The Crazies: Art Imitates Life in the Fractured American Dream
The Crazies, a remake of George Romero’s 1973 horror film of the same name, is set to open February 26. The film’s website describes it as follows:
A husband and wife in a small Midwestern town find themselves battling for survival as their friends and family descend into madness in The Crazies. A mysterious toxin in [...]
W. Scott Poole: Legion and “Mauled by an Angel”
My friend and colleague W. Scott Poole, author of Satan in America (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), and the focus of a previous interview here, has a commentary posted in Religion Dispatches titled “Mauled by an Angel: Why Do Americans Need ‘God’s Secret Agents’?”. In this article Scott looks at the action-horror film Legion as a [...]
Mark Dawidziak and Reflections on Kolchack: The Night Stalker
One of the enjoyable memories of frights for monster kids of the 1970s was Carl Kolchak who filled the role of The Night Stalker. Each week he used his journalistic skills and savvy to research the paranormal and the monstrous. I was privileged to learn more about this great series through an interview with Mark [...]
Michael Karol: The ABC Movie of the Week
In my research on the fantastic I have come across a lot of good materials, and the individuals who bring these materials into being. Last year I came across Michael Karol and his book The ABC Movie of the Week Companion: A Loving Tribute to the Classic Series (IUniverse, 2008). Michael is an award-winning writer [...]
The Old Hag: Sleep Paralysis, Spirituality, and Pop Culture
Regular readers of TheoFantastique may recall previous mention of a phenomenon called sleep paralysis in connection with posts on Diary of a Madman, and The Fourth Kind. Given the significance of this phenomenon in the lives of many individuals, and its influence in various aspects of pop culture, I will explore this topic in the [...]
Barry Keith Grant: The Night of the Living Dead (1990), Gender, and the Horror Film
If we probe horror in cinema more deeply we find it touches on a number of aspects of the human experience. One of these is related to gender. An excellent book that looks at various facets of this topic is The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film (University of Texas Press, 1996). (The [...]
Edgar Allen Poe: Gone But Still Setting Records
When we think of bestselling authors in literature let’s not forget a giant who made his mark in a number of genres, particularly horror. That author is none other than Edgar Allen Poe. Poe recently set a record at an auction for one of his works. The Baltimore Sun for Dec. 5 reports:
Move over Dan [...]
Matt Cardin: Spirituality in Romero’s Living Dead Films
A while ago I first encountered Matt Cardin when he nominated this blog for an award between bloggers. Matt pursues his blogging at The Teeming Brain. In addition to being flattered, it was good to learn of someone else thinking through the issues related to the connection of horror and religion.
Matt’s biography on his [...]
Skillet: “Monster” as Rock ‘n’ Roll Jekyll and Hyde
The figure of the monster surfaces in many ways in popular culture to serve us for good or ill. At its worst it becomes a way of conceiving of the “other” which provides us with justification for their eradication. At its best it helps us to look inside ourselves to see that many times the [...]
SAW: Cultural Registers for Post-9/11 Anxiety?
In 2004 my brother encouraged me to watch a horror movie that had come out which he thought I would enjoy. He was referring to Saw, but given the trailers I had seen for the film I wasn’t interested. It seemed like it was going to be just the latest in the trend in horror [...]
