Abstract
This chapter discusses the origins and characteristics of the eco-thriller as a subset of the American thriller as groundwork for analysis of two films: The Happening and The Bay . Both films address environmental issues from different perspectives; what they have in common, however, is the portrayal of the environment as the central antagonist against which humans must fight for survival. In both films, the environment is violent and seeking revenge against humans for the ecological harm they have caused. A central focus of the chapter is to discern why the environment is so vengeful. Are its concerns clearly stated, or is the audience left to guess? The chapter places the films in environmental context, including overconsumption and pollution (The Happening) and pollution in Chesapeake Bay (The Bay).
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E. Moore, E. (2017). Imagining Disaster in the Eco-Thriller. In: Landscape and the Environment in Hollywood Film. Palgrave Studies in Media and Environmental Communication. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56411-1_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56411-1_4
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