18. Spanish Horror Film: Genre, Television and a New Model of Production

This chapter discusses the evolution of Spanish horror film in the past decades. First, it examines the growth of horror in the context of film co-productions in the 1960s and 1970s. Second, it studies how horror film developed throughout the 1980s in the context of the re-establishment of a democratic regime. Third, it analyses the return of genre in the 1990s through the appearance of a new generation of filmmakers that redefined Spanish film. Fourth, it approaches horror film in the twenty-first century, with an emphasis on the key role of television operators as film production companies. Finally, it examines The Orphanage (J.A. Bayona 2007) as a national and international triumph that paved the way for an understanding of contemporary Spanish film within a series of both national and transnational coordinates.