David Cronenberg's film Maps to the Stars (2014; scripted by satirist Bruce Wagner), presents us with an intensely bleak portrait of life in twenty-firstcentury Hollywood. Here, although the times (and the industry) have changed, the locale is again populated by ruthless careerists, delusional psychotics and abusive relationships. The film also presents us with a particularly haunted vision of contemporary Hollywood: as Matt Zoller Seitz notes, ‘Maps to the Stars often feels like a ghost story made by people who don't believe in the supernatural.’

The next film discussed in in this chapter, Starry Eyes (also 2014, directed by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer), presents us with an explicitly supernatural take upon the second type of Hollywood Gothic narrative: that which dramatises the gruelling physical and psychological transformations undergone by desperate newcomers who have yet to (or will never) ‘make it’. These twenty-first-century iterations of the Hollywood Gothic engage with and expand upon the themes most famously dramatised by their post-war predecessors. Additionally, both Starry Eyes and the final film discussed in this chapter, the Hollywood Gothic-adjacent movie, The Neon Demon (2016, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn), focus upon vulnerable young women undergoing terrifying psychological and physical transformations. These characters also fall under the influence of malevolent organisations/forces which promise to help the vulnerable individuals attain their deepest desires. As we shall see, the latter theme indicates the extent to which certain elements of the ‘Hollywood Gothic’ tradition also intersect with some of the ‘Cult California’ anxieties discussed in the final part of this volume.

In Maps to the Stars, the character who most closely resembles her post-war ‘Grande Dame Guignol’ predecessors is Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore). Havana is, from the outset, notably insecure. The actress abuses prescription medications, engages in impulsive behaviours and is often depicted in a state of unflattering dishevelment. In one memorable scene, she unselfconsciously engages in a lengthy conversation with her new personal assistant, a young woman named Agatha Weiss (Mia Wasikowska) whilst straining to defecate. Havana's toxic nature is confirmed when she dances with joy upon learning that the son of a rival actress has drowned, because a role she covets is now hers for the asking. Havana is pure celebrity id personified.

However, like her forerunner Norma Desmond, Havana isn't entirely unsympathetic. Her obnoxiousness is rooted in her inability to move past her troubled Hollywood childhood.