ABSTRACT
Spanish film writer and director Alejandro Amenábar is known for his films in the horror/thriller genre. His first feature-length film Tesis is self-consciously reflexive and self-referential in raising questions about the nature of the horror-film industry. Amenábar's next film Abre los ojos was adapted by Hollywood director Cameron Crowe into the 2001 film Vanilla Sky, starring Tom Cruise. The film is both a thriller and a mystery, and explores the tensions between desire and reality as well as the concept of crossing boundaries between this world and the next. In Amenábar's retrospective Medea story, by contrast, the children and their characters are of central importance. This is true also of Morrison's Beloved, which explores issues of the afterlife and features a murdered daughter. The Others and Mar adentro in turn form a pair of films which investigate legitimate reasons for desiring death.
