- Horror Movie - Horror Homeroom

Posted on October 29, 2022

Don’t Throw Away The Baby or the Bathwater

Guest Post

There are few sights so satisfying in horror film as the truly evil young. In a culture that revolves around the sacrosanct child, now even going so far as to prioritize not-yet-children’s lives over that of their vessel/mothers, it is cathartic to see horror films and TV series acknowledging that children are not always innocent and sweet. In fact, at times they can be little monsters.

Whether it is Regan pissing and vomiting in The Exorcist (1973), the bright-eyed children from hell in Village of the Damned (1960), or the fanged newborn in It’s Alive (1974), the evil child points to both the hellish expectations that can accompany parenthood and our own desires to flee conventions. Through horror films we can vicariously become what Andrew Scahill calls “the revolting child,” an embodiment of our desire for anti-heteronormative liberation. Read more

Posted on October 23, 2022

Inheritor of Charismatic Spiritualism- Tangina Barrons in Poltergeist

Guest Post

In Poltergeist (1982), director Tobe Hooper and writer Steven Spielberg created a haunted house that ditched cobwebs in favor of wall-to-wall carpeting, central air conditioning, and a family television set turned scrying mirror. A panoply of characters fill Poltergeist, but no one outshines spirit guide Tangina Barrons. Actor Zelda Rubinstein’s magnetism poured from her 4’3″ frame, evoking the nineteenth-century Spiritualism movement’s tradition of empowered and charismatic mediums communing with the spirit realm.

Poltergeist centers on a suburban California family, the Freelings, and the supernatural abduction of the youngest daughter, Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke). Diane Freeling (Jo Beth Williams) is a counter-culture figure who emotionally connects the viewer to the otherworldly kidnapping, emphasizing the metaphysical bond between a birth mother and child. Diane’s spouse, Steven (Craig T. Nelson,) is a loving father but absent from most of the family’s daily life, establishing skepticism and confusion. While the hustle of the modern world frays the Freelings, they remain a bound and loving family. Gnawing at that unity is the paranormal kidnapping of their youngest child. That child, lost within the newly-built dream domicile, can only be wrestled from the clutches of a tortured soul, The Beast, with the help of another. Read more

menacing video game character set against a red backdrop

Posted on August 16, 2022

Bloodwash Review: A Giallo-Inspired Horror Video Game Awash with Gore

Guest Post

Bloodwash is the latest video game to be published by Torture Star Video, a publishing label launched by Puppet Combo, the developer behind notable instances of playable nightmare fuel such as Babysitter Bloodbath (2013), Nun Massacre (2018), and Murder House (2020). Like these games, Bloodwash has a distinctive low-poly style reminiscent of video games from the PS1 era, as well as a story straight out of an old school slasher film.

As pointed out in publicity material for the game, Bloodwash is “giallo-inspired.” In a broad sense, the Italian term Giallo “has become synonymous … with mysteries and thrillers” (Koven, 2013: 204). More specifically, the term has come to describe “the Italian style of psycho-killer movies, which dominated much of Italian vernacular film-making in the 1970s, and, in many respects, were the precursors to the ‘slasher’ films from Canada and the US in the late 1970s and early 1980s” (ibid.) Tropes of Giallo cinema include stylised murder scenes, mysterious killers, and tormented women – three components that feature prominently in the video game, Bloodwash. Read more

Posted on August 7, 2022

Representations of Women in The Wretched (2019)

Gwen

Let me start this by saying that representations in film matter. The prelude to this statement was me watching the documentary series on Netflix about Woodstock ’99, Trainwreck (2022). One astute journalist pointed out that if you want to understand the collective ethos of the time, one need only look to the biggest box office hits in that historical moment. Rather than love and peace, the backdrop of Woodstock ’99 was brimming with male sexuality and angst in films such as American Pie (1999) and Fight Club (1999). Popular culture reflects what mainstream society chooses…wants and enjoys consuming. Let us temporarily peer into our collective id.

Horror films often reveal the fears of middle- to upper-class (often white) men. Which makes sense since that is mostly who writes, directs, and produces horror films. While women producers, creators, and consumers are on the rise, the major audience continues to be predominately male. With that in mind, I hand you the 2019 Pierce Brothers film, The Wretched. Read more

Posted on June 27, 2022

Sleeping off the Fever: The Dream Aesthetics of 28 Days Later

Guest Post

Growing up, horror was a carefully curated genre in my house. No fiction books and certainly no video games. Movies were only allowed if it was clearly a man in a monster suit. As I grew older I also grew more unsatisfied with this arrangement. Starting in middle school, I took greater and greater risks to smuggle new experiences home from the library in the form of Stephen King as well as more varied horror movies. This just so happened to also be the era of the zombie resurgence, with the slacker nerds of Shaun of the Dead and the mean punk spirit of the Dawn of the Dead remake, both movies I love for different reasons. However, it’s the 2002 outbreak that has stayed chasing after me all these years. Read more