Daniela Urzola - Good girls gone…? An approach to ‘boarding school horror’

Sunday 19th May / 16:00 / Zoom

There’s a recurrent theme in the horror genre with female-centered stories set in boarding schools. Whether by force of supernatural entities or delving into the terrain of the slasher, the female characters depicted in these films are usually defined by the trope of “good girls gone bad”. But what does this really mean? How has the male gaze contributed to its creation and what are the power dynamics rooted in it? In this talk, Daniela Urzola will approach this subgenre to see how it has been constructed throughout time, from early examples in the 1960s and 70s to the intersectional shift from the early 2000s to today, focusing on comparative case studies to help unveil the dynamics of gender, class and/or race that have given shape to ‘boarding school horror’.

Daniela Urzola is a Colombian art historian and film critic based in Spain. She writes for both printed journals (Caimán Cuadernos de Cine, NUEBO) and digital media (Revista Mutaciones) and is currently a programmer for FILMADRID International Film Festival. She also teaches film criticism and has been a lecturer for different institutions and festivals. As a researcher, she focuses on the study of cinema and popular culture from an intersectional perspective, with a special interest in early 2000s and contemporary horror.