After doing some research and using what I’ve learned about gothic literature this semester, I saw many gothic elements in the movie I watched for this week’s assignment. I chose to watch one of the batman movies “The Dark Knight” (2008), which is about how a maniac, The Joker, goes around the city of Gotham destroying the city and killing innocent people. Due to this, Batman has to chase after and put a stop to him. Throughout the movie, I noticed that the Joker brings about a number of gothic elements such as a woman in distress, mystery and suspense, death, and overwrought emotion. There are a number of scenes in this movie where we see a woman in distress. When Rachel, the female lead, has her first encounter with the joker, she is obviously very uncomfortable with his appearance and the way he grabs her. He then throws her out of the window, causing her to be extremely and utterly terrified for her life. Thankfully, Batman saves her. Another scene in which we see Rachel in distress is when she and Harvey Dent are both tied up at two locations on the opposite sides of town, and Batman has to choose who to go and save. Rachel and Harvey can hear each other on the phone and Rachel knows she will die, making her very sad. This is also where we see the gothic element of death. Overwrought emotion is conveyed during this scene as well when Batman shows up to save Harvey, and Harvey is distraught because he knows Rachel is going to die. We see suspense in The Dark Knight towards the end when the Joker has two boats out on the water, one with innocent citizens of Gotham, and another boat full of prisoners. He gives each boat a button to a bomb that will blow up the opposing boat. He tells them that one of them has to blow up the other boat by 12 midnight, or else he will blow both of them up. This creates a great feeling of suspense as it leaves the audience wondering who will press the button. In comparison, one of the gothic elements we see in Batman: Ego by Darwin Cooke is death. We see this when Batman finds Buster trying to jump off the bridge and saves him. Batman tells Buster that the Joker has been caught and he is now safe. However, Buster does not believe him. He then informs Batman that because of his fear of the Joker getting to his family, he kills them and then shoots himself. I think the dark Knight is more gothic due to the fact that we get a better visual of how everything plays out, and there is more death, agony, and suspense.