LEAVE OR REMAIN: THE SPECTRE OF BREXIT IN MODERN BRITISH HORROR FILMS
LECTURE BY ALEX WEST
When the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in 2016, many were wary of the prospects that lay ahead. The world could only stand by and watch as a global power wrestled with a monster of its own making.
However, many British filmmakers could sense something was afoot well before 2016 and pulled from their rich history to explore the ideas of identity, nationality, and the family unit through the horror genre.
Brexit, through endless discourse across multiple platforms, has become emblematic of the tension of what has been historically repressed and how it inevitably returns. By examining Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2002), Ben Wheatley’s Kill List (2011), Remi Weekes’ His House (2020) and Alex Garland’s Men (2022) this lecture will explore the historical influence Paganism, folk horror and the decline of an empire has had on British horror films over the last two decades. (Alex West)
This lecture originated at The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies.