3rd year dissertation research

The Corridor, creating fear using open and/or closed spaces (1960- 2016)

For my dissertation i plan on writing about how space can be used to create fear by using halls, corridors, the ocean and outer space.

Stanley Kubrik (the shinning 1980, 2001 a space odyssey 1968)

Starting with The Shinning one of my top five favourites because i enjoy the essence of a never ending corridor with a biting breeze like when the care taker goes nuts and terrorises his family with an axe.

'Hacking down the door with an axe was easy – all Jack had to do was make the wood crack well'

I like the scene when jack's walking down the corridor and the suspense really builds and it looks like he's walking down this narrow space forever.
I have expieranced a lot of long creepy corridors in hotels and other types of places and I have noticed that the interior will depend on the time its built and the older the building is the more unsettling the decorating is.

 These two pictures are just examples of the kind of corridors i have seen but i d say the top one would be more similar to the corridor in the Shinning, what i like about this one is that the carpet brings out the shapes in the walls giving it the surreal feeling like in the film when jack starts halusanating.

This arched corridor is very interesting because it looks very dodgy even during the day i can easily  imagine chasing someone down this hall with a bladed article of some kind.

Next is A Space Odyssey a chaotic mix of space and machines where a structure provides energy for the past and future that ends with a war between man and machine.

 Even to this day the concept of space still chills me the fact its just a endless void of galaxies and dying stars, our galaxy is literally a tiny spec of dust flouting around in the void called ouster space.

Alfred Hitchcock ( psycho  1960, the birds 1963)

Stephen King ( IT the clown 1990, shawshank redemption 1994

Steven Spielberg ( JAWS 1975, twilight zone 1983)


psychological?, We all know that the real monsters are inside our heads and have been since day one, you had the fear all along and what ever you see is just the trigger.

physical fear? phsysical and psychological fear walk hand in hand, in my expierance you feel fear before you feel physical pain.

how do these directors create nightmares?

let the right one in?


https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/oct/29/how-we-made-the-shining