking point. Escape is the only option – and so we charge forward with him, the camera slamming into Josef/Peachfuzz.
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- Information
- Affective Intensities and Evolving Horror FormsFrom Found Footage to Virtual Reality, pp. 74 - 96Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2020