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"Murphy, Bernice M"
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Key Concepts in Contemporary Popular Fiction
Key Concepts in Contemporary Popular Fiction r provides an accessible, concise and reliable overview of core critical terminology, key theoretical approaches, and the major genres and sub-genres within popular fiction.
eBook
The rural gothic in American popular culture : backwoods horror and terror in the wilderness
\"From the very beginnings of an independent literary culture, the North American wilderness has often served as the setting for narratives in which the boundaries between order and chaos, savagery and civilization are torn down, and the natural world - as well as the individuals and creatures associated with it - becomes a threat to physical and moral safety. The Rural Gothic in American Popular Culture argues that complex and often negative initial responses early European settlers expressed toward the North American Wilderness continue to influence American horror and gothic narratives to this day. The book undertakes a detailed and historically grounded analysis of key literary and filmic texts. The works of canonical authors such as Mary Rowlandson, Charles Brockden Brown and Nathaniel Hawthorne are discussed, as are the origins and characteristics of the backwoods horror film tradition and the post-1960 eco-horror narrative. \"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
‘Wheels of Tragedy’: Death on the Highways in Carnival of Souls (1962) and the Highway Safety Film
This article argues that Carnival of Souls (1962), is a foundational text in the ‘Highway Horror’ sub- genre. It directly confronts one of the most pervasive taboos in modern American life: the horrific death toll associated with mass automobility. In Herk Harvey’s cult film, the protagonist is killed but finds herself unwilling to accept her fate. As in the many similar films that followed, the highway becomes a purgatorial space between life and death. The blindness of the protagonists is linked to society’s collective willingness to overlook (or tolerate) the devastating frequency of the fatal car crash. The article also discusses the highway safety films of the 1950s and 60s.
Journal Article
\How will I explain why we live behind a wall?\ La Zona (2007) as suburban gothic narrative
[...]the \"Suburban Dream\" is posited on the belief that such neighbourhoods are uniquely insulated from the dangers of the outside world, whereas in the Suburban Gothic, the most dangerous threats come from within, not from without. [...]La Zona exhibits many of these characteristics, in particular the sense that the suburban neighbourhood is a \"safe\" place that excludes the myriad threats seen to exist in the world beyond its borders-accompanied by the suspicion, that there may be worse things to worry about inside the suburb than outside. [...]anywhere that there is a significant gap between the \"haves\" and the \"have-nots\", it is likely that a gated community of some description will spring up, because as Setha Low has noted, Gated communities respond to middle-class and upper-middleclass individuals desire for community and intimacy and facilitate avoidance, separation, and surveillance. Whereas La Zona's security apparatus is dominated by the visible tools of surveillance-the presence of multiple CCTV cameras and frequent security patrols is emphasised by Pla, as is the fortified wall that surrounds the community-Fool's progress through the Robeson house is more like a cartoonish guerrilla war.
Journal Article
It came from the 1950s! : popular culture, popular anxieties
\"It came from the 1950s is an eclectic, witty, and insightful collection of essays predicated on the hypothesis that popular cultural documents provide unique insights into the concerns, anxieties, and desires of their times. The essays explore the emergence of \"Hammer Horror\" and the company's groundbreaking 1958 adaptation of Dracula; the work of popular authors such as Shirley Jackson and Robert Bloch, and the effect that 50s food advertisements had upon the poetry of Sylvia Plath; the place of special effects in the decade's science fiction films; and 1950s Anglo-American relations as refracted through the prism of the 1957 film Night of the Demon\"--Provided by publisher.
Book
‘Children misbehaving in the walls!’ or, Wes Craven’s suburban family values
‘The suburbs dream of violence’, observes the narrator of J.G. Ballard’s English-set novelKingdom Come(2006).² His remark can equally be applied to cinematic and literary depictions of the post-Second World War American suburb, which are even more likely to result in blood-drenched visions of murder and mayhem. What is perhaps most striking of all about these kinds of narrative is the frequency with which the sanctity and supposedly inherent moral worth of the nuclear family is violently rent asunder. In the Suburban Gothic, in other words, you frequently have the most to fear from those you are related to.
Book Chapter
‘Wheels of Tragedy’: Death on the Highways in Carnival of Souls (1962) and the Highway Safety Film
This article argues that Carnival of Souls (1962), is a foundational text in the ‘Highway Horror’ sub- genre. It directly confronts one of the most pervasive taboos in modern American life: the horrific death toll associated with mass automobility. In Herk Harvey’s cult film, the protagonist is killed but finds herself unwilling to accept her fate. As in the many similar films that followed, the highway becomes a purgatorial space between life and death. The blindness of the protagonists is linked to society’s collective willingness to overlook (or tolerate) the devastating frequency of the fatal car crash. The article also discusses the highway safety films of the 1950s and 60s.
Journal Article
It Follows
Two local boys spy on her in the pool and later peek in at her while she lies in her bed, recuperating from her attack; childhood friend Paul (Keir Gilchrist) appears caring but is obsessively fixated on her; and neighbour Greg (Daniel Zovatto) is a charming but unreliable cad who has treated Jay badly in the past and doesn't really believe her story (to his own detriment). To call this film derivative would be a polite understatement; any half-way knowledgeable horror enthusiast will experience a strong sensation of déjà vu throughout, most particularly in relation to Mitchell's recurrent reliance upon Halloween-style slow tracking shots. [...]while the debt It Follows owes to Halloween has rightly been noted by most critics, the core premise - that of a curse which must be deliberately passed on to someone else if the protagonist is to survive - is straight out of Ring's playbook.
Journal Article