Ageing Criminals and Weirdness in Contemporary Horror and Thriller Films
Ageing Criminals and Weirdness in Contemporary Horror and Thriller Films

Summary/Abstract: While the dominant ageist paradigm equates ageing with decline and a loss of power, the horror genre frequently reclaims agency for the elderly, albeit through a distorted lens: the ageing subject emerges as a terrifying antagonist. Although this dynamic aligns with the genre’s standard affective categories, contemporary mixed-genre films and unusual casting choices complicate the picture. By examining three recent films in which charismatic, ageing actors play significant roles, the study interrogates genre conventions, individual performances, and diegetic relationships animated by gender differences. Drawing on the psychological uncanny and Mark Fisher’s additional concept of the weird (2017), the analysis takes the superimposition of the actor’s star persona onto the character as its starting point. It argues that the performances of these ageing actors do not merely evoke the uncanny, but generate ’weird’ states of being. Accordingly, the weird functions simultaneously as an overarching aesthetic register and an individual character trait, emerging from the tension between ageing and unnatural agency. The study explores the weird by traversing the material, diegetic, and phenomenological levels.

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