Biological Dystopias: The Body in Contemporary French Horror Cinema

This article historicises the contemporary French horror film by placing it in the context of French cultural discourse around the body, and in particular around biology, biotechnology, demographics, and the idealisation of motherhood. In so doing it goes beyond universalising theories of horror and accounts for the emphasis in modern French horror on human experience as embodied and as fearful of threats to its biological integrity. Textual analysis comes from case studies of seven French horror films from the last ten years, while theoretical underpinning comes from Hayles, Hills, Clover, Kristeva, and others.