Once more and for eternity? Facing the horror of cosmic recurrence in Southbound

Abstract

In this article, I examine how the use of repetition structures in the 2015 horror film Southbound accentuate the genre’s concern regarding the relationship between a peculiar experience of time and the emotion of fear. While analysis of the urge to repeat in horror texts can be examined through a psychoanalytic lens, I suggest that applying a Nietzschean perspective provides an equally helpful framework for reading these films at the levels of both form and content. Specifically, Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence offers us much in the way of understanding these films which use a time-loop device to disrupt the experience of both the characters and audience. After delineating how Nietzsche’s ideas can help guide analysis of such repeated action tropes in horror, I provide a close reading of Southbound in an attempt to flesh out this particular theoretical orientation.