The California gothic in fiction and film / Bernice M. Murphy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Murphy, Bernice M., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gothic fiction (Literary genre), American--History and criticism.

Gothic fiction (Literary genre), American.

Horror films--History and criticism.

Horror films.

California--In literature.

California.

California--In motion pictures.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (314 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, 2022.

Summary:

This work 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:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: ‘Evil Lurks in California’

Part I 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 II Hollywood Gothic

3 ‘Sunshine isn’t Enough’: Hollywood Gothic Origins

4 Fallen Stars in Sunset Boulevard (1950) and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (1962)

5 ‘It’s a Gateway Part!’ Twenty-First-Century Hollywood Gothic

Part III 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: ‘It’s Our Time Now’: Us (2019) and Desierto (2015)

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Also issued in print: 2022.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (viewed on July 25, 2023).

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781474497893

1474497896

9781474497886

1474497888

OCLC:

1345678715