THE MONSTROUS FEMININE AND THE ABJECTION OF THE MATERNAL BODY IN TWO CONTEMPORARY HORROR FILMS: THE BABADOOK BY JENNIFER KENT AND ICH SEH, ICH SEH BY SEVERIN FIALA AND VERONIKA FRANZ

This paper seeks to analyze the representation of the mother as a terrifying figure in two present horror films: The Babadook (2014) and Ich seh, ich seh (2014). In both, the horror is based on the relation between mother and sons, whose tension can be understood from the concept of the abject (Kristeva, 1980). In The Babadook, the horror materializes in the maternal body that is represented as an abject: she appears bathed in blood, puking and chasing her son in order to annihilate him. Also, it develops the traditional metaphorical link between the house and the maternal body (Hormigos, 2010) with the purpose of representing her threatening aspect: the space is imaginated as a confinement that may engulf the body of the self. The film shows the danger of sinking into the mother’s body, joy that is forbidden by the also frightening —and also abject— presence of the Father. On the other hand, in Ich seh, ich seh we see the violence that involves the separation of Elias from the law of the mother through the failed elaboration of a sinthome. Also here the signifiers of the abject threaten to annihilate the subjects, and they are represented as elements that contrast with the cleanliness of the domestic space, which is protected from the invasion of the animal and the wild, in order to guard the proper body from.