Horror Homeroom, Author at Horror Homeroom

Posted on February 21, 2016

The Final Girl, Pt. 4: The Hostel Films and Paxton as “Final Girl”

Dawn Keetley

In my third post on the Final Girl, I argued that Halloween H20 (1998) and Halloween: Resurrection (2002) signaled the end of the traditional Final Girl of the slasher plot—and that things were about to change as we entered the twenty-first century.

Eli Roth’s Hostel (2005) marks that change—a change that Roth makes clear by having the ending of Hostel and the beginning of Hostel, Part 2 (2007) echo the iconic Friday the 13^th (Sean S. Cunningham, 1980) and Friday the 13^th, Part 2 (Steve Miner, 1981), but with a crucial difference.[i]

Friday the 13^th famously ends with the Final Girl, Alice (Adrienne King), decapitating Pamela Vorhees (Betsy Palmer). Although she survives the first round of carnage at “Camp Blood,” Alice’s luck runs out as Friday the 13^th, Part 2 begins. Still traumatized, she lives only long enough to see the worst of her nightmares realized: while making tea and feeding her cat, Alice is attacked and killed by Jason Vorhees, bent on avenging his mother.

Posted on February 19, 2016

The Final Girl, Part 3: The End?

Dawn Keetley

By the end of the 1990s, the Final Girl trope had arguably run its course, at least within a conventional slasher narrative. One reason for this, I think, is because of the self-reflexivity of horror in the 1990s. The persistent reflection of one character by another, on TV screens and in mirrors, started to disclose how characters were trapped in a mirror of reflections that was preventing radical transformation.

The Halloween and Scream franchises are deeply reflective of each other. And while one of the things the Scream franchise was known for was its self-reflexivity—its internal explicit references to other films—the Halloween franchise (beginning twenty years earlier) was actually the first to build into its narrative meaningful references to other horror films.

Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978) famously weaves Christian Nyby’s 1951 sci-fi horror film The Thing from Another World into its plot. Lindsey and Tommy are watching the film throughout the fateful Halloween evening—and it’s not just a throwaway reference. In the earlier film, the “Thing,” an alien from another planet, is called a “boogeyman on ice”—and is an utterly inhuman, emotionless killing machine. Michael Myers, called “The Shape” in the credits, is also, of course, an inhuman, emotionless killing machine, and the last exchange of the film is Laurie (Jamie Lees Curtis) saying to Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence), “It was the boogeyman.”

Posted on February 17, 2016

Celebrating A Broader Picture of Women in Horror

Gwen

It has been said that horror involves too few and too negative stereotypes of women. In the years since Carol Clover’s 1992 book Men, Women, and Chainsaws, even the final girl has been criticized for limiting women’s role in horror. I feel that that there has been continuous growth in the industry’s representations of women. The female character is no longer an adornment to be draped over the shoulder of The Creature from The Black Lagoon (1954) or of an oversized gorilla. She does not exist simply to be saved. The following qualities of the present women of horror provide us with a better representation of the myriad of personalities that exist in real women. Rather than the simple formulaic final girls, these qualities reinforce ways of seeing women in horror and of appreciating horror’s growing audience of female spectators. Women are not one-dimensional: we are sometimes weak, strong, smart, silly, scared, simple, and maddeningly complex. Far from complete, this broader range of characteristics celebrates the fact that women in our favorite genre are more than just props, archetypes, or stereotypes. Looking beyond the big boobs, monstrous mommies, and less than virginal victims, women contain a multitude of characteristics that critics often minimize. There was no way I was limiting this list to ten and it’s our month so we are in charge. I hope you will all add some to our list to help us celebrate women in horror.

Posted on February 16, 2016

Finding Feminism in the Women of Giallo

Guest Post

I live for a good giallo or, truth be told, a really bad one. You see, even the most mediocre giallo holds something special, be it the location (especially spooky, foggy, perfect Venice), the over-the-top murders, the kick-ass soundtracks, or the unmasking of the killer (hint: it’s always the priest). As Women in Horror Month kicked off, I kept thinking about my obsession with gialli and what made them so special to me. It finally dawned on me that, despite their flaws, these films are incredibly feminist. The women in gialli are unlike anything seen in American slashers or thrillers during the 1970’s. For me, this is one of the reasons why these films are still refreshing and captivating over forty years later.

Giallo, the Italian word for ‘yellow,’ has come to encompass the Italian slasher film genre as a whole. In post-fascist Italy, paperback mystery novels were given yellow covers, and it was the content of these dime-store novels that served as the plots for many giallo films. This subgenre usually features a black-leather-gloved killer, armed with a knife; bold colors (the genre’s giants Mario Bava and Argento heavily favor blood-red); and ample amounts of nudity and sex. While Italians certainly cornered the market on gialli, there are some solid British and American contributions to the genre such as Peeping Tom (1960), Frenzy (1972), Klute (1971), and The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978).

Posted on February 15, 2016

The Walking Dead MSP: How the #GreatChop Points to an Audience Divide

Elizabeth Erwin

Surprisingly explicit, tonight’s The Walking Dead midseason premiere, aptly named “No Way Out,” was a clear reminder to viewers that the show they enjoy so much is unabashedly a part of the horror genre. Predictably, online criticism over the brutality of the episode was swift. If you haven’t yet watched the episode, now would be a good time to stop reading because we are going to talk in detail about what transpired and why viewer reaction was likely so strong…and mixed.