Horror

The monstrous landscape and the revenge of nature are recurring motifs in Australian cinema. In the horror genre, the idea of the monstrous landscape emerges from, and builds upon, an established tradition in Australian cinema in which landscape functions not just as a setting for action, but also as a character in its own right. Rather than a picturesque wilderness or countryside, or a serene natural world untainted by civilisation – representations common in landscape cinema celebrating positive aspects of the Australian ‘outback’ – the monstrous landscape is a dangerous, malevolent and threatening force. Drawing upon themes also common in Australian Gothic narratives such as entrapment in a hostile environment, isolation and fear of the unknown (Turcotte, 1988, see also Jonathan Rayner’s essay in this volume), the monstrous landscape acts according to its own logic indecipherable to non-Indigenous Australians and is represented in terms of its alien-ness and inhuman horror.