Lastenelokuvan kauhut ja elokuvakasvatus

The horror content in children’s films, and in audiovisual culture more broadly, addressed to children often sparks discussions both in the media and among educators. However, the horror elements in Finnish children’s films and their pedagogical examination have not received much academic attention. This dissertation aims to rectify this situation by both increasing understanding of the horror content in children’s films and by outlining a film education approach to them. The study assesses the horror content in children’s films from a cultural perspective, focusing in particular on the horror elements in Finnish children’s films, thereby also broadening the understanding of Finnish children’s cinema.

The main research question, how the horror elements in children’s films can be addressed in film education, serves as the starting point for conceptualizing the horror elements in children’s cinema. The dissertation consists of four sub-studies, which engage with the sub-research questions of how the horror elements in children’s films can be analysed and how horror functions as part of film education. The first sub-study examines the horror elements in Finnish children’s films through intertextual analysis and outlines an analytical framework for horror elements based on the results of close reading. The second sub-study focuses on the depictions of death in 21st-century Finnish children’s films using the topography of horror aesthetics as theoretical tool. The third sub-study investigates both children’s horror culture and various ways to approach horror in a school setting. The fourth substudy, using an action research method, explores how children’s horror can be approached from a transcultural perspective in order to develop a more inclusive film education.

The study complements the depiction of children’s horror as an Anglo- American subgenre delineated in previous research. The findings indicate that Finnish children’s films incorporate horror elements built upon versatile intertextuality, which is part of an ambitious children’s culture. The intertextual analysis of films based on close reading, conducted as a dialogical process, promotes active spectatorship, which emerges in the study as a key pedagogical practice. By combining intertextual analysis and close reading with the pedagogy of multiliteracy, the study proposes a learner-centered framework that supports inclusion in approaching horror in film education.

Drawing on the research results, it can be suggested that participatory practices related to horror elements can strengthen learners’ own voices and integrate a variety of orientations in film education. The study demonstrates the diverse possibilities and the enriching pedagogical potential of horror elements in children’s films as part of film education. Approaching the horror elements in children’s films within the framework of intertextuality and multiliteracy opens new perspectives not only on children’s films but also on other children’s audiovisual culture and its horror content.