Gabriel Eljaiek-Rodríguez - Böcker

The story of La Llorona—the weeping spirit everyone recognizes but no one wants to face—has been passed down orally for hundreds of years, spanning nearly all of Latin America and tracing its origins to Mesoamerican myths. Yet despite her prevalence, La Llorona is far from the region’s only folkloric monster. Others, such as the Pishtaco, the Qarqacha, or the Curupira, have haunted Latin American cinema throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. Lloronas, Chupacabras, and Other Creatures: Latin American Folklore on Screen traces the representation of these creatures in Latin American horror films. Author Gabriel Eljaiek-Rodríguez analyzes how filmmakers translate oral folkloric legends into Latin American horror and the socio-political implications of a continent often portrayed as "monstrous." Focusing on different regions of Latin America, Eljaiek-Rodríguez looks at the ways filmmakers use folklore to preserve local traditions and confront colonial legacies. Through their depictions of local monsters, directors amplify decolonial narratives. They denounce gender violence, expose exploitation, and reclaim cultural pride. Compared to local perspectives, US and Eurocentric media often portrays these same creatures as signs of superstition, underdevelopment, or cultural inferiority, as in Chupacabra films and series like The X-Files, Supernatural, and Grimm. Positioned within the expanding field of global horror studies, this volume bridges film analysis, folklore, and cultural history, revealing how Latin American horror transforms folkloric monsters into vehicles of cultural critique, political resistance, and global storytelling.

The story of La Llorona—the weeping spirit everyone recognizes but no one wants to face—has been passed down orally for hundreds of years, spanning nearly all of Latin America and tracing its origins to Mesoamerican myths. Yet despite her prevalence, La Llorona is far from the region’s only folkloric monster. Others, such as the Pishtaco, the Qarqacha, or the Curupira, have haunted Latin American cinema throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. Lloronas, Chupacabras, and Other Creatures: Latin American Folklore on Screen traces the representation of these creatures in Latin American horror films. Author Gabriel Eljaiek-Rodríguez analyzes how filmmakers translate oral folkloric legends into Latin American horror and the socio-political implications of a continent often portrayed as "monstrous." Focusing on different regions of Latin America, Eljaiek-Rodríguez looks at the ways filmmakers use folklore to preserve local traditions and confront colonial legacies. Through their depictions of local monsters, directors amplify decolonial narratives. They denounce gender violence, expose exploitation, and reclaim cultural pride. Compared to local perspectives, US and Eurocentric media often portrays these same creatures as signs of superstition, underdevelopment, or cultural inferiority, as in Chupacabra films and series like The X-Files, Supernatural, and Grimm. Positioned within the expanding field of global horror studies, this volume bridges film analysis, folklore, and cultural history, revealing how Latin American horror transforms folkloric monsters into vehicles of cultural critique, political resistance, and global storytelling.

The Colombian Gothic in Cinema and Literature traces the aesthetic and political development of the Gothic genre in Colombia. Gabriel Eljaiek-Rodríguez shows how, in the hands of Colombian writers and filmmakers, Gothic tropes are taken to their extremes to reflect particularly Colombian issues, like the ongoing armed conflict in the country since the 1950s as various left wing guerillas, government factions and paramilitary groups escalated violence. In this context, collectives such as the “Cali group” challenge both the centrality of US and European Gothics as well as the centrality of Bogota-centered perspectives of Colombian politics and conflict. The book demonstrates how writers and filmmakers transform the European and American Gothic to show genealogical links between colonization, imperialism and domestic elites’ maintenance of social inequalities.

The Colombian Gothic in Cinema and Literature traces the aesthetic and political development of the Gothic genre in Colombia. Gabriel Eljaiek-Rodríguez shows how, in the hands of Colombian writers and filmmakers, Gothic tropes are taken to their extremes to reflect particularly Colombian issues, like the ongoing armed conflict in the country since the 1950s as various left wing guerillas, government factions and paramilitary groups escalated violence. In this context, collectives such as the “Cali group” challenge both the centrality of US and European Gothics as well as the centrality of Bogota-centered perspectives of Colombian politics and conflict. The book demonstrates how writers and filmmakers transform the European and American Gothic to show genealogical links between colonization, imperialism and domestic elites’ maintenance of social inequalities.

The Migration and Politics of Monsters in Latin America proposes a cinematic cartography of contemporary Latin American horror films that take up the idea of the American continent as a space of radical otherness, or monstrosity, and use it for political purposes.

This book traces a trend that has emerged in recent years within the modern panorama of American horror film and television, the concurrent—and often overwhelming—use of multiple stock characters, themes and tropes taken from classics of the genre.

This book traces a trend that has emerged in recent years within the modern panorama of American horror film and television, the concurrent—and often overwhelming—use of multiple stock characters, themes and tropes taken from classics of the genre.