Postmodern

Gothic

"It Was Just Like a Movie."

The Defining Features of Postmodern Gothic

In Modernism, reality used to validate media. In Postmodernism, the media validates reality. If
you don't believe this, just think how many times you've described some real event as being
"just like a movie." (Brad Holland)

Postmodern Gothic is a very particular kind of Gothic. It is a fairly new development in the
nearly 300-year-old life of the Gothic fiction; Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House
from 1959 may be one of the earliest examples of postmodern Gothic but even Hamlet can be
considered a postmodern progenitor in that it plays with language and form. Even though it is
relatively new as a genre it is actually a perfect fit because "some of the issues that are
explored separately in Gothic and postmodernist fiction, are one and the same, namely: crises
of identity, fragmentation of the self, the darkness of the human psyche, and the philosophy
of being and knowing" (Belville 2009, 53). However, it becomes important to define the
postmodern Gothic to establish a line where postmodern Gothic ends and Gothicpostmodernisma very similar, but different genrestarts. This is the aim of this essay.
To this end this essay is divided into two parts: the first part briefly explains the
similarities between the terms Gothic and postmodernism before bringing them together and
highlighting the key features of postmodern Gothic as opposed to the similar Gothicpostmodernism. The second part demonstrates the different features with regard to two texts
and two movies, namely Bret Easton Elllis' Lunar Park, Mary Harron's adaption of Ellis'
American Psycho (2000), the short story "Gemcrack" by Jayne Anne Phillips, and John
Carpenter's alien invasion movie The Thing (1982).

Postmodern Gothic

Part I: Defining Postmodern Gothic

From the Gothic to Postmodernism

The term Gothic is old enough to have established a relatively stable, though broad,
definition but in light of its relationship to postmodernism it requires some attention. In her
book on the Gothic-postmodernism, Maria Beville analyzes "Gothic in terms of oppositions
and confrontations: life and death; good and evil; human and monstrous; male and female;
self and other; past and present; fiction and reality and so on [] The Gothic functions to
blur the distinctions that exist when oppositions such as these are presented" (2009, 41).
Although it is possible to find binary oppositions in almost all literary genres and critical
approaches,

Beville's

statement

shows

Gothic's

deeply

rooted

connection

with

postmodernism, which, also, "erodes binary oppositions" (Pinedo 1996, 18), or in Hutcheon's
words: "we hear of discontinuity, disruption, dislocation, decentring, indeterminacy, and
antitotalization. What all of these words literally do [] is incorporate that which they aim to
contestas does, I suppose, the term postmodernism itself" (1988, 3).
Furthermore, the Gothic genre "was a prelude to both psychoanalytic and
deconstructive theories, rallying behind the dispersal of constructed systems of meaning that
function to impose hierarchies of being based on difference and silence. It became the true
voice for that which is unspeakable; unrepresentable" (Beville 2009, 41), which is an idea
that the postmodernist Jean-Franois Lyotard took one step further by saying that "it is not up
to us to provide reality but to invent allusions to what is conceivable but not representable"
(1992, 24).
These allusions, then, take the form of monsters in Gothic fiction, at first distanced
"from everyday life by locating them in an exotic time or place" (Pinedo 1996, 19) but later,
as postmodernism started to influence the Gothic, the monster could be found "in a

Postmodern Gothic

contemporary American city, sometimes a small town, thus drawing the danger closer to
home" (Pinedo 1996, 19), "and in doing so, the dark underside of humanity is put on display
with all its hate, greed and prejudice laid bare, for the 'human' reader who is often unaware of
his or her own monstrosity. Gothic discourse can subsequently be seen as giving a voice to
this dark side of what could be termed our collective unconscious" (Beville 2009, 41-42).
This links in to the postmodern idea of "the breakdown of moral clarities" (Todd Gitlin
quoted in Pinedo 1996, 17), which, in turn, refers back to Hutcheon's "discontinuity,
disruption, dislocation, decentring, indeterminacy, and antitotalization", i.e., the breaking
down of boundaries, categories, master narratives, and institutions (Pinedo 1996, 17-18), all
of which are markers of postmodern culture. The cycle is complete with Belville's remark
that "Gothic literature has over the centuries, developed its own subversive language, or
'counter-narrative'" (2009, 41), which is the equivalent to the decentralization and the loss of
grand narratives. Now that the key similarities between the Gothic and postmodernism are
explained it is, paradoxically, vital to dissect them again in order to make out what belongs to
the postmodern Gothic and what is deemed Gothic-postmodernism.

Postmodern Gothic Versus Gothic-Postmodernism

At first sight it might seem like both terms denote the same genre but Belville makes an
important observation by saying that "Gothic-postmodernism is not, although it is closely
related to, the 'postmodern Gothic'" (2009, 51). She notes that "'Gothic' is the adjective of the
term" (2009, 51) Gothic-postmodernism, and, in turn, 'postmodern' can be considered the
adjective of the term postmodern Gothic. The difference established by switching the terms is
quite significant. Gothic-postmodernism, with its descriptive term 'Gothic', "functions to
fulfil the expression of the darkness of postmodernity" (Belville 2009, 16); it is a genre that
encompasses all "literary postmodernist texts that are distinctly Gothic" (Belville 2009, 51).

Postmodern Gothic

Postmodern Gothic, on the other hand, is first and foremost a Gothic text, which includes
strong postmodern features. Its purpose is not primarily to "[voice] the terrors of
postmodernity" (Belville 2009, 8) but rather to voice the terrors and fears of 'self' towards
'other' in a postmodern culture that serves to fill the gap between the 'self' and the horror.
Belville adds that "awareness of terror, terrorism and death via media representation has
become a source of cultural fear" (2009, 23) as well.
Here are three examples to make this distinction clearer: Paul Auster's City of Glass is
a perfect example of a Gothic-postmodern text; it would not be considered a Gothic text in
itself because it is primarily a postmodern novel but, as Belville points out, Auster
demonstrates "the deeper issue of the lingering emotion of terror as it relates to loss of reality
and self, and to death" (2009, 10), which puts this novel into the realm of the Gothicpostmodernism.
On the other end of the scaleand it must be considered a scale because both terms
are too closely related to always be able to make out whether a text is either one or the
otherAmerica Psycho can easily be thought of as a postmodern Gothic example because it
belongs to the slasher film genre, which often features a psychopathic serial killer. However,
it relies heavily on postmodernism to illuminate the crisis of identity of protagonist and
psychopath Patrick Bateman, which makes this a distinctly postmodern Gothic text.
Belville points out Lunar Park as one example that "fluctuates between two genres
and its classification [] is dependent on the 'inbetweenness' achieved in this movement"
(2009, 58); at some parts it tends to be very Gothic and at other times it is totally postmodern.
Having distinguished between Gothic-postmodernism and postmodern Gothic the next step is
to define the key features of the latter.

Postmodern Gothic

Key Features of the Postmodern Gothic

Although Beville's book deals with Gothic-postmodernism, she strikes up a few points that
are just as important to postmodern Gothic. Significantly, there is the violation of boundaries,
the erosion of binary oppositions, and "a rejection of overarching concepts of truth and
reality" (2009, 23). This is fundamental to both Gothic and postmodernism, as well as both of
its joint terms. This will be the primary focus in the discussion of Lunar Park. Binary
oppositions such as reality/fiction, truth/lies, and Ellis as author/Ellis as protagonist are just
some of the major boundaries that are crossed oftenbut always with intention. Pinedo adds
some general boundaries that are crossed, especiallybut not exclusivelyin horror films:
the lines between "living and dead [vampires and zombies], normal and abnormal [body
horror], human and alien [The Thing], and good and evil [American Psycho] are blurred and
sometimes indistinguishable" (1996, 20). Overall, then, this feature "aims at leading the
reader to the general conclusion that truth, reality and experience are in essence purely
subjective and personal" (Beville 2009, 48).
A second feature of the postmodern Gothic draws heavily from postmodernism but
really comes to life in the realm of horror and Gothic. It can manifest itself as comical
exaggeration, parody, irony, or superficiality and usually privileges style over substance and
spectacle over seriousness; the overarching theme is one of playfulness. Interestingly, this
feature is at the heart of many horror movies, novels and comic books.1
All of this shows that "[t]he fiction of the creating subject gives way to the frank
confiscation, quotation, excerptation, accumulation and repetition of already existing images.
Notions of originality, authenticity and presence [] are undermined" (Crimp 1983, 53
quoted in Hutcheon 1988, 11). This postmodern playfulness is so at home in the Gothic and
horror genre because it really enables the authors, writers, directors, and even fans to play
with the original. Part of this feature are "open-ended narratives, minimal plot and character

Postmodern Gothic

development, and, relatedly, the difficulty of audience identification with undeveloped and
unlikable characters" (Tania Modleski quoted in Pinedo 1996, 18). Since this is quite a broad
feature it will be split between American Psycho and The Thing. The discussion of American
Psycho will focus on the elements of superficiality and parody, while open-endedness and
originality are the main focal point of the analysis of The Thing.
The third, and for this essay last, key feature is based on David Punter's concept of the
"sliding of location" (2005, 170). For him Gothic "has always had to do with disruptions of
scale and perspective" (2005, 170) and he suggests that "in the numerous conjunctions of
Gothic and the postmodern [there is] a certain sliding of location, a series of transfers and
translocations from one place to another, so that our sense of the stability of the map is
forever under further siege" (2005, 170). This can be taken quite literally in that, instead of
the Gothic castle, there now are hotels, suburban homes, and cities but on another level it
links into the crisis of identity and disruption of the 'self'. In the postmodern era "the
psychotic killer's inexplicable violent rampage has supplanted the traditional monster of
castles and closed ending" (Pinedo 1996, 20), which answers Punter's rhetorical question of
"what has happened to the Gothic castle" (2005, 170); it has moved into a contemporary
space and its horroror monsterlives on in the serial killer or psychopath. Jayne Anne
Phillips' short story "Gemcrack" is a perfect example of this feature as it dissects the location
known as New York City. Now that the major features of postmodern Gothic are explained
the essay moves to the second part to analyze four examples of postmodern Gothic, each with
regard to one specific feature.

Part II: Analyzing the Key Features of Postmodern Gothic

Violating Boundaries: Lunar Park's Struggle for Truth

Postmodern Gothic

Regardless of how horrible the events described here might seem, there's one thing you must
remember as you hold this book in your hands: all of it really happened, every word is true.
(Ellis 2005, 45)

Every word is true? Of course it is not. Ellis2 blurs the line between fact and fiction to such
an extent that it becomes an immense problem for the reader to make out what is true and
what is not. Pinter says that "[t]here are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is
unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or
false; it can be both true and false" (1977, 11). Analyzing Lunar Park's struggle for truth may
shed some light on this issue.
Throughout the novel Ellis spreads hints that question the truth of the entire story: "As
a writer, it was easy for me to dream up the more viable scenario than the one that had
actually played itself out [] you slant all evidence in favor of the conclusions you want to
produce and you rarely tilt in favor of the truth" (217).3 Does this mean that the story is
fiction, that not "every word is true"?
Adam Phillips says that "Ellis is more convinced than most contemporary novelists
that the real is what we want to turn away from, and that the reader, by the same token, will
only go on reading as long as the writer has made it all seem fake" (2005) but is this really
the case for Lunar Park? Unarguably, Bret attempts to make the reader believe everything
really happened, he says, "I've decided against wearing masks [] I want to be real honey
(46) but maybe he does not know the truth either, "You're not a fictional character, are you,
Mr. Ellis?" (185).
There is one passage, however, that comments on this constant interplay and,
probably, reveals more about the truth than all the other statements: "I realized the grim fact
that as hard as you try, you can hide the truth from children for only an indefinite period, and

Postmodern Gothic

even if you do tell them the truth, and lay out the facts for them honestly and completely,
they will still resent you for it" (241). Phillips asks, "can you keep the truth from yourself as
an adult?" (2005) and as it turns out this does not matter because Ellis makes it impossible for
the reader to establish truth because "[h]ow can a fictional thing become real?" (368).
In terms of metafiction Lunar Park ups the ante; Ellis the author writes the novel
Lunar Park, just like Bret the character writes the novel Lunar Park and on top of that Ellis
has created an alter ego for Bret which is just called "the writer" and serves to give additional
information, fill in gaps"something happened that I don't remember. The writer filled in the
blanks" (370)and frequently converses with him, often to reflect on something that Bret is
thinking about, e.g., "Hadn't you once wanted to 'see the worst'? the writer asked me. Didn't
you once write that somewhere? I might have. But I don't want to anymore. It's too late, the
writer said" (371). All of these layers of writing and fiction just reveal that Lunar Park's
struggle for truth is not a struggle at all, on the contrary, Ellis intentionally confuses the
readership to make them realize that there is no ultimate truth, a distinct feature at the heart of
postmodern Gothic.

Killing in Style: Parody and Superficiality in American Psycho

Look at that subtle off-white coloring; the tasteful thickness of it. Oh my God, it even has a
watermark. (American Psycho)

American Psycho is a very versatile movie that "leaks into differing categories,
demonstrating characteristics of comedy, autobiography, spoof horror, bleak social
commentary, conventional horror, and pornography" (Helyer 2000, 741). This movie, much
like the novel it is adapted from, touches on almost all major postmodern Gothic features but
it really shines in the way it parodies itself, consumer society, capitalism, and, of course,

Postmodern Gothic

horror narrative in general. Riquelme says that "[t]he tendency toward excess is typical of the
Gothic, which regularly comes close to parody or self-parody" (2000, 599) but parody is also
"a perfect postmodern form, in some senses, for it paradoxically both incorporates and
challenges that which it parodies" (Hutcheon 1988, 11). This roots parody equally strong in
both realms, which is why it is so at home in postmodern Gothic novels and, especially,
movies. The analysis of parody in American Psycho focuses on the way it reveals the
superficiality of a consumer society as well as the way in which it parodies horror narratives
generally and specifically.
At the beginning of the movie Patrick gives a detailed account of his facial hygiene
routine: "I use a deep-pore cleanser lotion. In the shower I use a water-activated gel cleanser,
then a honey almond body scrub and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an
herb mint facial mask, which I leave on for ten minutes while I prepare the rest of my
routine". This is just part of his facial hygiene. He also "dresses impeccably in extortionately
priced designer clothing [] routinely exercises [and lives] in his exquisitely furnished
luxury apartment" (Helyer 2000, 735). He is completely obsessed with superficial things, or
as he puts it: "There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of an abstraction, but there is
no real me". This, obviously, goes back to the question of what is real and what is not but it
also shows that Patrick's identity depends wholly on outside influences; there is "an obsession,
with the relationship between surface and depth, exterior and interior" (Sderlind 2008, 64).
Throughout the whole movie "Patrick's only desire is to 'fit in'" (Sderlind 2008, 66), he
hangs out with equally superficial acquaintances, is obsessed with trying to get a reservation
for the 'hottest' restaurant, and almost explodes when he sees that Paul Allen has a much
better business card than he does; this is one of the many exaggerated scenes of the movie
that not just "borders [] on the comical" (Riquelme 2000, 600) but, more importantly,
criticizes today's obsession with superficial and material things; it criticizes consumerism.

Postmodern Gothic

10

The Gothic side of this movie is equally exaggerated, to the point where Patrick's
"frightening side is so excessive it can border on the comical" (Helyer 2000, 730) as well.
The violent acts "are so over the top, so filmic, even comic-book [sic] in the details that we
are given [e.g. the nail gun] that it seems like something he has taken from a book or a film"
(Storey 2005). A memorable scene is when the prostitute Christie tries to escape from Patrick,
while he is chasing her completely naked with only a chainsawan homage to The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre (1974), which he was watching earlier on: "In a poetic moment, he drops
the chainsaw at exactly the right moment, and watches as it falls to impale and tear through
'Christie' just as she is closest to actual escape" (Murphet 2002, 76).
Overall, "[t]he excesses of American Psycho might appear to put it in a class virtually
by itself or to make it a parody of horror narrative, like the movie Scream" (Riquelme 2000,
599). In a perfectly postmodern and Gothic fashion this movie shows that the "self [] is
identified by a label or logo that has the same meaningor the same lack of meaning
irrespective of to whom or what it is attached" (Sderlind 2008, 66). It is almost impossible
not to take part in the postmodern culture of consumerism but one should be careful that it
does not consume oneself.

"Gemcrack", or, Location, Location, Location

You see me everywhere. I spit on the surface of night, on the rattling backdrops of subway
gutter art. I suck you up like erasers. I am that glittering drop of mercury spilled out a broken
glass stick. Mark me in numbers and names of the dead. (Phillips 1981, 254)

The unnamed narrator and serial killer of Phillips' short story "Gemcrack" is particularly
interesting because of the way he identifies with the city of New York. Just like Patrick
Bateman, the serial killer in this story "connects his geographic location, the city, with his

Postmodern Gothic

11

state of mind" (Helyer 2000, 731) and his state of mind is fractured and broken; he seems to
be everywhere at the same time: "I know the accountant's language of knuckles and swivel
chairs, the jostling streets, the department store blues of floorwalkers and lyric radios, the
sweat of laundress scheming in powders and starch, the burger joints deemed blessed by girls
in their thin legs" (254). As he himself says: "Mostly I'm invisible" (261). He is everywhere
and nowhere. Punter says that "[t]he postmodern [] envisages a 'spatial subject'not, that
is to say, a subject which can pass through neutral space, whether hindered or unhindered, but
a subject that is indelibly composed of its own location, that cannot be separated from, or
separate itself from, its own 'background'" (2005, 171)in this case this background is the
city, which the narrator is unable to separate himself from.
It is very clear, then, that the city is bound to the narrator. He might have an
apartment but he also lives "in the gutters of dog manure, wine and urine" (255). He worships
the city like a god"we pray for these great states, for the Great states of the City of New
York" (253)but he also refers to it as garbage, "[t]he Bronx smelled of garbage left in a
heat, smelled of a whole city wasting" (264). It's a dirty and filthy location (Jarvis 2001, 193).
The narrator's unhealthy and mad relationship with the city makes it all the more clear that he
cannot "'get away' at all" (Punter 2005, 185). There is, however, one place that clearly stands
out, a location that does not belong to the city: home.
Punter's idea of the sliding of location refers primarily to the trope of the Gothic castle,
which represents the horror and haunting, but in this story the other side of this coin, namely
homethought of as a safe place, a sanctuaryslides as well. Instead of referring to his
apartment as his home he frequently associates death with home, "I turn, squeeze off a quick
shot and the girl half dazed on sidewalk falls over, lays down like she's home" (253). If death
can be considered a location, and the narrator certainly does, than this shows that he wishes
to be dead, "Sometime, someone will see and follow me. I'll say they found me with special

Postmodern Gothic

12

eyes; I'll say they have grown up in light" (265). What remains is a subtler but nonetheless
important part of postmodern Gothic, namely the fractured 'self'. The narrator of this story is
simply mad and crazy, his home is the afterlife, and although he is everywhere, he remains
invisiblemostly.

The Thing Has no End in Sight

Childs: What do we do now?

MacReady: Why don't we just wait here for a little while? See what happens. (The Thing)

It is very unlikely that MacReady and Childs are still sitting in the Antarctica, waiting for
something to happen but the more important questions is: What are they waiting for? Maybe
they are waiting for a sequel, or a remake, or, illogically, a prequel? As a matter of fact a
prequel with the same name, The Thing (2011), is supposed to come out at the end of 2011.
John Carpenter's movie, however, is already a remake of a movie from 1951,4 which is
already an adaption from a story by John W. Campbell Jr. The Thing is certainly not the only
franchise that "forces a reconsideration of the idea of origin an originality" (Hutcheon 1988,
11).
As already mentioned, the last decades gave rise to an enormous amount of spoofs,
spin-offs, remakes, prequels, sequels and so forth. They are all more or less successful,
otherwise there would not be this culture of remakes. This is a very postmodern feature that
"entrenche[s] the originals even more deeply within the canon of horror cinema" (Hantke
2007, 197). Every author, every director, puts their own spin on it, demonstrating a new
viewpoint or, much more often, just supplying the viewers with what they want to see. The
Friday the 13th franchise is most iconic in this regard, with over a dozen reincarnations. One
might say that "students will learn more about horror film in the first fifty years of the 20th

Postmodern Gothic

13

century than about the last twenty years" (Hantke 2007, 200), and it is hard to argue against
this, but the problem is that the classics are not as accessible and they almost always fail to
engage the channel-hopping and special-effects-addicted young crowd of this day and age.
With any luck, these remakes may lead the young audience to find joy in the old classics:
"Now is as good a time as any to revisit the originals" (Rabin 2011).
Postmodernism also brought with it the concept of the open-ended narrative. In the
case of The Thing "the studio asked Carpenter to film a happy ending, he never reportedly
never [sic] showed it to test audiences. Carpenter sadistically avoids giving audiences any
relief throughout the film; why would he change course at the last moment?" (Rabin 2011).
This open-endedness plays a crucial part in opening the gates to a flood of remakes, sequels
and prequels, suggesting that it is never just one story, just one movie, but rather part of a
whole web of stories, all interwoven and connected. Childs and MacReady do not have to
wait much longer before the prequel to their story begins but they will probably never see the
end of the entire series.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this essay has defined and analyzed the major features of postmodern Gothic,
namely parody, originality, violation of boundaries and the crisis of 'self'. This is not to say
that all the features were covered; intertextuality and self-referentiality, for example, are also
quite important but they belong more to the postmodern side than the Gothic side and hence
do not play a key role in postmodern Gothic, as opposed to Gothic-postmodernism where it,
surely, plays an important part.
This essay's title denotes a particular movement in postmodernism that moves the
Gothic from the book to the screen. Written stories, obviously, play an important part in

Postmodern Gothic

14

postmodernism but because postmodernism favors popular/mass/low culture over

artsy/niche/high culture the screen is a much more suitable choice for postmodern Gothic,
evident in the fact that there are almost always remakes, spin-offs, sequels and so on. Like
Bret says in Lunar Park, "I did not immediately turn away [] because it seemed fake, like
something I had seen in a movie" (401). Whether fake or not, fact or fiction, real or unreal,
postmodern Gothic is a perfect mix of two conceptseach of which with its own audience.
The evolution from Gothic to postmodernism makes sense and whether it manifests as
Gothic-postmodernism or postmodern Gothic is probably not as important as the fact that
both genres deal with a similar problem: the issues and problems of 'self' in the context of a
contemporary setting to reveal that the true terror is always within and not without.

Postmodern Gothic

15

Endnotes

1. Many of the successful horror movies of the last decades gave rise to remakes
(Dawn of the Dead from 1978 and 2004), prequels and sequels (Friday the 13th from 1980 to
2009), parodies of classic horror movies (Scream 1-4, 1996-2011) or even parodies of
parodies of classic horror movies (Scary Movie 1-4, 2000-2006) as well as spin-offs and
crossovers, for example with comic books (30 Days of Night graphic novel from 2002 and its
film adaption from 2007). With regard to novels the recent development of horror 'mash-ups'
of classic stories come to mind (Jane Slayre from 2010 or Sense and Sensibility and Sea
Monsters from 2009).
2. To avoid confusion the name Bret will be used for the character in the novel while
the name Ellis will be used with regard to the actual author.
3. From this point onward single page numbers will refer to primary texts while no intext quotations refer to the primary movies.
4. In a sarcastic fashion Hantke discusses the issue of The Thing franchise: "At what
must be considered the bottom of the slump, even remakes of remakes are possible now; the
recent announcement of a new version of 'John Carpenter's The Thing' in The Guardian, for
example, omits any reference to Christian Nybys The Thing from Another World (1951). As
the boundary between original and remake vanishes, all concepts of originality, genealogy, or
history go out the window as well. One wonders how long it will take, after this latest remake
has been released, until someone will begin thinking about remaking the remake of John
Carpenter's remake of The Thing from Another World. And after that, if the money's right,
remaking that one . . . and after that . . . sky's the limit!" (2007, 192).

Postmodern Gothic

16

Works Cited

Primary Sources
American Psycho. 2000. Written and directed by Mary Harron: Lions Gate Films.
Ellis, Bret Easton. 2005. Lunar Park. London: Picador.
Phillips, Jayne Anne. 1993. "Gemcrack." In Black Tickets, 253-265 London: Faber.
The Thing. 1982. Directed by John Carpenter and written by John W. Campbell Jr. and Bill
Lancaster: Universal Pictures.

Secondary Sources
Beville, Maria. 2009. Gothic-postmodernism: Voicing the Terrors of Postmodernity. Vol. 43
of Postmodern Studies, edited by The D'haen and Hans Bertens. New York, NY and
Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Crimp, Douglas. 1983. "On the Museum's Ruins." In The Anti-aesthetic: Essays on
Postmodern Culture, edited by Hal Foster, 43-56. Seattle, Washington: Bay Press.
Hantke, Steffen. 2007. "Academic Film Criticism, the Rhetoric of Crisis, and the Current
State of American Horror Cinema: Thoughts on Canonicity and Academic Anxiety."
College Literature 34 (4): 191-202.
Helyer, Ruth. 2000. "Parodied to Death: The Postmodern Gothic of American Psycho." MFS
Modern Fiction Studies 46 (3): 725-746.
Hutcheon, Linda. 1988. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. New York,
NY and London: Routledge.
Jarvis, Brian. 2001. "How Dirty Is Jayne Anne Phillips?" The Yearbook of English Studies
31: 192-204.

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17

Lyotard, Jean-Franois. 1992. The Postmodern Explained to Children, translated by Julian

Pefanis et al. London: Turnaround.
Murphet, Julian. 2002. Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho: A Reader's Guide. New York,
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Phillips, Adam. 2005. "Remember Me." London Review of Books, December 1. Accessed 23
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Pinedo, Isabel. 1996. "Recreational Terror: Postmodern Elements of the Contemporary
Horror Film." Journal of Film and Video 48 (1/2): 17-31.
Pinter, Harold. 1977. Introduction to Complete Works: One. Vol. 1 of Complete Works. New
York, NY: Grove Press.
Punter, David. 2005. The Influence of Post-modernism on Contemporary Writing: An
Interdisciplinary Study. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellon Press.
Rabin, Nathan. 2011. "The Thing From Another World/The Thing." A.V. Club, February 28.
Accessed 12 Mai, 2011. http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-thing-from-anotherworldthe-thing,52444/.
Riquelme, John Paul. 2000. "Toward a History of Gothic and Modernism: Dark Modernity
From Bram Stoker to Samuel Beckett." MFS Modern Fiction Studies 46 (3): 585-605.
Sderlind, Sylvia. 2008. "Branding the Body American: Violence and Self-fashioning from
The Scarlet Letter to American Psycho." Canadian Review of American Studies 38
(1): 63-81.
Storey, Mark. 2005. "'And as things fell apart': The Crisis of Postmodern Masculinity in Bret
Easton Ellis's American Psycho and Dennis Cooper's Frisk." Critique 47 (1).