Abstract
This introduction defines Highway Horror. It discusses the sub-genre’s relationship to the road movie. It argues that while Highway Horror films often have elements in common with the road movie, their focus on the highway as a specific cultural landscape and upon the negative effects of mass automobility distinguishes them. Highway Horror’s connections to the wider American horror tradition are also explored. The chapter discusses the impact of the post-1956 establishment of the Interstate Highway System (IHS) and the significance of ‘mobility’ and ‘restlessness’ in the national psyche. It concludes by briefly outlining the topics considered in each chapter that follows.
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Notes
See B. Murphy (2009) The Suburban Gothic in American Popular Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).
See B. Murphy (2013) The Rural Gothic in American Popular Culture: Backwoods Horror and Terror in the Wilderness (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).
D. Laderman (2002) Driving Visions: Exploring the Road Movie (Austin: University of Texas Press) 15.
M. Dargis, cited in S. Cohan and I.R. Hark (1997) (eds) The Road Movie Book (London: Routledge) 1.
C. Lutz and A. Fernandez Lutz (2010) Car Jacked: The Culture of the Automobile and Its effects on Our Lives (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan) x.
R. Primeau (1996) The Romance of the Road: The Literature of the American Highway (Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Press) 51.
J.M. Jasper (2000) Restless Nation: Starting Over in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) 64.
B. Katz and R. Puentes (2005) Taking the High Road: A Metropolitan Agenda for Transport Reform (Washington: Brookings Institution Press) 259.
J. Rae (1971) The Road and the Car in American Life (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) 152.
M. Brottman (2001) (ed.) Car Crash Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001) xxvi.
L. Mumford (1964) The Highway and the City (Surrey: Bookprint Limited) 179.
T. Lewis (1997) Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways: Transforming American Life (New York: Viking Penguin) ix.
T. Corrigan (1991) A Cinema without Walls: Movies and Culture after Vietnam (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press) 143.
Laderman 2. See also J. Sargeant and S. Watson (1999) (eds) Lost Highways: An Illustrated History of the Road Movie (London: Creation Press) 6–7
S. Cohan and I. R. Hark (1997) (eds) The Road Movie Book (London: Routledge) 1.
J. Wood (2007) 100 Road Movies: BFI Screen Guides (London: BFI) xvii.
B. Ireland (2003) American Highways: Recurring Images and Themes of the Road Genre’ Journal of American Culture, Vol. 26, No. 4, 477.
R. Slotkin (1973) Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600–1860 (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press), 179.
L. Blake (2008) The Wounds of Nations: Horror Cinema, Historical Trauma, and National Identity (Manchester: Manchester University Press) 105.
K. Starr (2007) California: A History (New York: Random House) xi.
C. Seiler (2009) Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) 71.
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© 2014 Bernice M. Murphy
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Murphy, B.M. (2014). Introduction: Bumps in the Road: Defining the Highway Horror Film. In: The Highway Horror Film. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137391209_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137391209_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-48289-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-39120-9
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