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Posted on July 19, 2016

5 Recent Horror Film Endings That’ll Shock You

Dawn Keetley

Endings are crucial in horror. During the reign of the Motion Picture Production Code (1934-1968), evil had to be punished, which obviously dictated a certain kind of ending—an inevitable and often abrupt closure that restored the status quo. (Remember the evil Rhoda Penmark in The Bad Seed [1956], struck by lightning at the end, a conclusion most definitely not in the novel.)

It wasn’t until 1968, after the demise of the Code, that modern horror saw its first truly shocking and nihilistic ending in George A. Romero’s The Night of the Living Dead. The protagonist of the film (Ben [Duane Jones]), who was the sole survivor of a night of carnage after a group trapped in a farmhouse were attacked by ghouls arisen from their graves, was shot in the head by a posse “cleaning up” the staggering zombies. There was closure here, but it wasn’t about the destruction of the monster but of the good guy. And, if order was restored (which is arguable), it was indiscriminately brutal. Then came the slashers of the 70s and 80s and, as great as many of them are, they did usher in the kind of ending that unfortunately still prevails in much horror: monster dies; monster isn’t dead; monster is even more angry; cue sequel. Such endings can be shocking, but the shock is cheap, and it really isn’t that shocking after you’ve watched enough of them. Read more

Posted on July 15, 2016

Top Ten Reasons Camping Just Isn’t For Me

Gwen

I should preface this by stating that I was traumatized by Girl Scout camp long before I saw any of these films. I was an awkwardly shy kid away from home for the first time in the middle of nowhere with only one friend. The food sucked, the lake was icky (reminded me of “The Raft” segment from Creepshow 2 [1987]), and I swear I pulled latrine duty every time. Frankly, I might take a night at Camp Bloodbath before I would go back to Girl Scout camp. By no means do I shudder from the great outdoors, but let’s just say I would take my chances in an urban jungle long before I would canoe down the Cahulawassee River looking to play Dueling Banjos with the locals. From a horror film stand point, I just feel as if things work out better for folks in the city than in the woods. Whether it is a vacation getaway in the woods, a week at summer camp, or some time to hone your cheerleading skills, these films offer little respite for the weary. As we embark on the summer of 2016, maybe some of these films will help you decide whether you would rather camp along the Appalachian Trail or book a room at the Hyatt this year.

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Posted on July 11, 2016

And Then There Were None: The Agatha Christie Revival

Dawn Keetley

We live in an era in which it seems every horror is caught on video tape. Presumably that renders those horrors clear and unambiguous. Pictures don’t lie, right? Except it seems that every picture, every scene of footage that makes its way onto a news broadcast or social media, has a thousand interpretations. On the night of July 7, when five police officers were fatally shot in Dallas during a night of peaceful protest, Fox News was showing live feed of the demonstrations and happened to catch bodies clad in uniform lying on the ground, before anyone knew what was going on. The anchor, Megyn Kelly, clearly not sure what to make of the footage, said uncertainly, “We don’t know what we’re seeing here.” And, in truth, it seems we never know what we’re seeing when some newly videotaped horror makes it into the public domain. Or, we do (think we) know what we’re seeing but our neighbor sees something entirely different. The hope of transparency, of the unmediated “real” –especially the truth of a sin or a crime—always eludes us. In fact, now everything is caught on tape, it seems especially to elude us. And that’s where Agatha Christie comes in. In every detective novel she ever wrote, all of which begin with a crime (usually murder), Christie offers us “the truth.” We know exactly what happened, we know how, and we know why—usually laid out for us by the incomparable Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple. The new BBC adaptation of And Then There Were None is no exception.  Read more

Posted on July 7, 2016

Road Trip: Lizzie Borden House Tour

Gwen

Grade: A+

Review: A Superb Tour for the History Buff, Horror Fan, or the Adventurous!

I go to Massachusetts regularly and I kept meaning to get to the Lizzie Borden house but it just never happened. On this date, the stars aligned as my biannual Seabird & Whale Tales Trip with the New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance (NECWA) was cancelled and I had all the time in the world to run down to Fall River today. So I packed up my stuff and headed out. What followed was that I was excited, entertained, and educated by our excellent tour guide, Danielle (who is definitely “one of us” judging by her acute sense of humor, her Robert Englund tattoo, and her knowledge of the CON circuit).

Let me begin by saying that my tour guide was stellar and really made the experience special. Her wealth of knowledge and personal interjections were both informative and often hysterical. The tour guide never tells you with any certainty what happened in the house, they are careful to stick to the facts and let you come up with your own judgment. The inside of the home is fashioned with period pieces (which was a living replica of my grandmother’s house…down to the caned chairs and abundant doilies). The furniture is not original (thank goodness, as that would be gross) but there are sprinklings of original woodwork and belongings throughout. Read more

Posted on July 4, 2016

The Purge: Election Year: Do Progressive Politics Make Good Horror?

Dawn Keetley

The Purge: Election Year is the third film in James DeMonaco’s franchise and continues on the trajectory set in motion by its two predecessors: it represents a broader political scope with proportionally less dread. Indeed, if the Purge franchise has had only a marginal grasp on the horror genre, Election Year may represent its letting go (though it is still labeled “horror” in IMDb—albeit secondarily to “action”).

In Election Year, the seeds of the resistance to Purge Night that were growing in The Purge: Anarchy (2014) have come to some sort of blossoming in the form of Senator Charlene (Charlie) Roan, played by Elizabeth Mitchell (also currently starring in Freeform’s new summer horror series, Dead of Summer). Charlie witnessed the slaughter of her entire family on Purge Night eighteen years earlier (indeed, her mother had to choose which of her family members would survive). Charlie is not only, unsurprisingly, deeply opposed to the Purge, but also to violence in any form. She intends to defeat the NFFA (The New Founding Fathers of America) and their Purge platform at the voting booth. Ballots not bullets. Read more

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