Pour faire suite à notre billet sur les fans de vampires, nous poursuivons avec les fans de l’horreur. Qu’il s’agisse de littérature ou de films, ces fans suscitent la curiosité depuis plusieurs années, notamment lors des vagues de slashers, ces films dans lesquels un meurtrier s’en prend à un groupe d’adolescents.
Dans « I was a tennage horror fan. Or, ‘How I learned to stop worrying and love Linda Blair’ », Mark Kermode, qui a consacré son doctorat à l’horreur dans la fiction moderne, raconte comment il est devenu un fan :
My first introduction of the world of horror and sci-fi came in the early 1970s through watching a regular spot en ITV called ‘The Monday X Film’. At around about 11.00, when everyone else was in bed, I would sneak down into the family living room and sit entranced by a selection of creaky (but crucially always colour) horror flicks, usually from the Hammer or Amicus stable. No matter that I had to have the volume turned down so far it was impossible to hear anything that was being said: what was captivating was the electrifying atmosphere, the sense of watching something that was forbidden, secretive, taboo. It was, indeed, my first real experience of discovering something that was uniquely mine, something that existed outside the domain of my parents’ control and authority. (Kermode, 1997, p. 48)
On croit souvent que ce sont les adolescents de sexe masculin qui sont friands de ce genre. Pourtant, d’après Brigid S. G. Cherry, les jeunes filles peuvent également être fans d’horreur. Dans le cadre de son doctorat à l’Université de Stirling (Écosse), elle a recueilli une centaine de réponses à son questionnaire et mené cinq groupes de discussion auprès d’une quinzaine de personnes. Parmi les réponses collectées, cette observation sur les premières expériences de visionnement de l’horreur notée par Cherry est intéressante :
Some individuals do claim to have been watching honor films from the age of five or younger. However, the films they claim to have seen at this age are either films which would not normally be labelled horror or are films suitable for children. In the main, the respondents named Walt Disney animated films and other children’s fantasy films based on fairy tales as their first experience of honor. This is not all that odd: fairy stories have elements in common with traditional horror literature and many nursery tales are contain horrific sequences. Schechter (1984, p. 69) argues that a common source – ‘that « symbol-inventing » level of the mind, that reservoir of primordial images, which is the matrix of all folk-dream and myth’ – links folk tales and horror. The experiences the respondents report are of being enjoyably frightened by such stories or films based on them, a similar affect they obtain from honor films when they were older. (Cherry, 1999, p. 87)
Enfin, pour comprendre ce qui pousse les adolescents à s’intéresser à l’horreur, plusieurs chercheurs ont émis plusieurs hypothèses. Mary Beth et Meghan Sanders en ont résumé plusieurs, la plupart venant du domaine de la psychologie ou celle des sciences sociales. En voici un exemple :
Aside from social aspects related to adolescent transition into adulthood, other theorists have discussed the idea that horror films may function as a way to create cohesion among groups of adolescents (Dika). According to this view, as a result of sharing the horrifying experience of a crazed maniac, teenagers experience a common bond that creates feelings of closeness and intimacy. (Beth et Sanders, 2004, p. 247)
En guise de conclusion, nous sommes tombé sur cet article d’un marathon de films d’horreur animé par le podcast Horreur Gamer. En effet, Sébastien Bouchard, un des animateurs du podcast, propose 31 films d’horreur à visionner pendant 31 jours. Il est possible de consulter la liste des films sur cette page consacré à l’événement.
