The Elusive Killer in Didactic Cinema: Conceptualizing Munch-ian Art and Adorno's Negative Dialectics in Horror.

This study examines the application of Theodor Adorno's concept of negative dialectics to cinematic horror narratives, using Edvard Munch's artistic philosophy as a parallel framework to demonstrate how horror films evoke discomfort through unresolved, unsettling endings. Negative dialectics, as defined by Adorno, opposes simplistic, comforting narrative resolutions by emphasizing the raw, ongoing nature of trauma and evil, which is illustrated in films such as Alfred Hitchcock's *Psycho*, John Carpenter's *Halloween*, and the Coen brothers' *No Country for Old Men*. These films feature elusive villains whose escapes deny closure and resist the culture industry's tendency toward reassuring, formulaic storytelling, thereby fostering a didactic aesthetic that awakens audiences to the persistent realities of fear and violence. The study argues that such horror narratives function as authentic artistic expressions that challenge passive consumption and encourage critical engagement with societal and existential anxieties.