Modern Ghost Melodramas : : 'What Lies Beneath' / / Michael Walker.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter AUP eBook Package 2016-2018
• VerfasserIn: Walker, Michael,
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam : : Amsterdam University Press, , [2017]; ©2017
• Year of Publication: 2017
• Language: English
• Series: Film Culture in Transition
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (544 p.) :; 48 color plates

The popular and critical successes of films like The Sixth Sense and the Ring film and its sequels in the late 1990s led to an impressive international explosion of scary films dealing with ghosts. This book takes a close look at a number of those films from different countries, including the United States, Japan, South Korea, Spain, and Great Britain. Making a crucial distinction between these atmospheric films and conventional horror, Michael Walker argues that they are most productively seen as ghost melodramas, which opens them up to a powerful range of analytic tools from the study of melodrama, including, crucially, psychoanalysis.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Three Major Predecessors -- 3. The Fallow Years: An Assortment of Ghosts -- Seminal Films -- 4. Ghosts in the City -- 5. Ghosts in the Machine -- 6. Schoolgirl Angst -- 7. Childhood Abuse -- Evolution of the cycle -- 8. Generic Developments 1: Messages from the Dead -- 9. Spain and History 1: Politics and War -- 10. Hollywood Reinflections -- 11. Asian Variations -- 12. Generic Developments 2: Ghosts in the Woman's Film -- 13. Ghosts and Institutions 1: South Korea -- 14. Ghosts and Institutions 2: The West -- 15. National Variations -- 16. Anatomy of the Ghost Melodrama -- 17. Spain and History 2: The Franco Legacy and the Catholic Church -- 18. The Return of the British Ghost Film -- 19. Recent US developments and conclusion -- Filmography -- Illustrations -- Bibliography -- Index