The California Gothic in Fiction and Film

Murphy, Bernice M.

Edinburgh University Press（2024/05発売）

Edinburgh University Press（2024/05発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 320 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781474497879
• DDC分類 813.0872909358794

Full Description

This book positions the 'California Gothic' as a highly significant regional subgenre which articulates anxieties specific to the historical, cultural and geographical characteristics of the 'Golden State'. California has long been perceived as a utopian space, but it is also haunted by the spectres of European and Anglo-American imperialism, genocide, racial and economic discrimination, natural disaster and aggressive infrastructural and commercial development. Drawing on the work of California historians and cultural commentators, this study explores the ways in which the nightmarish flipside of the 'California Dream' has been depicted within horror and Gothic.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: 'Evil Lurks in California'

Part 1: Foundational Horrors

1. 'What Happened a Hundred Years Ago is Happening Again!' The Ghosts of the California Past

2. The Dark Side of the 'Good Life': California and the Birth of Modern Horror

Part 2: Hollywood Gothic

3. 'Sunshine is Never Enough': Hollywood Gothic Origins

4. Fallen Stars in Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962)

5. 'It's a Gateway Part!' Twenty-First Century Hollywood Gothic

Part 3: Cult California: New Gods and New Selves

6. Cult Nightmares in Our Lady of Darkness (1977) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

7. 'The Usual Utopian Vision: Contemporary Cult California in The Invitation (2015), 1BR (2019) and The Circle (2013)

Conclusion:

8. 'It's Our Time Now': Us (2019) and Desierto (2015)

Index