Brazilian Horror Cinema in the Twenty-First Century

Brazil's pressing socio-political questions as seen through the country's horror-film-influenced audio-visual production between 2008 and 2022.

Since the 2008 release of Embodiment of Evil, the third instalment in the Coffin Joe trilogy, which began with At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul, Brazil's audiovisual industry has been producing an increasing number of unsettling, often violent and frequently dystopian films, reflecting the wide-ranging social, cultural, environmental and economic problems the country is facing.

This edited volume by scholars from Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States discusses a broad selection of Brazilian audio-visual productions released between 2008 and 2022 which, through their use of aesthetic and narrative devices borrowed from horror cinema, shed light on the country's pressing socio-political questions. Mostly by first-time directors, these productions bear witness to a second 'Golden Age' of Brazilian horror cinema (reflected in new, specialised festivals such as CineFantasy, RioFan, CRASH and Fantaspoa) and ultimately serve to illustrate, in audio-visual form, the tensions at the heart of Brazilian society in the second decade of the twenty-first century.