Zach Villegas is a graduate student in the Humanities program (with a focus on Film and Gender Studies) at the University of Colorado Denver. He is also deathly afraid of the mechanical clown at the beginning of Pee-wee's Big Adventure.

FILM THEORY & CRITICISM

Broken By The Past: The Role of Gender in Contemporary Gothic Cinema

The silhouette of a woman with unkempt hair flickers in an attic window sending a cautionary chill up an observer's spine. Something is out of place. Mental stability and social norms no longer feel as reliable as they should. This is the nature of the gothic nightmare. Read on...