Wallace, Richard James (2020) Documentary style as post-truth monstrosity in the mockumentary horror film. Quarterly Review of Film and Video . doi:10.1080/10509208.2020.1780107 (In Press)

PDF WRAP-Documentary-style-posttruth-monstrosity-Wallace-2020.pdf - Accepted Version Embargoed item. Restricted access to Repository staff only until 13 January 2022. Contact author directly, specifying your specific needs. - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (857Kb)

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

This article argues that the mockumentary horror film uses its stylistic hybridity to address the ontological and epistemic challenges posed to factual media in a post-truth and post-modern age through an analysis of the film Apollo 18 (Gonzalo López-Gallego, 2011). By adopting the visual aesthetics associated with factual media, and particularly those associated with post-9/11 surveillance culture, the form challenges the endurance of longstanding cultural structures (news, documentary, factual broadcasting) upon which our conceptualisation of the world is founded. In this respect, the boundary-crossing aesthetics parallel longstanding conceptualisation of the monster in horror. This aesthetic approach is most clearly manifested through the emulation of medium-specific textural artefacts which accrue across the film in a structured manner to create a situation in which the documentary investigation records its own destruction. The mockumentary horror film literalises the broader conceptual failure of the documentary project to work through and make sense of unresolved traumas and stand up to the threats posed by the epistemic horrors of a post-truth cultural turn.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1990 Broadcasting P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1993 Motion Pictures
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts > Film and Television Studies
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Documentary-style films-- History and criticism, Horror films-- History and criticism, Documentary films -- History and criticism, Apollo 18 (Motion picture), Truthfulness and falsehood in motion pictures
Journal or Publication Title:	Quarterly Review of Film and Video
Publisher:	Routledge
ISSN:	1050-9208
Official Date:	2020
Dates:	Date Event 2020 Published 13 July 2020 Available 4 June 2020 Accepted
Date of first compliant deposit:	21 July 2020
DOI:	10.1080/10509208.2020.1780107
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	In Press
Publisher Statement:	“This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Quarterly Review of Film and Video on 13/07/2020, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/10509208.2020.1780107
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item