Review: Richard J. Hand and Jay McRoy (eds.), Gothic Film: An Edinburgh Companion (2020)
Gothic Film: An Edinburgh Companion provides a wide variety of perspectives based on differing examples of the Gothic within the film with analyses categorised by genre, time-period, and theoretical approach (Fig. 1). The broad-ranging nature of chapters included here is facilitated by the nature of the Gothic, the extensive reach of which leads to the presentation of interesting ideas and comparisons. As editors Richard J. Hand and Jay McRoy state in their introduction:
Fig. 1 - Richard J. Hand and Jay McRoy (eds.), Gothic Film: An Edinburgh Companion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020).
The Gothic, in other words, is not a genre per se, although an argument can be made for “Gothic” as a very loose subgenre of horror. Rather, “Gothic” is a style. It is a way of arranging literary and cinematic elements to create a particular effect. (emphasis original, 3)
In this way, each chapter within the collection subscribes to the idea that the Gothic represents an aesthetic approach or style which regularly traverses multiple established film genres (3). The strength of the text is that this conception of the Gothic allows for an exploration of a variety of ideas. At the same time, however, this broadness leads to different authors within the collection consistently feeling the necessity of defining and redefining the term as a means to explain their reasoning and analysis.
The text is divided into three sections which investigate, in turn, “Gothic Film History,” “Gothic Film Adaptations” and “Gothic Film Traditions”. The first section will be of most interest to scholars of the fantastic because it presents many perspectives on the history of the influence of the Gothic, beginning with a history of “Gothic Cinema during the Silent Era” by James L. Neibaur. For Neibaur “Gothic cinema is not a specific genre unto itself, but an idea that extends to different genres” (13) – the features and influence of which Neibaur gives a cogent and personable summary. Similarly, within the second chapter, Andy W. Smith provides a contextual analysis of “monstrosity” within Universal’s horror films, beginning with a recognition of the economic success of these films in the early twentieth century. Smith weaves together several social, political and historical ideas to identify the apex of Horror’s Golden Age – “lurking in the subconscious as the ‘hideous phantasm of a man’ [...] that once tortured the dreams of Mary Shelley” (35). In the third chapter of the collection Jay McRoy links “Film Noir and the Gothic,” identifying both the overtly understood features of film noir and the densely tangled webs of Gothic sensibilities that inform a substantial number of noir films (38). McRoy casts a wide net before focusing on a more direct inquiry into gender representation, culminating in a compelling analysis of Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and, subsequently, Park Chan-wook’s Stoker (2013). For McRoy, these directors:
[...] deploy visual and narrative strategies both to heighten the Gothic components inherent within noir’s visual and narrative logics, and to allow for strong female characters to emerge within and against certain cultural logics. (56)
In the fourth chapter – “Transitional Gothic: Hammer’s Gothic Revival and New Horror” – Adam Charles Hart identifies a shift in the Gothic literary tradition towards “a concern for psychological monstrosity/abjection: hallucination, sadism, madness”, and how it becomes reflected within cinema over time. In the final chapter of the section, Xavier Aldana Reyes provides an analysis of “Gothic Cinema from the 1970s to Now,” including highlighting a shift towards the “digital Gothic” towards the turn of the century (77). Applying the notion of the Gothic to “three distinctively post-millennial subgenres” – found footage films, torture porn, and the demonic possession film – Reyes also highlights several releases that feature Gothic monsters such as werewolves, vampires and zombies to bring together many concepts under one banner (82–84), which will be of interest to fantasy students and scholars alike.
The second section of the book provides a variety of perspectives on adaptation within the Gothic film. Richard J. Hand’s “Danny’s Endless Tricycle Ride: The Gothic and Adaptation” identifies the necessity of “derivation and intertextuality” within adaptations that incorporate the Gothic (90). Extensively summarising multiple film texts, Hand explains that “[c]inematic adaptation continues to be a key method by which Gothic narratives continue to be propagated, retold and appropriated. There is no limit to the potential audience” (99). Within the following chapter Martin Danahay adopts a focused approach in terms of both texts – focusing on Jekyll and Hyde –and the concept of scopophilia. Danahay utilises Halberstam’s idea of Mr Hyde as a “meaning machine” (1995, 25) and shows how it can be used as a vessel in a film adaptation to express a range of cultural anxieties (2020, 102). This is further elaborated on with reference to the transformation from Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde as something that “can be seen in terms of female scopophilia, even in the most unlikely of scenarios [...]” (108). Similarly, Laurence Raw identifies that the Gothic also lends itself to parody on film alongside personal transformation, using key examples of horror parody films to highlight how a process of identification influences our response wherein mock-Gothic elements underpin the style, the stories and the simultaneous histories represented onscreen (120). For Raw, intertextuality and history define the nature of the spectator’s engagement with both genre and parody – something which, in the case of the Gothic, stretches across not only a long history but also literary and cinematic intertextuality. Conversely, Anna Powell offers an analysis of “Affect in Jan Švankmajer’s Poe Films,” drawing upon Deleuze and the Gothic. For Powell:
The molecular flux of affective images acts to dismantle outworn structures of feeling and thought, as new formations emerge from their own premature burial. [...] Images of imprisonment and torture can, through the power of affect, work to mobilise anti-totalitarian desire. (134)
Within the final chapter in this section, Andrew Hock Soon Ng investigates the manner by which Dracula has become a “transnational, multicultural symbol” and how this has given the character an “attractiveness to Asian cinema (137),” which has led to a state where
[...] horror is produced with a transnational market in mind but always with a focus on the local to ensure a degree of cultural specificity so as to attract international audiences who also want a cultural experience alongside being vicariously terrorised. (emphasis original, 148–149)
Fig. 2 - Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017).
The final section of the collection explores Gothic Film Traditions, with a primary focus on the integration of the Gothic into modes of production and alternative genres. It is in this section that the issue of definition becomes apparent. Of the five chapters all but one either state the difficulty in defining the “Gothic” in relation to the areas of analysis or make a point of stating the definition they will adhere to. This functions well in individual cases but gives the section a disjointed feel. For example, Josef Benson’s “American Gothic Westerns: Tales of Racial Slavery and Genocide” has a fascinating premise let down by some issues. The arguments that Benson puts forward do not make a strong enough link between the film examples selected – Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969), Sergio Corbucci’s Django (1966), and Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012) – and a formal identification of the Gothic. The chapter would benefit from a more focused investigation into the integration of gothic iconography within the Western genre, but the bibliography of the chapter suggests that this may require further research. A more fastidious reader may also find Benson’s references to Richard Slotkin as Richard Slotnik slightly distracting. By comparison, in her chapter on Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017) (Fig. 2), Elaine Roth handles well the difficulty in defining the Gothic when she draws on Sedgwick’s The Coherence of Gothic Conventions (1986). Roth clearly identifies where Sedgwick’s theories of the Gothic apply in relation to Get Out and she acknowledges where they depart from it, using the latter as a starting point for a wider discussion (213). This, in turn, allows the reader to follow Roth’s analysis while gaining a fuller understanding of Sedgwick’s view on the Gothic and its potential for further application in film analysis.
Overall, Gothic Film: An Edinburgh Companion offers a variety of perspectives that should give student researchers a solid grasp of the multiple ways in which the Gothic has influenced film production, narrative and audiences. Throughout the text the authors make strong cases analysing the inclusion or influence of the Gothic in film, and although this strength falters at times where the comparisons are less explicitly made or where the links are less precise, the collection still offers a valuable addition to the field of film and gothic studies and researchers of animation may find it particularly useful in the analysis of animated films tinged with the Gothic style, while fans of all-fantasy may find these explorations of the Gothic style useful in discussions of fantastic monstrosities and fantasy creatures.
**Article published: June 3, 2022**
References
Halberstam, Jack, 1995. Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, 1986. The Coherence of Gothic Conventions. New York: Methuen.
Biography
James Shelton is an Independent Scholar with a research interest in narrative mechanics. His most recent publication is on the Sicario films, with upcoming chapters on Gladiator and the TV series Justified to be published later in 2022. Orcid Link.
