Abstract
When Se´ance on a Wet Afternoon (1964, Bryan Forbes) was set for release,
cinema managers were advised that ‘feminine appeal’ was a strong angle for
publicity, and the film went on to be a critical and commercial success. Yet, it
is relatively unknown in existing academic histories of horror cinema. The
female lead, spiritualist premise and psychological horror make it an uneasy
bedfellow with existing accounts of 1960s British horror films, which focus
on the sexualised colour-saturated violence of Hammer Studios and its
associated offspring. This article reverses this trend by revealing a cycle of
1960s black-and-white British horror films whose primary textual address
is to women, manifested through complex female characters, interiority and
stories of motherhood, stillbirth and child murder. Utilising Mary Ann
Doane’s work on maternal melodrama, the article explores the parallels
between this cycle and the woman’s film, and draws upon reception analysis
in order to consider how the critics responded to the female-centred films.
It is suggested that not only have film historians failed to note that this cycle
exists, but more importantly they have also failed to understand how
frightening the films could be for a female audience.
cinema managers were advised that ‘feminine appeal’ was a strong angle for
publicity, and the film went on to be a critical and commercial success. Yet, it
is relatively unknown in existing academic histories of horror cinema. The
female lead, spiritualist premise and psychological horror make it an uneasy
bedfellow with existing accounts of 1960s British horror films, which focus
on the sexualised colour-saturated violence of Hammer Studios and its
associated offspring. This article reverses this trend by revealing a cycle of
1960s black-and-white British horror films whose primary textual address
is to women, manifested through complex female characters, interiority and
stories of motherhood, stillbirth and child murder. Utilising Mary Ann
Doane’s work on maternal melodrama, the article explores the parallels
between this cycle and the woman’s film, and draws upon reception analysis
in order to consider how the critics responded to the female-centred films.
It is suggested that not only have film historians failed to note that this cycle
exists, but more importantly they have also failed to understand how
frightening the films could be for a female audience.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 385-402 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | New Review of Film and Television Studies |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 19 Aug 2015 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 14 Dec 2015 |
Keywords
- British cinema
- horror cinema
- spiritualism
- Seance on a Wet Afternoon
- woman's film
- melodrama
Profiles
-
Alison Peirse
- Theatre, Film, TV and Interactive Media - Lecturer in Writing for Screen and Stage, Former employee
Person: Academic