Wet Land, Dark Water, Crimson Blood: Liquid Fear and Fluid Threat on the Contemporary Gothic Screen

Abstract

This thesis evaluates the place occupied by liquids, flows and fluidity in contemporary English-speaking Gothic film and television texts. Historically, studies have approached the Gothic through the medievalist etymology of the word ‘Gothic’, pointing to a type of architecture associated with the supposedly barbaric past, leading to readings of the genre focusing on the return of the past within an antiquated space. Going beyond these tendencies, I read the Gothic through an overwhelmingly forgotten etymology of the word ‘Gothic’, that is, ‘to pour, to flow’, and , as such, focus on the overlooked fluids and fluidity. The various liquids permeating the contemporary Gothic (sea water, spring water, blood, clay, mud, etc.) materialise the suggested threat and unanchored fear specific to the mode. This thesis thus recontextualises and legitimises liquids and fluidity as a key feature of the contemporary Gothic mode. . While liquids as embodiments of fear are comparatively absent in twentieth century cinema and television, they pervade the postmillennial Gothic and, more widely, Horror screen. Primarily relying on post-millennial Gothic films and television series, this thesis also considers surges of liquid-coded threats in other genres and modes, e.g., Horror and Gore, across the same period. Close readings and materiality-driven analyses delineate a shift in the depiction of threat at the turn of the millennium. The drastically heightened visibility of fluids and focus on fluidity in contemporary fear-inducing cinema and television, what I call the gothicisation of Horror, reflects the liquefaction of threats and fears in the wider culture. Building on Zigmunt Bauman’s rich concept of Liquid Fear within an essentially post-modern liquid culture, I demonstrate that the materially and symbolically liquid threats and fears of the Gothic reflect the unanchored and free- floating anxiety permeating contemporary culture.