University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2013 The Darker Angels Of Our Nature: The South In American Horror Film Steven Clayton Saunders University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the Film and Media Studies Commons Recommended Citation Saunders, Steven Clayton, "The Darker Angels Of Our Nature: The South In American Horror Film" (2013). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 882. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/882 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. THE DARKER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE THE SOUTH IN AMERICAN HORROR FILM A Thesis presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Southern Studies The University of Mississippi by Steven Saunders April 2013 Copyright Steven Saunders 2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT How does one make a region horrific? For well over half of a century, the American South has functioned as a site for national anxieties over race and modernization. This study uses an inter-disciplinary approach in order to understand the various forces involved in the construction of the South in American horror cinema. Particular attention is paid to the influence that images of the civil rights movement have had on the development and evolution of the South as a horrific and terrifying space for the rest of the nation. It focuses on four main subcategories of the genre: the white degenerate redneck, the Voodoo film, the natural horror film, and the post-modern horror parody.