Communications in Humanities Research ISSN: 2753-7072
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Research Article

An Ecofeminist Study of the Body Horror Film

Zuohan QiaoMacau University of Science and Technology*

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

Horror is the primitive psychology inherent to humans. Centering on the contemporary development of the body horror film, this study applies a method combining theoretical criticism and textual analysis, taking Titane (2021) and The Substance (2024) as two case studies, to conduct an ecofeminist investigation into the body horror film. This study points out that the two films effectively evoke the audience’s pain empathy by depicting the lesions, alienation and violent experiences of the female body; through the semiotic metaphors of female bodies, they complete the female narrative of pain and resistance, exploring the female existential predicament filled with struggles; by means of the artistic form of extreme body horror, they reveal and criticize how patriarchy in the “post-human age” achieves the double control and violent colonization of women’s bodily nature and spiritual ecology through collusion with technology and abuse of biomedicine, thereby accomplishing a profound ecofeminist critical interpretation of the body horror film.

Keywords: The body horror film; ecofeminism; criticism of patriarchy; post-human
Published: August 27, 2025
DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/2025.LC26286
Volume: CHR Vol.76
pp. 85-90
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