Over the course of the past two decades, horror cinema around the globe has become increasingly preoccupied with the concept of loss. Grief in Contemporary Horror Cinema: Screening Loss examines the theme of grief as it represented both indie and mainstream films, including works such as Jennifer Kent's watershed film The Babadook, Juan Antonio Bayona's award-sweeping El orfanato, Ari Aster's genre-straddling Midsommar, and Lars von Trier's visually stunning Melancholia. Analyzing depictions of grief ranging from the intimate grief of a small family to the collective grief of an entire nation, the essays illustrate how these works serve to provide unity, catharsis, and-sometimes-healing.
Erica Joan Dymond is assistant professor of English at East Stroudsburg University.
Part I: Loss and the Child: Grief and Endangered Youth Chapter 1. Horror at the Crossroads: Mapping the Child's Grief in Pan's Labyrinth (2006) Lindsey Scott Chapter 2. "We Can Survive This": An Examination of Loss and Grief in Juan Antonio Bayona's Elorfanato (The Orphanage) (2007) Erica Joan Dymond Chapter 3. Elevating Grief: Ari Aster's Hereditary (2018) and the A24 Horror Film Andrew Grossman and Todd K. Platts Part II: Loss and Gender: Grief and Motherhood/Womanhood Chapter 4. To Make You Feel My Love: Jennifer Kent's The Babadook (2014), Motherhood, and Loss Rebecca L. Willoughby Chapter 5. The Myth of the Natural Woman: Horror and Grief in Ari Aster's Midsommar (2019) Aspen Taylor Ballas Part III: Loss and National Identity: Grief and History Chapter 6. O Father, Where Art Thou?: Grief and Cannibal Culture in Jorge Michel Grau's Somos lo que hay (We Are What We Are) (2010) Megan DeVirgilis Chapter 7. Sadness is Rebellion: The Ontopolitics of Queer Loss in Mladen Dordevic'sZivot i smrt porno bande (The Life and Death of a Porno Gang) (2009) Andrija Filipovic Chapter 8. The Grieving Dead: Haunting and the Haunted in The Spierig Brothers' Winchester (2018) Racheal Harris Part IV: Loss and The Known World: Grief and Annihilation Chapter 9. "No One Will Miss It": Lars Von Trier's Antichrist (2009) and Melancholia (2011) and the World-Without-Us Michael Brown
Grief in Contemporary Horror Cinema: Screening Loss is an accessible and wide-ranging exploration of grief as represented in many of the most interesting recent horror films on the topic. Of particular interest is the collection's inclusion of insightful essays addressing the socialization of grief through gender, sexuality, the family, and colonialism and how these complexities manifest in the themes and aesthetics of horror films. -- Johanna Isaacson, Modesto Junior College Grief in Contemporary Horror Cinema: Screening Loss offers a welcome multinational approach to the role played by, and complex and contradictory representations of, grief and loss in this genre. The various contributions demonstrate how universal themes of grief and loss are particularised in individual films and are often deployed to examine legacy and contemporary issues of national, familial and individual vulnerability. The book ultimately provides a valuable lens through which to examine a wide range of subgenres from arthouse to gothic horror. -- Sarah Arnold, Maynooth University and author of Maternal Horror Film: Melodrama and Motherhood
