Posted on December 27, 2016

Boyism: The Horror of Delayed Manhood in William Brent Bell’s The Boy (2016)

Guest Post

William Brent Bell’s 2016 The Boy plays a neat trick on us. The film poses as one genre of horror and then reveals itself to be another. It begins with Greta (Lauren Cohan), an American who, after escaping an abusive relationship that resulted in a miscarriage, travels to Britain to work as a live-in nanny for Brahms, the son of an old English couple, the Heelshires, who live in a mansion in the middle of nowhere. When Greta arrives, she discovers something strange about Brahms: he is a doll, the spitting image of the real Brahms, the Heelshires’ dead son, who died in a housefire years back but is “still with us,” the father explains.

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Posted on December 24, 2016

Jacques Tourneur’s Curse of the Demon: Horror and the Persistence of Evil

Dawn Keetley

Partaking in the long tradition of reading ghost stories at Christmas, I’ve recently been immersed in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century supernatural tales of M. R. James. One of my favorites is “Casting the Runes,” published in 1911, about a strangely cursed parchment of runic characters that occultist Karswell passes to his enemies and rivals, ensuring their death in three months unless they are able to pass the paper on. (The central plot device really reminded me of Gore Verbinski’s The Ring—but that’s another post!) James’s “Casting the Runes” has been adapted for television on several occasions, but it was, most famously, made into a 1957 film directed by Jacques Tourneur, called The Night of the Demon (in the UK) and The Curse of the Demon (in the US, where a shortened version was released). The film is flawed, to be sure, but it has some wonderful moments, including two scenes (one of which opens the film) shot at Stonehenge—a Stonehenge before all the barricades, parking lots, gift shops, and tourists. Read more

Posted on December 21, 2016

Women in Horror Film Festival to Hit Atlanta Next Fall

Dawn Keetley

We’ve been excited to learn that producers of the film Rainy Season, based on the story by Stephen King, are launching a one-of-a-kind film festival in Atlanta in the fall of 2017.

The Women in Horror Film Festival will be dedicated to showcasing and honoring women within the horror genre. They will be welcoming filmmakers and writers from around the world for three days on independent film screenings, industry workshops, and frightening fun!

They will be accepting submissions for films and screenplays through Film Freeway beginning January 1, 2017.

Spots are still available for sponsors and vendors, as well as advertising opportunities.

If you would like to be apply to be a judge or volunteer for the fest, you can send an inquiry to WIHfilmfest@gmail.com.

For more information, please visit their website or on Facebook and Twitter.

Posted on December 20, 2016

Reconsidering Disaster Films as Horror

Elizabeth Erwin

Sharing a similar aesthetic, the line between horror films and disaster films has always been hard to pinpoint. From creepy sound effects to graphic violence to a cultivated atmosphere of menace, the characteristics of horror films and disaster films overlap in a very organic way. I’ve been interested in thinking about whether these two genres are distinctly different, or if it benefits us to think of them as similar.

I’m often surprised at how overlooked these movies are by horror film buffs. But with Hollywood attempting to resurrect the genre (World War Z, Olympus Has Fallen), I think it’s worth a look at whether some of the films that created the blueprint for the modern disaster film are also intimately connected to the horror genre. And while disaster films, much like horror, are designed to reflect the times in which they are made, the elements employed by both are startlingly similar.

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Posted on December 17, 2016

Train to Busan: Zombies and Crises of Conscience on a Train

Dawn Keetley

Train to Busan marks the live-action debut of animator Yeon Sang-ho—and it is a stunning debut. It tells the story of a workaholic fund manager, Seok Woo (Gong Yoo) whose marriage appears to have been a casualty both of his ambition and of what his daughter, Su-an (Kim Su-an), describes as his ingrained propensity to think only of himself. When the film opens, Su-an is staying with her father in Seoul, but she demands he take her back to her mother in Busan—which sets off the eponymous high-speed train ride. As father and daughter board the train, evidence of strange, violent behavior manifests on the edges of the frame, not quite in vision—but soon it’s clear that something is infecting the passengers on the train. What follows is a terrifying film about the struggle of the dwindling uninfected against the increasing hordes of infected. The film is also about so much more than that—it’s about what humans are capable of becoming, both good and bad.
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