Studies in Groovy Gothic Cinema: Trash, Horror, and the Hemispheric Sixties

This book explores low-budget horror and exploitation movies produced in filmmaking capitals of the Western Hemisphere.

Among these are Mexican monsters films, Brazilian psychedelia, Argentine sci-fi, Canadian splatter, and Hollywood grindhouse. Barrenechea argues horror produced in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, and Hollywood has a common basis in Universal's black-and-white creature features from the Great Depression. The Universal model grounds an inquiry into inter-American exploitation cinema, primary focusing on cinema that captures the rise of the sixties counterculture and youth-oriented lifestyles.

A new counterculture horror cinema harnessed the zeitgeist through liberal doses of sex, blood, and music. Yet, because of the association with vulgar taste, shoestring budgets, and cheap thrills, most cinema histories neglect them. This book places Film Studies and Comparative American Studies into a new conversation involving exploitation cinema. It targets an American hemispheric tradition, and discusses how art and trash intersect in undisciplined ways.

This approach yields a messier-and more inclusive-cinema history that urges scholars to bracket their political suspicions in order to trace complex movements.Each chapter in the book follows a different approach to cinema and archives, including studio histories, monster universes, hot/cold variants for different markets, auteurs fighting dictatorship and censorship, and retro analog film culture.