• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.827-835
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• 2008

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the aesthetic characteristics of splatter films' make-up. Splatter films are one of horror movies that consist of gore and excessive violence. These represent the cruelty with the victims' physical damages made by special effect make-up. Splatter make-up is classified into the trickle of blood, the cutting of body, and the exposure of the inner parts of body, and changes a fake into a fact with reality. The aesthetic characteristics of splatter make-up were shown in the uncanny, the abjection and the irony. The uncanny which is strange and displeasure feeling is presented by the fragmentation of body, and the living of nonliving thing. The abjection means humble image, and the concept of border or ambiguity. The former is expressed by the matters of body's secretion and excretion. The latter is shown by the use of blood(the life and death) and corpses(the human and inhuman), and animatronics(the human and instruments). The irony which is a sense of humor caused by conflict between external appearance and reality. This is represented by comics induced by discord between excessive violence and make-up tricks, and the brutality and the weakness.