GOTHIC — current posts — Fantasy/Animation

The Hunchback of Notre Dame's "Hellfire"

Adapted from Victor Hugo’s gothic novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise, 1996) tells the story of bellringer Quasimodo (Tom Hulce), born with a physical deformity that gives him a hunched back. The Disney animated film first depicts Quasimodo as a baby, when he was stolen from his Romani parents by Judge Claude Frollo (Tony Jay) during one of his nighttime raids on the streets of Paris. The judge reluctantly raises Quasimodo as his own child, but keeps him locked high in a belltower away from all outside contact, until one day, a Romani dancer named Esmeralda (voiced by Demi Moore) enters Quasimodo’s life.

SEQUENCE ANALYSISAlyson HendersonJune 30, 2023VILLAINY, DISNEY, ANIMATION, MUSIC, HOLLYWOOD, ADAPTATION, GOTHICComment

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

BOOK REVIEWJames L. SheltonJune 3, 2022HORROR, GOTHIC, HOLLYWOOD, ADAPTATIONComment

“Silenzio, Bruno!” Where are the monsters lurking? An exploration of the Gothic in Disney and Pixar’s Luca

Under the sea, monsters lurk. Despite The Little Mermaid (Ron Clements & John Musker, 1989)’s Sebastian singing about under the sea being better, audiences have long held a fear of the ocean and what lies beneath. It is an understandable fear, linked to the fear of the unknown; after all, it is estimated that 80% of our oceans remain unexplored.

EDITORIALStephanie FarnsworthFebruary 25, 2022HORROR, GOTHIC, PIXAR ANIMATION STUDIOS, COMPUTER-ANIMATED FILM, TRANSFORMATIONComment

Review: Simon Bacon, Dracula as Absolute Other: The Troubling and Distracting Specter of Stoker’s Vampire on Screen (2019)

Ever since Bram Stoker published Dracula in 1897, his vision of the vampire has dominated the popular imagination as the representation of absolute horror. Vampire lore had existed for millennia across numerous cultures, but Stoker’s iteration of the monster as an almost undefeatable entity that represents a cultural other and threatens to subvert modern societal norms has resonated throughout the twentieth and twentieth-first centuries, particularly on film.

BOOK REVIEWJames HambyOctober 1, 2021GOTHIC, POPULAR CINEMA, HORROR, VAMPIREComment

Holbein, Obarski, and the Enduring “Gif” of the Danse Macabre

Reformation-era German engraver, painter and printmaker Hans Holbein and quirky contemporary Polish animator Kajetan Obarski are two artists separated by several centuries that, in their similarities, attest to historical parallels and ramifications of the fantastic. As this post identifies, both artists illustrate the grotesque through a Carnivalesque trope in their work of the Danse Macabre. Both also prophetically remind their viewers of the stark facts of mortality, of people who are “like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall” (Peter 1:24-25).

EDITORIALTerry LindvallJuly 10, 2020GOTHIC, HORROR, SUPERNATURAL, DEATH, HISTORYComment