Why are we drawn to
watching people die on screen? What do horror films reveal about
our deepest fears of mortality, and why can fictional death feel
strangely cathartic?
Drawing on ideas from Freud, Lacan, and Jung, Mary Wild explores
death scenes in horror cinema as expressions of unconscious
conflict rather than mere spectacles of violence. Through close
readings of iconic films spanning psychological horror, body
horror, aliens, vampires, and home invasion, this talk examines how
horror stages the death drive, repression, abjection, grief, and
the uncanny. Rather than asking why horror obsesses over death, it
asks what death in horror allows us to confront that everyday life
so often represses.
Based on her acclaimed book Psychoanalysing Horror Cinema,
this illustrated talk invites audiences to see horror films not
simply as entertainment, but as psychological spaces where our
anxieties about loss, identity, mortality, and transformation can
be experienced, negotiated and ultimately survived.
Tickets £13.50 including a delightful gin cocktail and a 20% donation to Brompton Cemetery.
Mary Wild
Mary Wild (@psycstar) is a leading film scholar and the creator of the acclaimed Projections lecture series at the Freud Museum London, where she explores cinema through the lens of psychoanalysis. She writes exclusively on Patreon and Substack, and is internationally recognised for her work on the psychological and symbolic dimensions of film.
| Ticket | Event time | Cost |
|---|---|---|
|
Death on Screen
A Psychoanalytic Journey Through Horror Cinema |
13:30 - 15:00 | £14.85 |
Address
Brompton Cemetery Chapel, North gate off Old Brompton Road, South gate off Fulham Road, London, SW5 9JE
Nearest Station
West Brompton (Tube)
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