Locus amoenus and locus terribilis in Long Weekend (1978)Fueled by ecocritical approaches, Horror Studies has given rise in recent years to an exegetical branch dedicated to the scrutiny of eco-horror, a subgenre in which the primacy of entertainment is added to a bioethical inflection regarding the catastrophic implications of environmental degradation. In line with this hermeneutic prism, this paper aims to analyze Long Weekend (Colin Eggleston, 1978), included in a genealogy of horror films that, between 1970 and 1985, reinvigorated Australian cinema. For methodological purposes, I borrow two topological paradigms from classical poiesis, namely, the locus amoenus and the locus terribilis, here resignified according to the text/context of Long Weekend. A heritage from biblical Genesis, the first topos was largely explored in Latin pastoral poetry, being often overlapped by the second as a contrapuntal rhetorical trope. In the film under analysis, both topói are indissociable, once, on the ‘long’ week lived by a couple on a deserted beach, the promised locus amoenos reverts to locus terribilis precisely because human intervention causes the degeneration of the first into the latter. In this pioneer of eco-horror movies, the dystopian breakdown of expectations inherited from the imperialist expropriatory rage contributes, on the one hand, to the frisson peculiar to this sugenre and, on the other, to reflections around the abusive consumption of natural resources and its apocalyptic impacts.
Keywords:
Horror fiction; Eco-horror; Locus amoenos; Locus terribilis; Long Weekend