Andre Loiselle and the Performance of Villainy

SSHRC Grant 2006 – Research Profile
Andre Loiselle, School for Studies in Art and Culture – Film Studies
Project Title: “The Performance of Villainy: Theatricality in the Horror Film”

At a time when horror films seem to rely exclusively on hi-tech special effects to scare spectators, this research project seeks to demonstrate that the most crucial aspect of the genre remains the monster’s theatrics: the gestures and sounds performed by the actor playing the villain, which so successfully create fear in both the victims within the narrative and the audience enjoying the spectacle of villainy.

By studying a wide range of horror performances on stage and on screen, Andre Loiselle proposes to show how the actor’s movements and speech, through the theatrical artifice of either ostentatious histrionics or “unnatural” stillness, stand out as aberrations within the mundane milieu in which the monster commits his or her evil deeds, thus tearing apart the fabric of safe, decorous behaviour.

His research will culminate in a book that will contend that the pleasure of horror emerges precisely from this theatrical shattering of the confines of proper, acceptable conduct embodied by realistic acting.

“The basic inspiration for this project is of course my love of the horror film,” said Loiselle. “In broader terms, however, this research project also emerges from my perception of contemporary Manichean discourses about “axes of evil” as theatrical stagings of villainy. Contemporary discourses about “evil” characters (real or fictional), rather than presenting cogent arguments about the moral reprehensibility of their actions, present images on television, film and other media that construct villainy as a display of gestures that we perceive as manifestations of evil. In other words, evil in contemporary culture seems to be defined less by what villains actually do than by how they look.”