Horror Homeroom, Author at Horror Homeroom

Posted on March 29, 2016

Short Cuts: Senior Citizen Rage in Homebodies (1974)

From Minnie and Roman Castevet in Rosemary’s Baby (1968) to Grandpa Chapman in Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), American horror has a troubling track record in how it depicts aging. Often used as a means of creating a sense of otherness, age is portrayed consistently as being horrific and fraught with evil undercurrents. Culturally, this makes sense. It is not at all surprising that as society has created new means by which to stave off the appearance of aging, the preponderance of elderly, villainous characters in film has increased. And certainly the fact that most of these villains are elderly females is not coincidental.

And so it was with great interest that I recently watched the cult classic Homebodies (1974). Revolving around the plight of a group of senior citizens who are displaced from their homes in the name of gentrification, the film’s portrayal of its elderly characters reflects the “evil elderly” construct while simultaneously inverting its more problematic elements, specifically that age is something to be feared. In the scene above, the tyrannical land developer meets his demise courtesy of the ingenuity of Mattie, the ringleader of the group. With a dark humor sensibility (the gang deals with Mr. Crawford’s foot not being encased in the cement by simply chopping it off), this scene is vital in positioning the elderly killers as both threatening and deserving of our sympathy.

Posted on March 28, 2016

The Birds and Night of the Living Dead

Dawn Keetley

Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful film, The Birds, was released on March 28, 1963—fifty-three years ago today.

Among the many ways in which The Birds broke new ground, helping to shape the modern horror film, is in its profound influence on George A. Romero’s inaugural zombie film, Night of the Living Dead (1968).

Numerous critics have pointed out the similarities of the two films, and the ways in which The Birds created the narrative formula that would be emulated by so many zombie films. [i] The birds, like zombies, are dangerous en masse, as they flock and herd—and birds and zombies are also largely silent. Both The Birds and Night of the Living Dead, moreover, involve humans trying to board themselves up in structures that inevitably prove vulnerable: grasping dead hands and beaks always manage to penetrate their walls.

Both films also left in obscurity the origins of the mysterious attacks by the birds and the returned dead, each of which represented a grotesque overturning of natural law. As The Birds’ ornithologist, Mrs. Bundy (Ethel Griffies) proclaims, birds are “peaceful” and different species of birds would “never” flock together. Her definitive pronouncements (like those that insist the dead are dead) prove, of course, spectacularly wrong.

Posted on March 27, 2016

Easter in the Land of The Walking Dead

Dawn Keetley

Season 5, episode 3, “Four Walls and a Roof”

The above screenshot is taken from a scene in Father Gabriel’s church in the season 5 episode, “Four Walls and a Roof.” Rick and his group have laid a trap for Gareth and the other cannibals, who have just ambushed Bob and eaten his leg. Two of the Cannibals stand on either side of the door, where they think the survivors are hiding, and they’re about to break in and kill them. Rick has other plans, though. He, Abraham, Sasha, and Michonne will soon slaughter the Cannibals in what a horrified Gabriel calls “the Lord’s House.”

A list of Bible verses hangs conspicuously on the wall, and is featured in countless shots during the course of this episode. The Bible verses are below (at the end of this post)—and, as you’ll see, they all feature the dead who do not stay dead—the resurrected dead.

Posted on March 24, 2016

The Function of Queerness on The Walking Dead

Elizabeth Erwin

As I have noted before, there is a danger in dissecting a television narrative that is still in the process of unfurling. Initially it was my intention to write about how queerness functions within The Walking Dead’s (television) universe after the final episode of season 6. However, on Monday night (March 21, 2016) an exchange occurred on Twitter that made me think this is a more pressing conversation. Read more

Posted on March 16, 2016

“Raised up from the Dead”*: The Walking Dead and Religion

Dawn Keetley

There is much to say about the role of religion in AMC’s The Walking Dead, but here I want to focus on the three crucial church scenes that have punctuated the series so far.

1. In season two, episode one, “What Lies Beneath,” the group is searching for Carol’s (Melissa McBride) lost daughter. They hear church bells and are drawn to the Southern Baptist Church, where, after killing the three walkers sitting in its pews, Carol and Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and even Daryl (Norman Reedus) ask God to help them.

Season 2, “What Lies Beneath”

2. In a much different scene in the season five episode, “Four Walls and a Roof,” the group lures those remaining survivors from Terminus who had captured Bob (Lawrence Gilliard, Jr.) and eaten his leg into Father Gabriel’s (Seth Gilliam) church and brutally slaughters them.

3. And finally, in the season six episode, “Not Tomorrow Yet,” Rick stands at the front of Alexandria’s church and exhorts the survivors that their very lives depend on a preemptive attack on Negan’s Saviors—that they must find them and kill them.

The most obvious point to make about the trajectory of these scenes is the dramatic increase in brutality on the part of Rick and his group, which goes hand-in-hand with Rick’s movement from supplicating Christ to taking his place.