Brazil’s pressing socio-political questions as seen through the country’s horror-film-influenced audio-visual production between 2008 and 2022.
Since the 2008 release of
Embodiment of Evil, the third instalment in the Coffin Joe trilogy, which began with
At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul, Brazil’s audiovisual industry has been producing an increasing number of unsettling, often violent and frequently dystopian films, reflecting the wide-ranging social, cultural, environmental and economic problems the country is facing.
This edited volume by scholars from Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States discusses a broad selection of Brazilian audio-visual productions released between 2008 and 2022 which, through their use of aesthetic and narrative devices borrowed from horror cinema, shed light on the country’s pressing socio-political questions. Mostly by first-time directors, these productions bear witness to a second ‘Golden Age’ of Brazilian horror cinema (reflected in new, specialised festivals such as Cine Fantasy, Rio Fan, CRASH and Fantaspoa) and ultimately serve to illustrate, in audio-visual form, the tensions at the heart of Brazilian society in the second decade of the twenty-first century.
Tabela de Conteúdo
Introduction : Contemporary Screen Horror in Brazil
(
Laura Loguercio Cánepa and Stephanie Dennison)
Part One: The Reemergence of Brazilian Horror in the 21st Century
1. The Return of Coffin Joe:
Embodiment of Evil and Contemporary Brazilian Horror Cinema
– Laura Loguercio Cánepa
2. A Time-Traveller’s Guide to a Country of Horrors: A Study of Past, Present and Future Reimagined in Brazilian Cinema –
Lucas Procópio Caetano and Alfredo Suppia
Part Two: Brazilian ‘Post-Horror’
3.
Hard Labor and
Kill Me Please: Key Moments of Middle-class Horror in Brazil –
Laura Loguercio Cánepa and Rodrigo Carreiro
4. Reckoning with the Future: Fear, Resentment and Social Monsters in
Neighbouring Sounds – Fernanda Santos and Cecília Mello
Part Three: The Curse of Urban Violence in Brazil
5. A Glance Through the Window: The Working Class and its Discontents in
The Tenants – Fabio Camarneiro
6.
Mormaço, Mould and Malaise: Bodies and Urban Space in Conflict –
João Vitor Leal and Mariana Souto
Part Four: Folk-Horror Brazilian-Style
7. Folk Horror in
Unsoul and
The Famous and the Dead – Zuleika de Paula Bueno
8.
Azougue Nazaré: Religious Intolerance in a Secular Country –
Filipe Falcão
Part Five: Race, Gender and Brazil’s Colonial Past
9. Plantation Hauntings in
The Devil’s Knot – Stephanie Dennison
10.
Good Manners: Colonialism and Structural Racism in Brazilian Horror Cinema –
Yuri Garcia
Part Six: Social Cannibalism
11. Always Feeding Off the Poor: Sex, Blood and Class Struggle in
The Cannibal Club – Tiago Monteiro
12. A Cordial Murder: Horror and Social Tensions in
Friendly Beast – Rodrigo Carreiro
Part Seven: Teen Horror on Screen
13.
The Joy: Brazilian Teen Horror Fuelled by Boredom –
Gabriel Perrone
14.
The Young Baumanns: Nostalgia, Ruins and Images of a Country in a State of Latency –
Ana Maria Acker
Part Eight: Tropical Dystopias
15. We Are Born in Flames: Living with Ghosts, Revamping Pasts and Futures in
Tremor Iê – Natalia Christofoletti Barrenha
16.
Bacurau Flies at Dusk: Film, Viral Cultural Politics, COVID-19, Hauntings and Futures –
Michael M.J. Fischer
Sobre o autor
STEPHANIE DENNISON is Professor of Brazilian Studies and Director of the Centre for World Cinema and Digital Cultures at the University of Leeds, UK.