GUTTER STUDIES

Goth Renaissance concludes. This chapter ties together everything we’ve seen so far, identifying the key themes and characteristics of Italian gothic horror, and showing how it laid the foundation for decades of Italian exploitation film. Giallo, nunsploitation, spaghetti western, the gorefests of the 80s—all of it owes something to the Italian gothics. If you enjoyed the series, please consider s...

In the fourth chapter of our series Goth Renaissance: A Critical Introduction to Italian Gothic Horror , we analyze three of Barbara Steele’s best movies. We’ve already encountered Steele twice in previous installments, but these three are essential entries for any overview of Italian gothic horror. More than that, this trilogy of films represents not only the best work featuring Barbara Steele, b...

This is a video essay from the Gutter Studies Vault, exploring three movies that seem to confirm the worst fears of radical feminism. Fair warning: it’s one of my most challenging and provocative essays on horror so far, drawing on some of the most grisly themes and images in the genre. The essay reads the graphic and disturbing nature of these films alongside the complex and controversial radical...

This is part three in our ongoing series GOTH RENAISSANCE: A Critical Introduction to Italian Gothic Horror . You can explore the full series here , or dive right into this one. In previous installments, we’ve seen how Italian gothic horror exhibits a preoccupation with female monsters, villains, and characters. Beginning in 1962, a counter-tendency began to emerge. These films not only shifted a...

GUTTER TALK is an audio-podcast supplement featuring casual, freewheeling discussion on subject matter covered on Gutter Studies. On this episode, I talk to writer, collector, and pop-culture obsessive Mark Ambrose about Mario Bava’s foundational Black Sunday (1960), as well as other early Italian gothics Lust of the Vampire (1957) and The Vampire and the Ballerina (1960), and later Italian horror...

This is part two in our ongoing series GOTH RENAISSANCE: A Critical Introduction to Italian Gothic Horror . Watch part one here , although this installment can be watched on its own. In the first part, we covered the emergence of a distinctly Italian form of horror, noting the ways that Italians were already changing the genre. But those movies were prologue. It was a modest cinematographer named...

Welcome to the first installment of GOTH RENAISSANCE: A Critical Introduction to Italian Gothic Horror . The series will run biweekly for a total of five installments. For a full watchlist of the films covered, see the series announcement page . In this first installment, I discuss the context in which Italian gothic horror emerged, including the unique conditions of the Italian film industry, as...

BANNED ON YOUTUBE! In March 2024, Gutter Studies was banned on Youtube. It had only been live for a few months. The reason given was “severe or repeated violations of [the] sex and nudity policy.” My appeals failed, even though the channel’s content was well within the platform’s guidelines. Gutter Studies does not create content for sexual gratification , but instead to research, analyze, and und...