Gothic Tourism

Abstract

[...]the author concludes by highlighting the discrepancy between the fact that gothic tourism is now wildly flourishing, and that it has received comparatively little academic attention. [...]this is an entertaining, educational read, which serves as an enlightening introduction to the fascinating and expanding realm of gothic tourism.

Emma McEvoy, Gothic Tourism (London: Palgrave, 2016)

Emma McEvoy's Gothic Tourism centres, as its title would suggest, on the intriguing and increasingly dominant subject of gothic tourism. Closely related to 'dark tourism' - which is limited primarily to the recreational exploration of death and disaster sites - 'gothic tourism' is a much broader term, which encompasses all tourism that may be read as in any sense 'gothic'. This includes everything from ghost tours and scare attractions to haunted heritage sites and even Madame Tussaud's. The author argues that there are several elements inherent to gothic tourism: it is immersive, theatrical, intermedial, and it is inextricably bound up with gothic fictions. With the growing number of ghoulish tourist attractions and the increasingly common use of the term 'gothic tourism', this book is certainly a timely publication. A dozen examples of the trend immediately spring to mind, from the gruesome hospital-themed bar in Singapore (in which one sits in either a wheelchair or gurney and drinks red cocktails, or 'blood', through 'drips' overhead), through the 'honeymoon terror tour' in the opening of American Horror Story: Asylum (2012), to the recent conversion of the site used in the filming of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) into a cannibal-themed restaurant, complete with the invitation to 'survive the night' by taking advantage of its accommodation out back. The mounting phenomenon that is gothic tourism is therefore undoubtedly due academic attention and commentary - and most obviously in the context of gothic studies.

This book focuses exclusively on gothic tourism within England. The Introduction sets the scene through a vivid description of The Sanctuary, a current 'scare attraction' in the theme park Alton Towers, which emulates a 1960s mental asylum. This account immediately leads the reader to consider some of the essential elements at play within gothic tourism: the dualistic themes of terror and excitement, and the inescapable fact about simulated terror today - it sells. Thereafter, the main body of the work is divided into seven sections. In Chapter One, McEvoy focuses on Strawberry Hill, the infamous abode of Horace Walpole, author of The Castle of Otranto (1764). This seminal fiction is generally regarded as the first gothic novel - and here McEvoy makes the stimulating argument that its origin is bound, too, to the first example of gothic tourism. She highlights the fact that Strawberry Hill - an ornate and decadent example of gothic architecture - served as the conscious inspiration for the fictional Castle of Otranto, while The Castle of Otranto served (and serves) as the inspiration for many of its readers to journey to see Strawberry Hill for themselves. Consequently, McEvoy underlines the intriguing symbiosis between sites of gothic tourism and gothic fictions, a symbiosis which she contends has existed since the genre's very beginnings.

In Chapter Two, the author addresses the grotesque and fascinating history of the waxwork museum Madame Tussaud's. She acknowledges the universally uncanny nature of waxworks, but emphasises the fact that it is only in the original Madam Tussaud's in London that the gothic is so obviously celebrated. Furthermore, McEvoy outlines the institution's own somewhat gothic beginnings: Tussaud worked originally on waxworks of the dead, reputedly modelling likenesses of victims of the guillotine from severed and decapitated bodies. McEvoy highlights the fact that, while there is now a chain of Madame Tussauds' all over the world, it is only in the London branch that we find such elements as The Chamber of Horrors and the self-created wax figure of the witch-like Tussaud herself. It is therefore only in London that Madame Tussaud's functions as a specifically gothic attraction - a fact seemingly well known by those now behind it, who have recently incorporated a scare attraction named 'Scream', in which tourists are 'endangered' by disturbed prisoners on the loose.

Chapter Three centres on further examples of contemporary gothic tourism in London. It begins with a discussion of the home of Dennis Severs, an American who came to London in the 1960s and gradually turned his dwelling into a gothic sensation. McEvoy describes its various eighteenth- and nineteenth-century gothic artefacts, the house's transition into a site of gothic tourism, and Severs' immersive role as artist in residence. The book then moves through various sites of gothic tourism in London, from Jack the Ripper-themed tours and The Clink (a notorious Southwark prison), to the Necrobus (a 'haunted tour bus' that focuses on the city's 'dark and sinister past') and the London Dungeon. She draws connections between each of these examples, arguing that they are all performance-based attractions, which sit liminally somewhere between history and fiction, and that each relies on a shared awareness of gothic tropes and connotations.

Chapter Four addresses the now internationally thriving business of 'Ghost Walking' - guided walks through allegedly haunted areas - and discusses the sheer variety of these which are presently available. Chapter Five is concerned with the lure of haunted castles and focuses primarily on 'one of the most haunted castles in England', Berry Pomeroy in Devon. It studies how this castle became haunted in the popular cultural imagination, with the aid of folklore and literature, recording the transition from accounts of this castle as charming and idyllic, to those which tell of its terrorisation by a multitude of spectres. Chapter Six continues with the subject of haunted castles, but is concerned with the mutual support but also the potential tensions between the gothic and heritage management. Chapter Seven addresses examples of gothic tourism in the cultural arena at large in the last few years, looking in particular at the place of the gothic in recent festivals. Citing such examples as Glastonbury Festival, McEvoy argues that we can see at these events that the gothic is both very much alive and very much desired, and consequently widely funded. It is clear, she argues, that 'we are all happy to bed down with the Gothic' (p. 199). Finally, the author concludes by highlighting the discrepancy between the fact that gothic tourism is now wildly flourishing, and that it has received comparatively little academic attention. She touches on our motivations as tourists of the gothic: we wish, she argues, to experience a Bakhtinian release, to entertain the possibility of the supernatural, as we seek - and now pay - to be frightened. Overall, then, the book invites further research in this area and a wider examination of this cultural tradition.

The style throughout is both informative and interesting, and the narrative tone that appears intermittently throughout the discussion is not unwelcome, as this creates the effect that we, the readers, are immersed in the various tourist attractions being described. Another nice touch is the fact that that the author has personally visited many of the sites discussed, and so is able to give first-hand accounts in addition to her academic and cultural commentary. There were, however, two questions which could, to this reader, have been fruitfully explored, but were left unexamined. The first of these is the issue of taste, or 'political correctness', when it comes to these attractions. Marketing, for example, prisons and psychiatric institutions as gothic sites of mass entertainment is surely not unproblematic, and should warrant careful consideration. Secondly, though touched on lightly in the conclusion, the question of why gothic tourism, as a phenomenon, is such a recent trend remains for the most part unanswered. Some discussion, for example, of its relation to a world that is conceived of by many as increasingly secularised, would have been provocative. On the whole, however, this is an entertaining, educational read, which serves as an enlightening introduction to the fascinating and expanding realm of gothic tourism.

Elizabeth Parker