Extra-Diegesis, Domesticity and the Uncanny in the Transnational Films of Guillermo del Toro

Abstract

Del Toro's adult fairy tales create their horror via a disruption in the familiarities of place and identity using a connection between a purposeful mise en scène and techniques of sound design world-building that he borrows from the long tradition of horror filmmaking. Though the discussion of the relation between image and sound in del Toro's films would (and do) fill a number of volumes and monographs, this chapter will focus on one particular technique long-employed by horror film sound designers, music supervisors and composers: extra-diegetic sound. Where diegetic sound is the audio that is part of the world of the film and non-diegetic sound its inverse, extra-diegesis points out that these bits of audio effectively collapse the world of the character with the world of the audience. Extra-diegetic audio is a diegetic audio effect (the source being clearly seen or pointed to in the visuals) that has been sweetened, enhanced or noticeably processed to include extra audio elements that are non-diegetic, making the whole of the audio both of the world of the film and simultaneously of the world of the audience. The audience notices and can clearly hear the extra enhancements, though in the stress and horror (which is the point) of the moment these distinctions may collapse and lead the audience to confuse the real with the pretend.

Citation

Hood, W. (2022), "Extra-Diegesis, Domesticity and the Uncanny in the Transnational Films of Guillermo del Toro", Schotanus, M.S. (Ed.) Interdisciplinary Essays on Monsters and the Monstrous (Emerald Interdisciplinary Connexions), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 173-188. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-027-720221011