A morada do pesadelo – um estudo sobre terror doméstico no cinema Irlandês

Abstract

This doctoral thesis is related to Irish studies, specifically to Irish horror cinema. The objects of the research are horror films set in the family context and funded by Screen Ireland in the Celtic Phoenix era (2014-). The films selected for this study are The Canal (2014), by Ivan Kavanagh, The Hole in The Ground (2018), by Lee Cronin, and Vivarium (2019), by Lorcan Finnegan. The recurrence of narratives set in the domestic environment is particularly interesting because the family institution has regulated the behavior of the Irish throughout history. Sinéad Kennedy (2003) states that globalization has led the country to realize the negative effects of familist ideology, such as the high rates of child sexual abuse. These social transformations could have influenced Irish filmmakers to represent the contradictions of the domestic environment, making the audience wonder if home is always a safe place. Thus, the research question is: how is the Irish family associated with horror narratives and represented in film productions during the Celtic Phoenix era? The general objective is to analyze the relationship between the identity of the Irish family and the horror genre, observing how this connection is represented in the three films selected for this investigation. The relevance of the work is related to the importance of developing multicultural dialogues in the Brazilian academic environment. It is necessary to highlight that, according to Ruth Barton (2019), there are still no studies that catalog the characteristics of Irish horror cinema, a fact that reinforces the originality of the research and its relevance to engender future research in this field.