On the Modern Gothic Renaissance

And no, I don’t mean the Halloween store.

by Marcello Cortese

So, cinema is back.

This isn’t a very new or sexy claim to make, but I don’t care. We could chat for a bit about why moviegoing and the culture around the cinema seems to be budding and alive once again, despite the statistics that argue otherwise (ew) but that’s a different discussion. I want to talk today about something I never like to discuss: trends. More specifically, the trend that has been growing into somewhat of a movement—especially in cinema—over the past few years: the delicious reawakening of Gothicism. For a time, I feel like we were so inundated with Marvel and overstimulating animations that film didn’t really seem like it was awake. Did anyone else feel that way? I suppose the writer’s strike is an explanation we can use here. 

It is the case of remakes, reboots, and “reimaginings” that is a slippery slope, I think. The majority of these cases are from beloved blockbusters that are now becoming franchised for the sake of audience engagement, as is the way to get people back. in. the. theatres! But suddenly, originality is needed! Innovation! Ideation that provides new discussions, and interesting ones! One of the most obvious champions of this necessity in recent years, I believe, has been the new wave of Gothicism.

I do know that at least as far back as 2020, Universal had one of its most underrated triumphs appear in The Invisible Man, as a part of its Universal Monster Series. The remake, starring Elisabeth Moss and Oliver Jackson-Cohen, is based on H.G. Well’s scifi novel of the same name, was kind of one of the earlier prominent “gothic” reimaginings (not to mention one of the more satisfying “good for her” movies in modern times).

It was followed by other fixings in the same remake attempt, like The Last Voyage of the Demeter and Wolfman, both of which were regarded as “flops.” Nevertheless, there was a consistent wave of “monster movies” for a time in theatres, and it didn’t really matter if they were good or not, because has a monster movie ever really tried to be “good?” I’m not so sure.

But then something else shifted. 2023. Saltburn. Anyone who knows me immediately knows that I will talk your ear off about this film. At the time of its release, there was a plethora of discourse around the time it came out (it really should have been a summer release), as well as the sexified commentaries that Emerald Fennell brings out through the film. I find her a master storyteller, but again, that’s a different discussion. In any case, this film marked a new kind of gothicism: the modernized sensation that comes with spectacle, irrationality, staring through keyholes and running towards sex in a maze. It, rightfully so, was labeled a modern gothic tale. Because it ultimately is. 

Funny sidenote: I once had a hearty debate about this movie with someone who hated it quite viscerally. He argued against the film quoting ancient thoughts and texts, like those of Cicero and Aurelius, while I was coming back at him with the Brontës, Poe, and Gilman. I always found that to be a hilarious convergence.

And from this point, the past few years have been littered with gothic movies. Everything from Nosferatu, to del Toro’s breathtaking Frankenstein, all the way through the incredible Sinners, the lackluster Dracula: A Love Story, Fennell’s newest controversy of Wuthering Heights and most recently Maggie G’s tour de force The Bride!

I’m not entirely sure if Nia DaCosta’s Hedda, which came out last year (somewhat under the radar) can be convinced into the gothic conversation, but for the sake of argument, we’ll include her as well. 

And even within the next year, we have more! Films like Lee Cronin’s The Mummy and Robert Eggers’ newest shudder, Werewulf, are slated throughout the next few months. The list truly goes on and on.

So, what is this “revival” (pun intended) really about? With regard to the vampiric subsect of these latest selections, my mother once told me something truly fascinating. We were discussing vampire figures and stories when she told me that a person can assess any point in history—dive into the cultural, economic, and spiritual statuses of a society—almost entirely by observing how they represent vampires in the media of the time. 

Kind of like trends in heel height, I suppose.

I loved this idea. We can go back decades to the height of the monster flick and look at something like Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, or move forward to Willem Dafoe’s Shadow of the Vampire, even franchises like Twilight and The Vampire Diaries… there are cultural smudges across all forms and styles here.

So what does it mean that people love true, dark Gothicism again? Well, in the examples like Nosferatu (2024) and Sinners (2025), the interpretations are rooted in a culturally dark underbelly. Eggers’ remake exemplifies its root text: exploring the subconscious through terrifying dreamscapes and expressionist terror. The original was created on the heels of WWII, used to speak to a decimated Germany at the time of economic ruin, ongoing plague and widespread physical grief, as well as a residual anti-semitism. Eggers reimagines this same sense of cultural despair on his screen, while eliciting more personally horrific themes of sexual assault and the unfathomable loss of children. The withering of heritage and prosperity.

And Ryan Coogler’s Sinners approaches extremely similar themes, set this time in 1930s Mississippi, a scene still choked by Jim Crow. It interweaves the cultural tenets of hoodoo, white supremacism, folkloric superstition, and the ultimate dissolution of community. The idea of inequality here is also a somewhat difficult one to pin down, as the story follows a primarily black set of characters, and yet the supernatural antagonist—Remmick—is Irish. This, surely, was no mistake on Coogler’s part. I’m sure he wanted to put one against another and see what the ultimate outcome would be between these two groups, neither of which considered “majority” cultures of the time.

The parallel of prejudices and colonialism here is what makes the sense of “opposition” so interesting. Is this king vampire a racist? Or is he merely an opportunist, a “culture vulture,” who sees only prey regardless of color? I believe the genius of what Coogler does is that he ultimately leaves the topic up to debate. It could be a naturalist kind of narrative—one about marginalized cultures that attack one another as a way of survival, instead of surmounting their common enemy—or it is the more cut and dry explanation: the oppressor goes for the obviously oppressed.

So now that we’ve touched on the historical context of some recent examples, let’s discuss Gothicism as a movement. It’s one of my favorite movements in history, if only because it’s a smaller exploration under the larger, more general wave of Romanticism, which also includes Transcendentalism and Nationalism/Folklorism (if that’s a word). Where the Transcendentalists were concerned with virtues like the Enlightenment and the exploration of self-divinity, as well as the communion with the naturally divine, Gothicism came as a kind of experiment in response to these lofty, self-important tenets.

Typically, the genre concerns a great deal more psychology and internalism than the aforementioned movements, as gothic stories have a great tendency to harness the unsavory responses to a character’s surroundings, such as anxiety, dread, grief, longing, heartbreak. The list goes on and on.

It can be that gothic literature remains just as beautiful, just as romantic, as any other style of its time, just in a more knowing way. It typically is used to explore the taboo and the unacknowledged, allowing an author to bring a deep and unresolved psychology to the text without raising a violent controversy. Gothicism historically has paved the way for discussions around true disheartenment and impropriety, giving space for it to breathe in academic and intellectual contexts.

In literature, some of the recognizable names are, of course, Edgar Allan Poe, the Brontë sisters, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, etc. Even later on, when Gothicism was integrated into modern literature, Shirley Jackson became the pioneer of a subgenre known as the Suburban Gothic and William Faulkner emphasized the Southern Gothic. 

Alright, crash course over. Given all of this, I’ve been curious as to what the actuality of this “Gothic Renaissance” in cinema has been about these past few years. I don’t think that period pieces have ever really gone out of style in movies, so that hasn’t been the primary thought.

I think, instead, this wave is a reflection of the extreme taboo and anxiety, as it always has been, around what we in the contemporary world find jarring and delicious. If we think about those scenes in Saltburn, or Orlok’s slaying of toddlers in Nosferatu, even the depictions of sexual assault in The Bride!, it becomes clear that these films are vessels to carry out the deeds of evil that we all still struggle with in present times, but with the buffering backdrops of fantasy. 

In the contemporary public, there is much social and political angst, doubled down upon by an unfathomable sense of overstimulation, misinformation, and sexual frustration. As a brief sidebar, let’s also not forget… despite whatever everyone says about current or recent films and the “disrespect” they pay to their origin texts, Gothic literature and media has always been sexual. But my point here is that the modernized gothic takes are slowly adapting to the current demands and bloodlust of society, ultimately blending the movement’s classic aspects and making it relatable to the American narrative.

For example, the subgenre of the Suburban Gothic was integrated around the 1940s: a time that was heavy on growing suburban lifestyles and redistricting throughout the US. White families moved away from cities and things like the HOA and neighborhood “harmony” became a social enforcement (there is an excellent limited series entirely about this, actually, called Them). 

So, the idea of the Suburban Gothic moved away from the traditional psychological and supernatural elements of external horror against a protagonist, and began to focus more on the dread of feeling your neighbors’ eyes on you through their blinds. Of checking one’s mail and instantly being put on display, as a source of entertainment, or cause of concern. As I said before, symmetry and obedience are tenets of this movement, and social distrust arose as a byproduct. Foucault often regarded this as “social policing” (I’d recommend reading up on this theory, also, as it’s really fascinating). 

So, could it be possible that, in a time of political and cultural unrest, where people are perpetually scared shitless and the youth is consumed with a dread for the future, where it is common to walk past people on the street and engage with no one, where one cannot trust or rely on or even purport to know their nextdoor neighbors, that for some reason we all want these. specific. movies. on our screens? To be suspicious of those around us, I suppose, is more palatable in a dark and mysterious room, rather than on the street or in our neighborhoods.

The days of borrowing sugar are over folks, and our movies are saying that.

Similarly, around the time that Wuthering Heights came out this winter, the term “yearning” had its own little resurgence all over the internet. Everyone suddenly was obsessed, once more, with the idea of yearning. Jacob Elordi spoke in plethorous ways about its importance and immediately, yearning was sexy again. I’m a big fan of it myself, but as with everything that’s turned into a trend, is it the ultimate bridge back to romance? 

Now that young people are officially #fedup with dating apps and the kind of social ineptitude that keeps people from approaching each other in public, crushes and unrequited love have taken center stage once more. After all, Shakespeare wrote sonnets. Jane Austen created the Rom Com because of it. Mary Shelley resurrected an entire human who, in the end, only ever wanted to be loved. So, yeah, yearning has, for the longest time, been kind of top tier.

And yet… in our age of complete access and unlimited options, have we all become spoiled? Is it a selfish and grotesque thing to assume that we all deserve to yearn? I understand it for those guys, way back when, and artists of all kinds still use it as a device for creation today, but socially speaking, who says that it’s fair? Jane Austen didn’t have the luxury of posting artistic memes on her IG story and then responding to her crush with heart eye emojis. If Poe had a Tiktok, or Instagram Reels… the manifestos I’m sure he would dictate on live. They and all the others used yearning, longing, and lead-laced wallpaper as an excuse to go on, to create.

What are we using to create? How is yearning—outside of the obvious trend it has recently become—actually benefitting us in the romantic or enlightened areas of our lives? Is it only feeding into the anxious narrative we spin on a constant basis?

And why don’t we ask our neighbors questions any longer?