Austrian Heimat-Horror in Twenty-First-Century Film: Ich seh, ich seh (2014)

Abstract

Abstract:The 2014 horror film Ich seh, ich seh [Goodnight Mommy], directed by Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, employs a range of uncanny archetypes, from the mother as bandaged mummy to the doubling of the twin sons. Set in a rural landscape suffused with religion and death, it presents the unsettling of a domestic environment and unspoken questions about guilt and the past. This article analyses the film through the work of key theorists such as Freud, Rank and Jentsch, putting it also into the wider context of Austrian post-war history. Ultimately the film blurs the distinction between fiction and reality, questioning whether what is seen can be believed.