In United States horror cinema, representations of Mexico—or more precisely, of fictional US characters’ experience of Mexico—have contributed to the imagined position of Mexico as a familiar yet subordinate and dangerous Other. Mexico and the US-Mexican borderlands are a locus of danger and tragedy par excellence, as the act of crossing the border embodies a movement toward the unknown. Even when it is initially depicted as a (commodified) paradise characterized by alluring nature, Mexico is shown to be an inhospitable place that endangers protagonists who, after struggling against it, either perish or return to the United States—whose image of moral and cultural superiority is thus reinforced. The geopolitical transformations Mexico has undergone since the mid-1990s are reflected in a number of films, sparked by a renewed interest in topics related to undocumented migration and cross-border organized crime. Focusing on 21st century cinema, this talk will tackle four main themes—Horrific Nature, Haunted Heritage, Borderland Savagery, and Migrant Horror—as seen in films such as BORDERLAND, THE RUINS, THE FOREVER PURGE, THE EYE (2008), and many more.
Anna Marta Marini is a PhD candidate and research fellow at the Universidad de Alcalá. Her dissertation delves into the representations of border-crossing, Whiteness, and the Mexican “other side” in US cinema. Her research focuses on representations of the US-Mexico borderlands, and on Mexican American heritage(s) and Mexican politics—focusing on states of exception, otherness, identity re/construction, and narration through cinema, comics, and literature, esp. in the horror, noir, and weird western genres. She is the president of the PopMeC Association for US Popular Culture Studies and chief editor of the journal REDEN dedicated to US popular culture and new media. She has organized several international conferences, among which 50+ Shades of Gothic: The Gothic Across Genre and Media in US Popular Culture (2021), Animals in the American Imagination (2022), Darkness in the American Imagination (2023), Frontiers and Wastelands: Redefining the Nation in US Popular Culture (2023). She is currently completing the monograph The US-Mexico Borderlands in Contemporary Horror: Crossing the Boundary (Edinburgh University Press, expected 2024).
