White Horror in Bacurau

Abstract Juliano Dornelles and Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Bacurau (2019) was released to significant hype in Brazil and around the world. The film has been widely received as an interpretation of Brazilian society as plagued by the ravages of predatory global capitalism and U.S imperialism combined with the ineptitude and corruption of the national political class, leading to a fantasy of ultra-violent uprising by the people of the interior. Although the film was criticized from the political right and center as propagandist or as defending unacceptable violence, it has received little critique from left perspectives. In addition, numerous reviews and an increasing body of scholarship have noted that Bacurau draws on a variety of film genres such as the Western, science fiction, and horror to produce its highly reflexive text, but relatively little has been done to interpret its engagement with horror. This essay shows how Bacurau’s incorporation of resources from horror cinema reveals a problematic centering of whiteness within a project that presents itself as anti-racist.