The focus of this course will be the extent to which the figure of the child and representations of childhood in horror/fantastic cinema allow us to perceive — be it “face to face” or “through a glass, darkly”, to borrow from the Bible — phobias, traumas, inhibitions, desires or drives pertaining to the depths of the human psyche as well as the repressed of social constructs. The subject matter will be generally submitted to a dual approach: 1/ typological (e.g., the monstrous, alien or homicidal child vs. the victimized, ostracized or abused child); 2/ thematic (guilt vs. innocence; the primal scene, loss and mourning; the demonic; the ghostly; identity and difference; nature vs. nurture; origin and genealogy). However, a variety of critical lenses (psychoanalysis, socio-historical and cultural context, esthetics, politics, gender) will also be used to both closely « read » the films and look at the interdisciplinary underpinnings of a genre or area that could therefore be of potential interest to students with such diverse backgrounds as film, comp lit, psychology, sociology, nursing ed., religion etc. To a lesser or greater degree, all screenings will feature children (not yet in their teens for the most part) in prominent filmic roles, primarily in a horror genre context, and include Anglo-American canonical examples as well as lesser-known foreign cult classics by the likes of Bava (Italy), Erice and Villaronga (Spain), Jodorowsky (Chile/Mexico), or Nakata (Japan).