Meaninglessness and Horror: A Review of Weapons
The way the bewitched children – and Marcus – run, with their arms outstretched like birds toward an unknown point, creates a recurring pattern. We are conditioned by mysticism to[…]
Category: Horror
Drama · Gore · Horror · Indies
Pleasant Valley as Funhouse Mirror: Regional Othering, Racial Displacement, and the Politics of the Hillbilly Icon in Herschell Gordon Lewis’s Two Thousand Maniacs!
By erasing Black presence entirely, displacing the historical reality of racial violence onto white-on-white revenge, and reviving the hillbilly icon in its most unabashedly vicious form, Lewis’s film enables audiences[…]
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Brazilian Cinema · Horror · Labor
The Work That Never Leaves: Labor as a Parasitic Presence in Hard Work
The horror in Hard Work is not that a monster exists; it is that the monster is structural. It resides in architecture, in managerial relations, in aspirational rhetoric, in the[…]
Animation · Artificial Intelligence (AI) · Colonialism · Essays · Horror · SF & Fantasy
Becoming Alien – Establishing Posthuman Bioethics in The Martian and Scavengers Reign
Ultimately, the comparison of human–ecology relationships in both The Martian and Scavengers Reign reveals two contrasting modes of becoming alien: The former envisions human survival as contingent on an anthropocentric[…]
Body Horror · Eco-horror · Essays · Horror · Myth and Archetype · Splatter & Gore
The Lingua Franca of Fear: A Dialectical History of Global Horror Cinema
This article argues that the history of global horror is not a linear progression of influence from a dominant West to the passive rest of the world but a dynamic,[…]
Absurdism · Body Horror · Disease and Epidemics · Family · Horror · Politics
“The Saw Is Family”: The Haunted America of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
When taken as a whole, it’s apparent that Hooper was just as politically minded in the creation of this film as he was with the first, his sights set firmly[…]
African American · Class System · Colonialism · Exile and Displacement · Historical & Epic · Horror · Race · Religion & Spirituality
The Price of Being Let In: Sinners and the Lie of Liberation
From the erasure of Native knowledge to the internal hierarchies among the oppressed, from religion’s double edge to the seduction of assimilation, Coogler’s film maps the mechanisms of survival within[…]
Day of the Dead, a Woman’s Nightmare, and Post-Capitalist Possibilities
Instead of a shape-shifting alien that overtakes its human hosts, capitalism is represented in Romero’s film by the military and to a lesser extent, the zombies. Zombies have long been[…]
Found Footage · Horror · Indies · Uncategorized
Twelve Angles on the Found Success of Found Footage: The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity
If all horror is a revelation of subterranean fears and anxieties, the found-footage subgenre uses techniques of amateur documentary filmmaking to place you in a lateral reality and then dig[…]
Actors & Personalities · Drama · Horror · Memorial · Mystery · Thrillers & Action
Chaotic Coherence: Revisiting Don’t Look Now (1973) in the Wake of Sutherland’s Death
In Don’t Look Now, so much of this atmosphere hinges on the film’s unique style, one that often gets in the way of smooth narrative communication and clearly defined characters.[…]
Body Horror · Cults · Feminism · Horror · Satire
Original vs. Remake: Feminism in The Stepford Wives, 1975/2004
The lead actress of the 1975 film, Katherine Ross, later stated that she herself would rewrite this ending to have Joanna “fight harder”– a sentiment that the 2004 adaptation seems[…]
Crime · Franchises & Series · Horror
Hidden Horrors: Jeepers Creepers
Perhaps for some, knowing the real-life context heightens the film’s effect. Or it irreparably takes the viewer out of the experience. In either case, the Creeper is, in fact, a[…]
Directors · Experimental & Underground · Exploitation & Erotica · Franchises & Series · Horror · Indies · Women in Film
Spectacles of Property and Perversion: Todd Jason Cook and the Lisa’s Nightmares Series
Just as his characters presume safety and security in their home space, so too does his audience approach each title with a sense of comfort through repeat exposures. The unseating[…]
Horror · Indies · Mental Illness · Sex & Relationships · SF & Fantasy
Beauty, Violence, Boredom: Santa Sangre (Jodorowsky, 1989)
It is not that there is something wrong with Jodorowsky’s perseveration on sex and violence per se; it is that he is not saying anything about it. It is an[…]
Drama · Eco · Eco-horror · Horror · Urban Conflict
Garbageman: C.H.U.D. at 40
On the face of it, C.H.U.D. might look like a superficial protest against this schema – like a trite version of David and Goliath wherein the tenacity of a neighbourhood[…]
Exploitation & Erotica · Horror
Hell Is for Angels: The Tragedy of Herman Cohen and Aben Kandel
Hell is for angels. Only the mighty are fallen Only the sun-touched can plummet to these depths. – Lenore Kandel * * * Something drove producer Herman Cohen and his[…]
“Nothing Inside”: On Pablo Larraín’s El Conde (2023)
This man who watches you returns from hell […]; he is hollow, he is full of air. Dry hands hold him upright from behind, like a house of cards being[…]
African · African American · Books · Hollywood · Horror
Book Review: I Walked with a Zombie, by Clive Dawson
Clive Dawson, I Walked with a Zombie. Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, 2023. 120 pages. Available in hardback and e-book. * * * At a time when education and culture are increasingly[…]
Horror · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
Sexual Subversion: The Bride of Frankenstein
To celebrate Halloween, we repost your editor’s slightly revised analysis of James Whale’s immortal Bride of Frankenstein, which appeared previously on the site in 1997. * * * No institution[…]
Defending Cinematic Heresy: John Boorman’s The Exorcist II: The Heretic
Despite ritualistically crowning lists of the worst sequels ever made, in no way does The Heretic exemplify “sequelitis.” It’s neither a quick cash-in nor a rehash of the original. Its[…]
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