ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates how horror has functioned alongside comedy and melodrama as a propitious genre from which the director, Pedro Almodovar, has drawn inspiration for several of his highly self-conscious film narratives. The use of horror tropes and quotations in the early films reveals also the flexibility of the genre itself, which since the 1970s has ranged "from the lowest to the highest budget levels", affording directors "plenty of room for individual expression". The chapter argues that the film La piel que habito's manipulation of spectator identification actually has very unsettling consequences for the way that Almodovar represents gender identity and politics. Complexity in Almodovar's late films would seem to function on several levels. The novelty of La piel que habito lies in Almodovar's masterful removal of himself as enunciator. Although his brother continues to appear reliably in cameos, Almodovar the man is no longer so visible within his films.
