“The Cured”: Interesting zombie take similar to “In the Flesh”
There is a new trailer for a new zombie film, The Cured. It shows evidence of being influenced by the BBC television series In the Flesh, and follows an approach to this subgenre of horror wherein the alien “Other” is explored as they attempt to fit in or reintegrate with the normal “Us.” For my […]
Titles of Interest – Holy Horror: The Bible and Fear in Movies
Holy Horror: The Bible and Fear in Movies By Steve Wiggins McFarland, 2018 What makes you afraid? It may be more than what you think. Horror films have been exploiting our fears almost from the moment movies were invented. Lurking unseen in the corner of horror, however, is something unexpected: the Bible. Sit back while […]
New series: Horror and Scripture
HORROR AND SCRIPTURE Lexington Books/Fortress Academic is pleased to announce a new series: Horror and Scripture. The series seeks monographs that explore horror, monsters, and the monstrous in early Jewish and Christian scriptures (including canonical and non-canonical texts). Books in the series will be grounded in the disciple of Biblical Studies, but will exhibit a […]
Titles of Interest: Why Horror Seduces
Why Horror Seduces by Mathias Clasen (Oxford University Press, 2017) From vampire apocalypses, shark attacks, witches, and ghosts, to murderous dolls bent on revenge, horror has been part of the American cinematic imagination for almost as long as pictures have moved on screens. But why do they captivate us so? What is the drive to […]
CFA: Gothic Animals: Uncanny Otherness and the Animal With-Out
The boundary between the animal and the human has long been unstable, especially since the Victorian period. Where the boundary is drawn between human and animal is itself an expression of political power and dominance, and the ‘animal’ can at once express the deepest fears and greatest aspirations of a society’ (Victorian Animal Dreams, 4). […]
“The Autopsy of Jane Doe” – Surprised by Witchcraft
I’d heard quite a lot of positive buzz about The Autopsy of Jane Doe. Since I added it to my Blu-ray collection I watched it Saturday. I don’t have much to say about it other than it was a satisfying horror film that focuses more on suspense and the creep factor than gore. Even the […]
“The Girl With All the Gifts” – Interesting Variation on the Zombie Film
I had seen advertisements for the film The Girl With All the Gifts (2016), and after almost buying it at my local Walmart over the weekend, I found it for video on demand through internet streaming and decided to give it a viewing. I’m glad I did. It presents an interesting variation on the zombie […]
Titles of Interest – Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange
Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange Adam Scovell Columbia University Press, 2017 Interest in the ancient, the occult, and the “wyrd” is on the rise. The furrows of Robin Hardy (The Wicker Man), Piers Haggard (Blood on Satan’s Claw), and Michael Reeves (Witchfinder General) have arisen again, most notably in the films of Ben […]
Titles of Interest – Monstrous Progeny: A History of the Frankenstein Narratives
Monstrous Progeny: A History of the Frankenstein Narratives Lester D. Friedman and Allison B. Kavey Rutgers University Press, 2016 Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein is its own type of monster mythos that will not die, a corpus whose parts keep getting harvested to animate new artistic creations. What makes this tale so adaptable and so […]
Call for Papers: Elder Horror on Screen
FINAL DAYS! Call for Contributors Elder Horror on Screen: Hermits, Harbingers, and Hags (4/1/17 Abstracts; 10/1/17 Essays) As the baby boom generation grays, representations of the elderly on screen are receiving significant scholarly attention. Cinematic depictions of aging as a degenerative process, the othering, marginalization, and victimization of the elderly, and fears of the finality […]
