The Spaces and Places of Fear: The Role of Setting in Horror and Gothic Film and Television in Spain

From haunted houses to open fields, The Spaces and Places of Fear explores the role of setting in inspiring fear and wonder through film and TV. 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 film studies with genre study of horror and Gothic film, Professor Ann Davies draws not only on film theory and film analysis but also her own insights from working in the industry and explores approaches to the question of setting in such films through both creative and practical decision-making. Case studies include internationally renowned films, lesser known films which have not received distribution beyond Spain, and films made both in Spanish and English, as well as TV programmes which by and large have not travelled beyond Spain, including the [REC] franchise, Insensibles (Painless, Juan Carlos Medina), Quién puede matar a un niño? (Who Can Kill A Child?, Narciso Ibáñez Serrador), Los cronocrímenes (Time Crimes, Nacho Vigalondo), and El día de la bestia (The Day of the Beast), among others.

Ann Davies is Chair of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of Stirling, UK. She is the author of Spanish Spaces: Landscape, Space and Place in Contemporary Spanish Culture (2012). She is also the editor of Penélope Cruz (2014) and Spain on Screen: Developments in Contemporary Spanish Cinema (2012), and with Deborah Shaw and Dolores Tierney, she co-edited The Transnational Fantasies of Guillermo del Toro (2014).