The Nightmares of Presence: Space and Place in Spanish Gothic and Horror Film

by Ann Davies

Overview

From haunted houses to sandy beaches, The Nightmares of Presence explores the role of setting in inspiring fear and wonder through audiovisual media. 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 cultural and film studies with genre study of horror and Gothic film, Professor Ann Davies explores how different landscapes, spaces and places enable the subject to interact with the terrors they encounter and confront. Case studies include internationally renowned films, lesser known films which have not received distribution beyond Spain, and films made both in Spanish and English, including The Devil's Backbone (Guillermo del Toro), [.REC ](Jaume Balagueró), 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501327353
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	06/12/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

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

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements

1. Introduction
2. The Past is a Different Country: Spatial Displacement in the Franco Era
3. The Haunted Houses of Jaume Balagueró
4. For Whom the School Bell Tolls: the Nightmare Spaces of Children
5. Et in Arcadia Ego: Horror in Paradise
6. Into the Woods: Thrills, Spills and Fractured Masculinity
7. The Dystopian City Space
8. Conclusion: Spaces and Places for Audiences On and Off Screen

References
Index

Editorial Reviews

Davies cares for the function and value of spaces and places in Spanish gothic and horror cinema: haunted houses and orphanages, woods and beaches, rural spots and cityscapes. Drawing on cultural geography, critical theory, film studies and gothic studies, Nightmares of Presence provides a comprehensive and nuanced close reading of key representative films of the genre of the last eighty years. Engaging and insightful, Davies ventures where other critics daren't go.” —Antonio Lázaro-Reboll, Reader in Film Studies, University of Kent, UK

“An insightful and resourceful study of space and place as indirect and thematized characters and seminal factors in Spanish horror films. Through a rich and rigorously documented lens, with the understanding of the sociohistorical and literary background as well as the updated theories of the fantastic, Davies studies the role of sentient spatial setting as a literal and figurative agent in the idiosyncratic discourse of Spanish horror cinema, considering major films and constants of directors within the genre. Benefiting from a holistic and interdisciplinary methodology, The Nightmares of Presence is a must in the trend of filmic studies which “puts the matter in place”.” —Julio Ángel Olivares Merino, Associate Professor, University of Jaén, Spain

“In a continuum of the engaging research on Spanish film that Professor Ann Davis has been doing, The Nightmares of Presence offers an insightful study on the crucial role landscapes, spaces, and places play in executing and delivering the pathos in Gothic/Horror audiovisual texts. Such landscapes, spaces, and places are mediated by the screen, and, whichever form this may take, serves as a portal to better understand our world through Horror and Gothic. This book promises to be a great companion for Spanish film readers and/or horror film readers of all levels.” —Sohyun Lee, Associate Professor of Spanish and Hispanic Studies, Texas Christian University, USA

“Combining spatial theories and philosophy with perceptive textual analyses, The Nightmares of Presence carries out a careful exploration of the negative spaces of Gothic and horror cinema. Wide-ranging, critically informed and remarkably up to date, this book reminds us why Ann Davies is a leading voice in the study of the national and historical nuances of Spanish film. For those interested in the interaction between subjectivity and hostile locales, there is no better place to start.” —Xavier Aldana Reyes, Reader in English Literature and Film, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK, and author of Gothic Cinema (2020) and Spanish Gothic (2017)

From the Publisher