Review: Devil’s Advocates – The Witch

By Brandon Grafius (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2020. 109 pages) ISBN: 978-1-800-34805-9 Robert Eggers' period folk horror film The Witch, or The VVitch: A New England Folktale (2016), has left its unsettling witches’ mark upon cinema. Brandon Grafius’ addition to the Devil’s Advocates series dissects the film and demonstrates the complexity of its construction. Grafius …

Review: Historical Noir

By Barry Forshaw, (Herts: Pocket Essentials, 2018. 223 pages). ISBN: 9780857301352 As one of the leading experts of crime fiction, Barry Forshaw’s Historical Noir marks the most recent entry in his Noir series, tracing the history of the sub-genre of crime fiction set in the past. Dividing the book up into thirteen chapters, Forshaw documents …

Review: Devil’s Advocates – The Mummy

By Doris V. Sutherland (Leighton Buzzard: Auteur Publishing, 2019. 120 pages). ISBN 9781911325956 Clad in reeking linen and stumbling on dead legs across nighted sands, the mummy is often considered a lesser member of the horror pantheon. Despite lacking the primal panache of the vampire or the werewolf, the mummy is part of a tradition …

Review: A Century of Weird Fiction 1832-1937

By Jonathan Newell, A Century of Weird Fiction, 1832-1937: Disgust, Metaphysics and the Aesthetics of Cosmic Horror (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2020. 272 pages) ISBN 9781786835451 Jonathan Newell’s A Century of Weird Fiction is not for the squeamish. It explores the connection between disgust and metaphysics in the stories of five authors: Edgar Allan …

Review: The Forest and the EcoGothic

By Elizabeth Parker, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. 308 pages). Hardcover ISBN 978-3-030-35153-3 eBook ISBN 978-3-030-35154-0 Elizabeth Parker’s exploration of the ecoGothic, channelled through the case study of the Gothic forest, is an enchanting and unnerving foray into the woods. The Forest and the EcoGothic is essential reading for any scholar working with the ‘flavoured mode’ …

Devil’s Advocates – M

By Samm Deighan, (Leighton Buzzard: Auteur Publishing, 2019. 120 pages). ISBN: 9781911325772 Fritz Lang’s horror thriller M (1931), like the titular letter which identifies the monstrously human child-killer within the movie, has left an indelible mark on cinema. The film has had a particular impact on the serial killer sub-category of the horror and crime …

Review: Postmodern Vampires

By Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, Postmodern Vampires: Film, Fiction, and Popular Culture (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. 264 pages). Hardcover ISBN 978-1-137-58376-5 eBook ISBN 978-1-137-58377-2. One might be forgiven for thinking that when it comes to the subject of vampires, a topic that at times feels like it dominates research of Gothic literature and film, that there …

Review: Gothic Remains

By Laurence Talairach, Gothic Remains: Corpses, Terror and Anatomical Culture, 1764-1897 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2019. 320 pages) ISBN 978-1786834-60-7 This interdisciplinary study explores the ways in which anatomical culture informed the literature of terror from Walpole to Stoker. Focusing on the medical Gothic, Talairach considers the material conditions that shaped this genre, with …

Review: Devil’s Advocates – In The Mouth of Madness

By Michael Blyth, (Leighton Buzzard: Auteur Publishing, 2018. 124 pages). ISBN: 978-1911325-40-6 In The Mouth of Madness (1995),directed by John Carpenter, is one of his lesser known and lesser celebrated films. The Devil’s Advocates series seeks to bring previously ignored works of film fiction to the academic sphere and presents them in ways in which …

Review: Devil’s Advocates – Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

By Lindsay Hallam, (Leighton Buzzard: Auteur Publishing, 2018. 128 pages). ISBN: 978-1-911325-64-2 In 1992, David Lynch unleashed Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me upon the Cannes Film Festival and it was found wanting. Hallam’s text is part of a recent reassessment of the film, both in terms of its aesthetics and content, focusing in particular …