Blood Circuits , livre ebook

BLOOD CIRCUITS
SUNY series in Latin American Cinema

Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado and Leslie L. Marsh, editors
BLOOD CIRCUITS
Contemporary Argentine Horror Cinema
JONATHAN RISNER
Cover image: Plaga zombie: Zona mutante – Revolución tóxica . Pablo Parés, Hernán Sáez, and Paulo Soria, dirs. © Farsa Producciones, 2011.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2018 State University of New York
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Printed in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Risner, Jonathan, author
Title: Blood circuits : contemporary Argentine horror cinema / Jonathan Risner, author.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2018] | Series: SUNY series in Latin American cinema | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781438470757 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438470771 (e-book)
Further information is available at the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Gretchen, Arno, and Ila
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Argentine Horror Cinema: A Constellation of Miracles
Chapter One
Reaches: The National and Transnational Coordinates of Argentine Horror Film Culture
Chapter Two
Telling Carnage: Spectacles and Spaces of Neoliberalism
Chapter Three
Cinematic Body Snatching: English-Language Argentine Horror Cinema and Systems of Paranoia
Chapter Four
Where Punk and Horror Meet: Argentine Punk/Horror, “Cine under,” and Gore as Affect
Chapter Five
Is It There? It’s Not There. Now It’s There.: Spectral Dynamics of the Last Dictatorship in Argentine Horror Cinema
Conclusion
Notes
Filmography
Bibliography
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS Table 1.1 Low-Budget Argentine Horror Films Table 1.2 YouTube Hits for Select Argentine Horror Films Table 1.3 Box-Office Performance by Commercially Released Argentine Horror Films Figure 2.1 Still from Plaga zombie: Zona mutante Figure 2.2 Still from No moriré sola Figure 3.1 Still from Death Knows Your Name Figure 3.2 Still from Dead Line Figure 4.1 Still from Sadomaster 2: Locura general Figure 4.2 Still from Goreinvasión Figure 5.1 Still from Jennifer’s Shadow Figure 5.2 Still from The Last Gateway Figure 5.3 DVD cover of Crónica de una fuga Figure 5.4 Still from Crónica de una fuga
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“Me. We.” Muhammad Ali’s verse, allegedly the shortest poem ever composed, lays bare how Blood Circuits was realized with the help of many. Writing about Argentine horror cinema has been a protracted and ongoing labor of love and simply would not have been possible without the generous help of strangers, the poignant criticism and suggestions by colleagues, and the encouragement and laughter of friends. While no one can bear responsibility for the errors herein, I owe a lot.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, María DeGuzmán, Joanne Hershfield, Juan Carlos González-Espitia, and Greg Flaxman were instrumental in laying the groundwork for the project. Likewise, Eric Downing, Sam Amago, Alice Kuzniar, and Will Nolan opened up new lines of inquiry and exercised considerable influence in shaping my approach to criticism.
I could not ask for better and more supportive colleagues than those at Indiana University Bloomington. In the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Anke Birkenmaier, Andrés Guzmán, Olimpia Rosenthal, Patrick Dove, Melissa Dinverno, Luciana Namorato, Deborah Cohn, Estela Vieira, Alejandro Mejías-López, Kathleen Myers, Darlene Sadlier, Ryan Giles, Reyes Vila-Belda, Edgar Illas, and Steve Wagschal have consistently provided guidance and acted as soundboards for this project and various other pursuits. I am especially grateful to Steve for allowing me to develop and teach cinema courses in which graduate and undergraduate students occasionally have encountered Argentine horror cinema and its pleasures and unpleasures. Also at Indiana University Bloomington, Shane Greene, Morten Oxenbøll, and Michael Crandol lent a helpful ear or eye to Blood Circuits at various stages of gestation. Elsewhere in the academic universe, Tamara Falicov was a catalyst for this project from its outset and offered encouragement and sound advice. Juana Suárez has long been a valued mentor and friend, and was always helpful with suggestions. I am amazed and humbled by the generosity of the horror, cine bizarro , “cine under,” and genre cinema communities in Argentina. Their love for cinema is remarkable and downright infectious. Scores of individuals were willing to graciously provide their insights into the status of horror cinema in Argentina, and I am eternally grateful for their help: Pablo Sapere, Carina Rodríguez, Demián Rugna, Hernán Moyano, Hernán Sáez, Paulo Soria, Walter Cornás, Nicanor Loreti, Pablo Parés, Axel Kuschevatsky, Sebastián Tabany, Fabián Forte, Matías Raña, Javier Diment, Carlos de la Fuente, Germán Magariños, Alejo Rébora, Daniela Giménez, Marcelo Leguiza, Lisandro Berenguer, Gonzalo Quintana, and Paula Pollachi. Beyond Argentina, Todd Brown from Screen Anarchy , Raymond Murray at Artsploitation, and Ray Perez at Alebrije Entertainment answered questions that allowed a better understanding of how Argentine horror circulates in the United States and elsewhere.
Crucial institutional support came from the Department of English and Comparative Literature and the Institute for the Study of the Americas, both at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At Indiana University Bloomington, a research travel grant from the College Arts and Humanities Institute also was decisive in the realization of this project, and Blood Circuits is partially funded by the Office of the Vice Provost of Research at Indiana University Bloomington through the Grant-in-Aid Program.
I would like to thank Beth Bouloukos, Rafael Chaiken, Kate Seburyamo, Jenn Bennett, and others at SUNY Press for their astute guidance. Many thanks are due to the anonymous readers whose suggestions were instrumental in developing Blood Circuits .
My families—immediate and otherwise—have always been a source of unstinting support. My parents have long encouraged me in my various pursuits, and I owe them the world. My siblings, Eric and Amelia, consistently offer encouragement as do my extended family: Scott, Lucy, and Will; John; and Martha and Ray. Arno and Ila provide endless moments of joy, anarchy, and unforeseen comedy while ensuring there is a world beyond toil and Dad’s “inappropriate” movies. Last, Gretchen has been a steadfast partner and constant source of love and support in this journey. This book would not exist without her.
Select parts of chapters 1 and 3 originally appeared in an article published in volume 7, issue 1 of Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinema . A version of the first section in chapter 2 appeared in Spanish in a collection of essays titled Horrofílmico (2012), published by Isla Negra. A version of the first section in chapter 5 appeared in a collection titled Filme in Argentinien / Argentine Cinema (2012), published by LIT Verlag. I am grateful to the journals, publishing houses, and editors for granting me permission to reprint parts of those essays here.
INTRODUCTION
ARGENTINE HORROR CINEMA
A Constellation of Miracles
In June of 2008, I briefly ventured to Buenos Aires to research Argentine horror cinema after reading about several low-budget productions in Variety . Shortly before departing from Buenos Aires, I entered Mondo macabro , a small store that sat tucked inside an unassuming galería comercial on Avenida Corrientes. Now shuttered, Mondo macabro was a horror/fantasy movie store that provided me with a confounding firsthand introduction to Argentine horror cinema and how its cultural and economic links stretch out to parts known and unknown. Entering the store, DVD and VHS cases lined the shelves with fantasy, exploitation, science-fiction, and horror films from all over the world. Amid the cases, Argentine horror titles that I had read about online caught my eye: La casa de las siete tumbas /“The House of the Seven Tombs” (Pedro Stocki, 1982), Chronicle of a Raven (aka, Jennifer’s Shadow ; Daniel de la Vega and Pablo Parés, 2004), The Last Gateway (Demián Rugna, 2007), Habitaciones para turistas / Rooms for Tourists (Adrián García Bogliano, 2004), and Plaga zombie (Pablo Parés and Hernán Sáez, 1997), among others. 1 I asked the clerk if it would be possible to purchase copies of the films, and he explained I could give him some pesos to receive a bootlegged version by the week’s end. Since I was leaving Buenos Aires the next day, I refrained. The clerk asked where I was from, and I answered, “Los Estados Unidos.” He explained that the more recent Argentine horror movies in the store were distributed in the United States and just as easily could be purchased there. Dumbfounded, I thanked him for pointing this out, and conti