Spaces of Contemporary Horror: Poverty and Social Exclusion as 21st Century Spectres

Abstract

This research explores the connections between the recent economic crisis and the contemporary horror film. To this end, I begin with a theoretical examination of the symbolic function of two key motifs (the ghost and the house), and the possibilities of their use to reinforce or subvert the mechanisms of the neoliberal cultural framework. Taking the horror genre as a privileged space for reading the unacknowledged tensions of our society, I consider the filmic use of domestic spaces, the suburbs, and the urban wastelands that the crisis has left in its wake. Against a context that cultivates fear based on the idea of social exclusion—poverty as the ultimate mechanism of horror—I put forward the possibility that the horror genre adopts explicitly ethical stances through a vindication of the meeting point between Deleuze’s and Lévinas’ respective theories of the cinematic face.