A Study of the Space-Meaning in Chinese Horror Film

• Main Authors: Chieh-hsin Teng, 鄧傑心
• Other Authors: Guang-Ming Jian
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/30123358950931100994

碩士 === 國立屏東教育大學 === 中國語文學系 === 100 === Horror film is a kind of popular movies, representing different emotional appeals in accordance with the different shooting countries and regions. This paper attempts to analyze the implications of the remote area, police station, office block, and public housing in several horror films respectively. Several types of spaces are often arranged in Chinese horror films as the sites move the principle line of the plot forwards. Among them, the remote countryside, police station, office block, and public housing are the most common ones. To begin with, “remote countryside” is categorized into two types of horror films, the bloodshed violent and the supernatural. The former is expression of urge to survive, and the later may symbolize the sealed memory or inner world of the protagonist. Police station represents rationality and scientific inclination. However, since Chinese people generally believe in “every single thing has spirit,” so people not only worship Guan-Gong in police station, but also regard it as the scene with battle with ghosts in ghost films. Similarly, office block is the symbol of modernity flooded with people in the daytime, but dim and gloomy at night. It shows various kinds of fears at different ages in the modern society crowded with tall buildings. As for public housings, they construct the common sight for the ordinary class in Hong Kong. Roles in such sight correspond to the same class. Housings have different appearances and tones, signifying the diversified qualities of the roles in personality.