Grand Guignol

Proper noun

Grand Guignol

1. (historical) A Parisian theatre which specialized in grotesque and grisly horror shows.
2. (broadly) That which thrives on grotesquery and gore.
   • I may remark, in passing, that I did not go to see any bullfights... . But if I had preferred a Grand Guignol thrill to a great experience of a great nation,... .1926 June 19 [U.S. publication date in the Illustrated London News], G. K. Chesterton, "Spain and the Color Black", reprinted in, 1991, the Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, volume XXIV, The...
   • Hence the incomparably strange reincarnation of the cultural figure of the male homosexual as a predatory, determined invert, wrapped in a Grand Guignol cloak of degeneracy theory, and casting his lascivious eyes-and hands-out from the pages of Victorian sexology manuals and onto "our" children...1987, Simon Watney, "The Spectacle of AIDS", reprinted as chapter 13 of, 1993, Henry Abelove, Michèle Aina Barale, and David M. Halperin (eds.), The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, Routledge, page 206