The Spanish Fantastic by Shelagh Rowan-Legg

Author:Shelagh Rowan-Legg [Rowan-Legg, Shelagh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Popular Culture, History, Europe, Spain & Portugal, Social History, Performing Arts, Film, General, History & Criticism
ISBN: 9781350242425
Google: bon7zQEACAAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 2021-03-25T05:11:44+00:00

Fig. 5.2 Regina investigates, Darkness (The Film Factory, 2005)

The ghosts, as children, represent the dark side of the innocence of childhood; these monsters are never fully shown, but instead they are framed in split-second shots with little facial or bodily recognition, as if to indicate to the audience that this monster is a ruse. Children, whether alive or as ghosts, have been the source of evil in horror films such as Village of the Damned (Wolf Rilla, 1960) and Who Can Kill a Child? Mark straddles the real and the supernatural; medical evidence suggests schizophrenia as the cause of his behaviour, yet Regina believes he is being manipulated by the house, as shown by his obsession with the old photograph. When it is revealed that he is the child from the opening sequence, his madness is represented as justified.

Fear is common to all humans and animals, and manifests in similar ways, such as hair standing on end, cold perspiration, and screaming.17 And as stated, fear of the dark is one of the oldest fears. Balagueró makes a deliberate effort to keep the interior house dark (both the walls and furnishings are in dark tones), in an almost constant state of low lighting until the final scenes. Acknowledging that a certain level of lighting is needed to show a scene, the scenes are lit to keep as much detail as possible in a smoky shadow, especially inside the house, in the kitchen (when Mark and Maria argue) and in the hall by the stairwell (where Mark hangs the old photograph). Horror films presenting various images of fear in the form of monsters, ghosts, haunted houses, etc., have taught spectators to look for clues as to the origin of the fear experience, and to accept certain symbols as representing certain types of fear. In a contemporary culture attuned to the classical plot and style of horror films, a red herring might not be unexpected, but the film breaks down the fear experience into its various components, such as invasion from the outside, invasion from the inside, the supernatural, or religious cults, and asks the spectator to question if they all come down to the same fear. In the final scene of the film, when Carlos, Regina and Paul drive (or think they are driving) away, the camera never shows their faces directly, nor in full light exposure; Regina tells Paul that the incident is over, but Paul replies that they are still in the house, just as the car goes into a tunnel. This suggests an extension of this fear experience beyond the confines of the film, and beyond the confines of the history of the narrative of such experiences.

Darkness is a representation of the primal and family horror story, in semantic narrative and syntactic form. By invoking semantics from a variety of horror films, it also presents itself as both an implicit and explicit text, through representations of madness, the family, and the haunted house. These various elements are standards in

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.