Abject Births and the Monstrous-Feminine in Álex de la Iglesia’s Witching and Bitching and 30 Coins

It is common to find maternal elements at the core of many recent Spanish horror narratives. These maternal discourses have been explored from a variety of approaches, from an excessive wish for motherhood to biological, failed and even monstrous motherhoods. This article focuses on the latter, anal...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Baena-Cuder, Irene
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Sevilla (US)
Repositorio:idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
OAI Identifier:oai:idus.us.es:11441/180468
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/11441/180468
https://doi.org/10.31009/cc.2025.v13.i25.09
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Spanish horror
Motherhood
Gynaehorror
Monstrous births
Spanish cinema
Monstrous-feminine
Descripción
Sumario:It is common to find maternal elements at the core of many recent Spanish horror narratives. These maternal discourses have been explored from a variety of approaches, from an excessive wish for motherhood to biological, failed and even monstrous motherhoods. This article focuses on the latter, analysing how the genre conventions of pregnancy horror or gynaehorror can be applied in the study of the construction of the monstrous-feminine within the Spanish context. To this end, this research compares Álex de la Iglesia’s Witching and Bitching (Las brujas de Zugarramurdi, 2013), and the episode “Cobwebs” (“Telarañas”) from 30 Coins (30 monedas, 2020) and examines the director’s treatment of birth scenes and symbolic intra-uterine locations in his construction of female characters as monsters.