Comparative Media Poetics: Horror

MADD 14920

Autumn 2026
past student work from this class

Course Description

This course will investigate the raw materials and basic forms at the disposal of artists working in the genre of horror, across media including (but not limited to) cinema, written literature, videogames, music, audio drama, and live site-specific performance. Along with fundamental questions regarding the social, psychological, and political uses (and abuses) of horror as a genre, this course will also look at how horror is shaped by the possibilities of media it operates within. In what way do the possibilities available to game developers differ from those available to filmmakers, and vice versa? How are space, time, and action presented and segmented differently across moving images (cinema), interactive moving images (games), and fully-immersive environments (either virtual or live)? How do techniques ranging from psychological identification to jump scares work in each medium, and what aesthetic effects are open to one that are not open to the other? Course materials will include horror cinema, horror games (video and otherwise), audio content, and classic stories from the history of horror literature.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this class, students will:

  • Understand the concept of genre within a comparative-media context, and be able to assess historical aesthetic trends across disparate media
  • Identify how technological, economic, social and cultural factors have transformed storytelling in the horror genre within a variety of media
  • Critically assess genre literature, cinema, radio, and videogames as cultural forms, from the connection of cinema to historical literary forms, to the relationship between mechanics and storytelling in the context of games, to the ideological underpinnings of all four media
  • Form well-supported arguments about the horror genre that address both its traditional forms and its unique psychological, political, and socio-historical functions
  • Undertake multimedia research projects incorporating cross-media comparative examination and critical commentary

Assignments & Grade Distribution

Students’ final grades will be determined by the following breakdown:

10% Attendance. Students will consistently attend class meetings, screenings, and play sessions. You may miss three class sessions or screenings/play sessions without penalty; beyond that point unexcused absences will have an impact on this portion of your grade. Masking is encouraged if it will allow you to participate more fully.

15%  Participation in in-class activities. In addition to basic attendance, students will also be assessed on their participation in various in-class group and individual exercises. Specific activities have been planned in advance for Oct 13, Oct 20, Nov 10, Nov 12, and Nov 19, but in general if you are absent—even within the three-absent limit mentioned above—it is a good idea to check in and ask if there were any in-class activities you should make up.

15% Social annotation posts on six course readings spaced throughout the quarter. Spaced throughout the quarter are six readings that students are expected to post annotations on via Hypothesis (in Canvas). For each reading students are expected to post at least two annotations, at least one of which should be a reply to someone else. All annotations should be posted by 10AM the morning before the class the reading has been assigned for. Designated annotation readings are indicated as such in the syllabus, and on Canvas.

25%  Midterm test. This short-answer test will be administered in-class on October 27 and will cover texts and concepts from the first four weeks of the course.

35%  Final project. This project is variable in form, and variable in the number of people involved.

  1. Variable in form: The final project may be an analytical work (such as a video essay), short film, analog game, digital game, or a game design document with early prototype materials.
  2. Variable in the number of people involved: Some of these forms (i.e., games, short films) are more conducive to group projects, while others are more conducive to individual authorship. You may pursue either an individual or group project.

Whatever the form of the project, or number of people involved, you must provide the following components:

  1. An abstract of 300–400 words, due Friday November 13 (3%)
  2. A presentation serving as a preview of the project, given December 2 or 3 (7%)
  3. The final version of the project, whatever form it may take (25%)

Course Materials & Wednesday Evening Session Logistics

Students are not required to purchase any reading materials for this course. All readings and other materials listed on this syllabus will be posted in PDF form on Canvas or linked to if already online.

This class has a slot reserved on Wednesday evenings, 7–10 PM, which will be used for film screenings, hands-on play sessions, a hybrid of both activities, or in one instance a field trip. Regular attendance at these sessions is expected as a general rule, as the films viewed, games played, and other media explored during them constitute the course’s primary texts. The course absence policy allows for three unexcused absences across all class activities, including T/Th afternoon class sessions and Wed evening screening/play sessions. Beyond that point, unexcused absences for any type of class activity will have an impact on this portion of your grade.

If you do miss an evening session, you can arrange to make up almost all games played at the MADD Center. Some games are available on physical media held at Crerar Library (indicated on the course’s Canvas page). Others are available on MADD Center hardware, which can be checked out during the Center’s regular hours. The Film Studies Center (located on the third floor of Cobb Hall) can also accommodate private make-up viewing sessions of films shown in the class.

Course Schedule

Tues, Sept 29: Course Introduction

No student responsibilities in advance.

Wed, Sept 30 Film Screening

Viewing, 7:00–8:40 PM

  • The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961)

Thurs, Oct 1: On Medium Specificity

Required readings to do by this class meeting:

  • H.P. Lovecraft, “The Colour out of Space” (1927)

Recommended further reading:

  • Julian Petley, “The Unfilmable? H.P. Lovecraft and the Cinema” (2007)

Tues, Oct 6: Point-of-View and the Fantastic

Required readings to do by this class meeting:

  • Annotate: Tzvetan Todorov, The Fantastic (1970), Ch 2 “Definition of the Fantastic”
  • Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898), chapters I–VII

Recommended further reading:

  • Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898), entire novella

Wed, Oct 7 Group Play Session

Playing, 7:00–9:45:

  • Alone in the Dark (Infrogrames, 1992)
  • Resident Evil (Capcom, 1996)
  • Silent Hill (Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo Team Silent, 1999)
  • Sorry We’re Closed (à la made games, 2024)

Thurs, Oct 8: Technological Constraints and Medium-Specific Noise

Required readings to do by this class meeting:

  • Tom Bissell, Extra Lives (2010), Ch 2 “Headshots”
  • Arild Fetveit, “Medium-Specific Noise” (2013)

Recommended further reading:

  • Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton, Vintage Games (2009), Ch 1 “Alone in the Dark (1992)”

Tues, Oct 13: The Art of Space Design

Required readings to do by this class meeting:

  • Penelope Reed Doob, The Idea of the Labyrinth (1990), Ch 5 “Mazes in Medieval Art and Architecture”
  • Allison Gazzard, Mazes in Videogames (2013), Ch 2 “Unfolding the Maze”

Wed, Oct 14 Field Trip

Class field trip to the HellsGate Haunted House in Lockport, IL. We will leave campus at 7PM sharp. This will be a later evening than our regular screenings/game sessions; we will probably return to campus around 11PM.

Thurs, Oct 15: Haunted Houses as Media Objects

Required readings to do by this class meeting:

  • Annotate: Don Carson, “Environmental Storytelling: Creating Immersive 3D Worlds Using Lessons Learned from the Theme Park Industry” (2000)
  • Robert Baird, “The Startle Effect: Implications for Spectator Cognition and Media Theory” (2000)
  • Liza Lentini, “Night of the Living Dread” [interview with John LaFlamboy of HellsGate] (2019)

Tues, Oct 20: Haunted Places and/as Mental Metaphors

Required readings to do by this class meeting:

  • Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1823) [excerpt]
  • Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), Ch 1
  • Pamela Haag, The Gunning of America (2016), Ch 15 “Grotesque, Yet Magnificent”

Wed, Oct 21 Group Play Session

Playing, 7:00–9:45:

  • P.T. (Kojima Productions, 2014)
  • Devotion (Red Candle Games, 2019)
  • Luto (Broken Bird Games, 2025)

Thurs, Oct 22: The Geometry of the Dream-place He Saw Was Abnormal, Non-Euclidean

Required readings to do by this class meeting:

  • Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves (2000), Ch 4, excerpt from Ch 5, and Ch 9

Tues, Oct 27: Midterm

No course readings.

Wed, October 28 Combined Film Screening and Group Play Session

Viewing, 7:00–8:30:

  • Friday the 13th Part II (Steve Miner, 1981)

Playing, 8:35–9:45:

  • Siren (JAPAN Studio Project Siren, 2003) on two screens
  • Siren: Blood Curse (JAPAN Studio Project Siren, 2008)

Thurs, Oct 29: Identification in Film Theory and in the Slasher Film

Required readings to do by this class meeting:

  • Annotate: Carol J. Clover, Men, Women, and Chain Saws (1992), Ch 1 “Her Body, Himself” [excerpt]
  • François Truffaut with Alfred Hitchcock, Hitchcock (1967) [short excerpt, pp 72–73]
  • Adam Charles Hart, Monstrous Forms (2020), Ch 3 “The Blackest Eyes … The Devils’ Eyes—Horror’s First-Person Camerawork Part 1: Killer POV”

Tues, Nov 3: Cinematic Views on Game Spaces

Required readings to do by this class meeting:

  • Michael Nitsche, Video Game Spaces (2008), Ch 7 “Cinema and Game Spaces” [multiple excerpts from chapter]

Wed, Nov 4 Group Listening Session & Film Screening

Listening and Viewing, 7:00–9:22 PM

  • The War of the Worlds (Orson Welles & the Mercury Theatre on the Air, 1938)
  • The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez, 1999)

Thurs, Nov 5: Media Panics

Required readings to do by this class meeting:

  • Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Found Footage Horror Films (2014), “Expanding the Prehistory: 1938–1998”
  • Jefferson Pooley and Michael J. Socolow, “The Myth of the War of the Worlds Panic” (2013)
  • Jacob Smith, “Turn Me On, Dead Media: A Backward Look at the Re-enchantment of an Old Medium” (2011)

Recommended further reading:

  • Hadley Cantril, The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic (1940), Ch 2 “The Nature and Extent of the Panic”
  • Tipper Gore, Raising PG Kids in an X-Rated Society (1987), Ch 6 “Playing with Fire: Heavy Metal Satanism”

Tues, Nov 10: Found Footage Horror

We’ll be breaking into groups this Tuesday. Everyone will be assigned to watch one film at home on their own and do one related reading, then reconvene for a show-and-tell. Your options:

  • Group 1
    • Watch: Noroi: The Curse (Shiraishi Kōji, 2005)
    • Read: Lindsay Nelson, “Obscure, Reveal, Repeat: Hidden Worlds and Uncertain Truths in Kōji Shiraishi’s The Curse and Occult” (2021)
  • Group 2
    • Watch: Unfriended (Levan Gabriadze, 2014)
    • Read: Allan Cameron, “Facing the Glitch: Abstraction, Abjection and the Digital Image” (2017)

Recommended further reading (across both groups):

  • Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Found Footage Horror Films (2014), “Introduction”

Wed, Nov 11 Combined Film Screening and Group Play Session

Viewing, 7:00–8:35:

  • Ringu (Nakata Hideo, 1998)

Playing, 8:40–9:45:

  • Fatal Frame III: The Tormented (Tecmo, 2005)
  • Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water (Koei Tecmo, 2014)
  • Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake (Team Ninja, 2026)

Thurs, Nov 12: Spirit Photography and Haunted Media

Required readings to do by this class meeting:

  • Annotate: Jeffrey Sconce, Haunted Media (2000), Ch 1 “Mediums and Media”
  • Crista Cloultier, “Mumler’s Ghosts” (2004)
  • selected primary documents collected in Louis Kaplan, The Strange Case of William Mumler, Spirit Photographer (2008)

Tues, Nov 17: Haunted Media Panics

Required readings to do by this class meeting:

  • Annotate: Linda Dégh and Andrew Vázsonyi, “Does the Word ‘Dog’ Bite? Ostensive Action: A Means of Legend-Telling” (1983)
  • Lindsay Nelson, Circulating Fear (2021), “Introduction”

Wed, Nov 18 Film Screening

Viewing, 7:00–9:50:

  • Selections from Troy Wagner and Joseph DeLange’s Marble Hornets YouTube series (2009–2010)
  • Selections from Kane Parson’s Backrooms YouTube series (2022)
  • Backrooms (Kane Parsons, 2026)

Thurs, Nov 19: Creepypasta and Virality

Required readings to do by this class meeting:

  • Shira Chess, “Open-Sourcing Horror: The Slender Man, Marble Hornets, and Genre Negotiations” (2012)
  • Jeffrey A. Tolbert, “‘Dark and Wicked Things’: Slender Man, The Folkloresque, and the Implications of Belief” (2018)

Thanksgiving Break

Tues, Dec 1: Liminality, Uncanniness, and World-Devouring Slop

Required readings to do by this class meeting:

  • Annotate: Bradley Earl Wiggins, “The Backrooms and Liminal Spaces: Explorations of a Digital Urban Legend” (2025)
  • Alexander Diel and Michael Lewis, “Structural Deviations Drive an Uncanny Valley of Physical Places” (2022)

Recommended further reading:

  • Ernst Jentsch, “On the Psychology of the Uncanny” (1906)

Wed, Dec 2 Final Projects Showcase

Presentations of final projects, 7:00–10:00

Thurs, Dec 3: Final Projects Showcase, continued

Course wrap-up; additional time for presentations of final projects if needed

Due date for final project components TBA, will depend on how many group & individual projects there are. No earlier than Tues, Dec 8.