Conjunctions Between Holocaust and Horror Films Based on a Forthcoming book with SIU Press: Frames of Evil: The Holocaust as Horror in American Film

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Conjunctions Between Holocaust and Horror
FilmsBased on a Forthcoming book with SIU
PressFrames of Evil The Holocaust as Horror in
American Film

• Caroline (Kay) Picart,
• Associate Professor of English,
• Courtesy Associate Professor of Law
• Florida State U.

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Aims To show that

• a relationship between Holocaust and Horror films
  is traceable even before the 1990s
• Holocaust imagery is used in many horror films.
• Horror imagery is used in Holocaust filmsfor
  example, Schindlers List references Psycho

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The Authentic Look of the Holocaust
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Nazism as the new monster

• 60s and 70s American movies usually exploited
  the infamy of the Third Reich as grist for horror
  and science fiction movies

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Nazi As Stock Monster
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The New American Gothic Psycho and it Spawn--1
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The New American Gothic Psycho and it Spawn--2
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The New American Gothic Psycho and it Spawn--3
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The Addiction Vampirism and Nazism
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American History X and shower scenes
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Schindlers Lists Realism

• Shooting in black-and-white _____________________
  ___________

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The Bilderverbot

• SL is too _______ in rendering visible an event
  that defies depiction, whose horror renders any
  attempt at direct representation ____________.

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Schindlers List and Psycho

• Schindlers List uses formal properties that mime
  Psycho but produces a different story

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Conclusions

• There are cross fertilizations between Holocaust
  and horror film conventions.
• Schindlers List borrows from classic horror
  conventions to tell the story of the Holocaust.
• Schindlers List references the look of Psycho, a
  contemporary or postmodern horror film, but tells
  the story of the Holocaust as though it were a
  classic horror tale.