From haunted houses to sandy beaches, The Nightmares of Presence explores the role of setting in inspiring fear and wonder through audiovisual media. With an emphasis on horror and the Gothic, this book takes case studies from Spain to propose new approaches to the spaces and places of fear and fantasy.
With the primary aim of marrying the spatial turn in cultural and film studies with genre study of horror and Gothic film, Professor Ann Davies explores how different landscapes, spaces and places enable the subject to interact with the terrors they encounter and confront. Case studies include internationally renowned films, lesser known films which have not received distribution beyond Spain, and films made both in Spanish and English, including The Devil's Backbone (Guillermo del Toro), [.REC ](Jaume Balagueró), Insensibles (Painless, Juan Carlos Medina), ¿Quién puede matar a un niño? (Who Can Kill A Child?, Narciso Ibáñez Serrador), Los cronocrìmenes (Time Crimes, Nacho Vigalondo), and El dìa de la bestia (The Day of the Beast), among others.
| ISBN: | 9781501327377 |
| Publication date: | 10th July 2025 |
| Author: | Ann Davies |
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury Academic an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 224 pages |
| Genres: |
Film history, theory or criticism Social and cultural anthropology |