Head and Face

Abstract

Decapitation is a decisive and often rapid termination of human life, whilst bodies with two heads are Gothic aberrations, freaks of nature joined in a hideous union. This chapter discusses the animated decapitated head in the film Shrunken Heads (1994), and the headless figure in the film Sleepy Hollow (1999) and Washington Irving’s original story. Scanners (1981) is the focus of a study of the power of the expanded head. The Gothic nature of two-headed bodies is discussed using the exploitation films The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant (1971) and The Thing with Two Heads (1972). Finally, the chapter explores the Gothic nature of the masked face, monstrous or deformed, addressing primarily the film Les yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face, 1960).