Titles of Interest: British Gothic Cinema
British Gothic Cinema by Barry Forshaw (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). Forshaw provides a definitive, wide-ranging study of the British horror film produced by the Hammer studios and their rivals from the 1940s and 1950s up to the 21st century and the new popularity of the genre. Beginning with a lively discussion of the great literary antecedents, […]
Call for Papers – Sights and Frights: Victorian Visual Culture, Horror and the Supernatural
“Sights and Frights: Victorian Visual Culture, Horror and the Supernatural” University of Sussex June 19 2014 Deadline: December 16, 2013 “Sights and Frights” is a one day interdisciplinary conference, aimed at both academics and post-graduate students, whose aim is to explore and interrogate cultural cross-currents between nineteenth-century visual culture, science and social practice, particularly where […]
The Purge: Social Commentary for Right and Left
I finally had an opportunity to watch The Purge over the weekend. I heard good things about the film when it appeared in theaters, especially its phenomenal box office success, earning $87 million globally with a $3 million production budget. Part of the film’s success may have come from its political and social commentary. This […]
Lorna Jowett and Stacey Abbott on ‘TV Horror: Investigating the Dark Side of the Small Screen’
I have had a long-time interest in horror on television, and have discussed specific aspects of it previously on this blog. With this post we take up the topic again, through an interview with Lorna Jowett and Stacy Abbott, authors of the wonderful volume TV Horror: Investigating the Dark Side of the Small Screen (I.B. […]
Tal Zimerman talks about ‘Why Horror?’
I recently learned about a documentary that is currently in production, “Why Horror?,” that takes a point of view perspective through the life of Tal Zimerman, as probes the international and cultural phenomenon of horror deeply. Zimerman discusses the film below, and includes a way that you can get involved in completing this effort. TheoFantastique: […]
Call for Papers – Contemporary Horrors: Destabilizing a Cinematic Genre
Contemporary Horrors: Destabilizing a Cinematic Genre The University of Chicago, April 25-26, 2014 Keynote: Adam Lowenstein (Univ. of Pittsburgh) The turn of the millennium has witnessed a uniquely dazzling upsurge in cinematic production within the horror genre. How do we account for the prolific production and prodigious diffusion of horror film since the turn of […]
Titles of Interest: To See the Saw Movies
Title of interest – To See the Saw Movies: Essays on Torture Porn and Post-9/11 Horror, edited by James Aston and John Walliss (McFarland, 2013). The Saw films, often derided by critics as “torture porn” and an excuse to show blood and gore, are the highest-grossing horror series in cinema history. In view of their […]
Titles of Interest: Bewitched Again
This title of interest is Bewitched Again: Supernaturally Powerful Women on Television, 1996-2011 (McFarland, 2013) by Julie D. O’Reilly. Starting in 1996, U.S. television saw an influx of superhuman female characters who could materialize objects like Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, defeat evil like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and have premonitions like Charmed’s Phoebe. The extraordinary […]
Title of Interest: The Descent
This post begins a new feature for TheoFantastique, promotion of various volumes that probe facets of the fantastic in more depth. We being with The Descent by James Marriott (Columbia University Press, 2013). The story of an all-female caving expedition gone horribly wrong, The Descent (2005) is arguably the best of the mid-2000s horror entries […]
