Horror Homeroom

Posted on May 3, 2016

First Look: Beacon Point (2016)

Update: Beacon Point will premiere in LA at Dances with Films on Friday, June 10th @ 11:30pm at the Chinese Theater. Get tickets here.

There has been a trend in recent years for American horror films to offer audiences either a cerebral horror experience or one steeped in gory visuals. But as a fan of the ways in which both modes of storytelling can offer a deeply personalized viewing experience, I’ve been waiting for a film to merge both approaches successfully. Beacon Point, director Eric Blue’s first foray into feature filmmaking, is that film.

We are first introduced to Zoe (Rae Olivier), who impulsively quits her job to embark on a group hike on the Appalachian Trail. She is joined in this adventure by a rag tag group of equally inexperienced hikers: Dan (Eric Goins), a Silicon Valley success story dealing with a recent divorce, along with Brian (Jason Burkey) and Cheese (RJ Shearer), two recently reunited brothers. As they are led off the beaten trail by their secretive tour guide Drake (Jon Briddell), a series of grisly discoveries sets the stage for a terrifying adventure that lingers with you long after the ending credits have rolled.

Posted on May 2, 2016

Echoes of Horror: Short Cut

Gwen

Earlier this week I was asked to create a twenty minute training presentation as part of a job interview. In their gross misstep, I was encouraged to train the team on “anything”. It was mentioned that previous candidates had done trainings on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or even how to do the perfect round house kick. Bouncing between ideas of how to cast spells from Harry Potter and teaching the team how to count and sex horseshoe crabs, (if you had any doubt about my nerd credentials, I believe this confirms it) I opted to go with a power point presentation on “How To Survive an 80s Horror Film”.

While working on the presentation, I found myself thinking about the ways that horror permeates broader culture. It is a well-known fact that there have been several horror comedy films and spoofs such as the Scary Movie franchise. But that is too obvious. Likewise, hip hop has borrowed elements of horror for emphasis within rap lyrics.[i] I looked back on my many nights watching USA Up All Night with Rhonda Shear and I immediately thought about the film Summer School (1987). For all you fans of Agent Gibbs on NCIS, this film is worth a look. More important to this brief analysis, are the characters of Chainsaw (Cameron) and Dave (Riley).

Chainsaw and Dave are presented as a little left of center at first. In an attempt to impress a beautiful foreign exchange student, they put on a display that involves lots of fake blood and some vicious bunnies. Only to be met with the source of their inspiration, Anna-Maria (Udenio) saying, “It’s disgusting…I love it!” These guys don’t fit the mold, none of the kids in Summer School do, not even the teacher. They might love prosthetic limbs, gore, and outlandish attire, but they are really good kids. More prominently, Chainsaw and Dave are able to turn negative labels on their ear by challenging the principal’s assessment of the kids as “psychopaths”. Read more

Posted on May 1, 2016

Monstrosity, Creation, and Feminism in Penny Dreadful

Guest Post

Guest Author: Cayla McNally

Both seasons of Penny Dreadful have similar themes: guilt, repression, creation, monstrosity, and the confluence of the sacred and the profane. A huge part of the thematic narrative is duality, a secret self that is harbored away, repressed. As monstrosity is repressed, as the secret self is repressed, the power the characters have over themselves weakens. Ethan represses his lupine nature, which causes him to erupt violently when he does transform. Vanessa represses her natural sexuality, which then leaves her vulnerable to possession. Victor represses Lily’s history, which helps her realize she is immortal.

Monstrosity exists in all of the characters, in two different categories:

-Dorian, Lily, John/Caliban, and Ethan are monstrous in a supernatural way. Control and consent become overarching themes as well, existing at the crossroad of creation and monstrosity. The creatures who see themselves as monsters (Ethan, John/Caliban, Lily) had no control in their creation; rather, they can only control what they choose to do with their monstrosity. Read more

Posted on April 28, 2016

Everything You Need to Know about Penny Dreadful Before Sunday

Guest Post

Guest Author: Cayla McNally

Popular Gothic TV show Penny Dreadful is making its return to Showtime this weekend, and I am beyond excited! Named after a popular form of 19^th century pulp novel, the show is a twisted tale of the dark and supernatural goings-on in Victorian London. The first two seasons have been a beautiful and harrowing ride, and I am curious to see where show creator John Logan will take it next. It can be hard to remember everything that happened in the eighteen episodes of this complex and detailed show, so below you will find season recaps to bring us up to speed for season three. Caution, spoilers abound.

Season 1

Season one begins with, of course, a grisly murder of a woman and her young child, plucked out of their home in the dead of night. The killer remains mysterious and on the loose, though many fear that Jack the Ripper has returned. Meanwhile, Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) approaches American sharpshooter Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett); she offers to pay Ethan handsomely for his skills on some “night work.” Intrigued, Ethan agrees to join Vanessa and Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton), and promptly follows them- unawares- into a vampire den. It is revealed that Sir Malcolm’s daughter- and Vanessa’s best friend- Mina (Olivia Llewellyn) was captured by one of the creatures. They are attacked, and manage to kill one of the nest’s main vampires; they take the body to Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway), who discovers that there are glyphs written under the creature’s skin. Egyptologist Ferdinand Lyle (Simon Russel Beale) later discerns that the glyphs are from the Egyptian Book of the Dead and foretell the end of the world. He also believes that the vampires are using Mina as bait, and really want Vanessa. Read more

Posted on April 27, 2016

Shutter Island, Invasion of The Body Snatchers, and H.P. Lovecraft

Dawn Keetley

The central point of debate about Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island (2010), as well as the 2003 novel by Dennis Lehane, is whether the main character (played by Leonardo Di Caprio) is insane or not. Is he Teddy Daniels, a US Marshal who has uncovered a terrifying conspiracy involving experiments on patients at Ashecliffe Hospital? Or is he Andrew Laeddis, a man suffering from a profound delusion that he is a US Marshal because he is unable to confront the truth that two years ago he murdered his wife after she drowned their three children?

I think you can make a convincing argument for both interpretations—part of the brilliance of both novel and film. Here, I just want to point out one specific moment in the film, one that resonates with a classic horror film and that may (or may not) help tip the scales.

Two-thirds of the way through Shutter Island, Teddy Daniels/Andrew Laeddis is in Ward C, where the most violent prisoners are kept, and he hears someone call out “Laeddis.” Moving toward the voice, he repeatedly lights matches in the darkness, trying desperately to “see” (in all kinds of ways). In the frame above, he has arrived at the cell of George Noyce (Jackie Earle Haley)—a man at the very heart of either Andrew Laeddis’s delusion or Teddy Daniels’s conspiracy. We have a shot of Teddy/Andrew’s face, match lit, looking, and then we have the shot below of Noyce, curled up, features indistinguishable. As the two men talk, we’re not sure what Teddy/Andrew learns. Does he learn that the conspiracy exists (that Noyce has been drugged and experimented on by the doctors at Shutter Island)? Or does he find evidence that he (Andrew) has brutally beaten Noyce for confronting him with the truth that he murdered his wife? The frail flame of the match, the darkness, Teddy/Andrew’s confused and horrified expression, Noyce’s indistinct features, and the ambiguity of their words all render the scene fundamentally indeterminate. Read more