Horror Homeroom

Posted on December 28, 2015

Formless Horrors: John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980)

Dawn Keetley

John Carpenter’s first three horror films—Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), and The Thing (1982)—are not only exceptional films, but, taken together, they constitute a kind of trilogy in their similar exploitation of the horror of formlessness.

Halloween may be the film least self-evidently about formlessness (its monster is “human,” after all), but I would suggest that Michael Myers actually stands in defiance of all categories. He is called the “bogeyman” more than once, including at the climax of the film, when a traumatized Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) stammers out to Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence)—“It was the bogeyman.” Kendall Phillips has astutely pointed out that the bogeyman occupies a position “at the boundaries of notions of cultural normalcy”—and that he “embodies the chaos that exists on the other side of these cultural boundaries.”[i] True to form (or, rather, true to formlessness), Michael-as-bogeyman is often portrayed at boundaries—at intersections, on the other side of a road, in doorways, at windows.

Posted on December 24, 2015

Twas the Night Before Christmas: Horror Homeroom Style!

Gwen

Twas the Night Before Christmas,
and all through the house
horrible creatures were stirring,
all but my spouse;

As I replaced the fire poker
by the chimney with care,
I knew it would be Krampus
who would visit this year;

Awaiting the demon’s visit
thoughts danced through my head,
of all the horror films that
that 2015 bred;

I looked to the twitterverse
grabbed a @GhouliaChilds snack
And revisited Horror Homeroom
for a year-end recap,

Posted on December 23, 2015

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984): Connecting Depravity with Childhood Trauma

Elizabeth Erwin

The corruption of childhood by adults, both neglectful and deranged, is a predictable staple of American horror films. Throw in a murderous Santa Claus and a whip-wielding nun and the moral depravity gets ratcheted up ten-fold. Such is the case in Charles E. Sellier, Jr.’s Silent Night, Deadly Night. Residing between ridiculously quotable dialogue and an endless array of sexual, albeit creative, violence is a pointed commentary on the connection between depravity and trauma. The film’s message is clear: it isn’t so much the creatures of myth (Santa, The Boogeyman) children ought to fear but the adults who surround them.

You know a horror film has ticked all the right boxes when the PTA petitions to have it banned. Such was the case in 1984 when Silent Night, Deadly Night opened and immediately raised the hackles of media watchdog groups. Despite its opening weekend grossing more than A Nightmare on Elm Street, TriStar Pictures pulled the plug on its media campaign and the film quickly faded from theatres.

In many respects, the controversy surrounding the 1984 release of the film as well as its advertisements showing an axe-hefting Santa Claus emerging from a chimney seems an echo of a simpler time. People still picketed theatres and film critics still had the power to shape public perception. Consider Leonard Maltin who gave Silent Night, Deadly Night zero stars and predicted the next thing filmgoers would be subjected to would be the Easter Bunny as a child molester. Also weighing in were the notable film critic duo of Siskel and Ebert. Their eviscerating review of the film, in which they called out by name—repeatedly—the people associated with the film, is the stuff of legend:

Posted on December 23, 2015

12 Days of Christmas Horror

Gwen

It’s no secret that Horror and Christmas go together like hatchets and heads. Holidays evoke the best and the worst in us by tapping into our good will toward man at the same time as they burden us with shopping, family meal planning, and the repetitive cadence of grandma getting run over by a reindeer. I continuously expose my bias, but if there is one decade that best marries horror with holidays it is the 1980s. Please join me in celebrating the Horror Homeroom holiday season by indulging in our version of the Twelve Days of Christmas (80s style)!

Posted on December 21, 2015

Contamination with a look at Paralysis: Psychological Horror

Dawn Keetley

20 min | 2013 | (USA) | R. Shanea Williams

Contamination is a short film written and directed by R. Shanea Williams, available on Vimeo. It is a strikingly powerful depiction of what it feels like to suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder—and it indicates the preoccupation of Williams with psychological horror, with the horrors of the world, both real and imagined.

Williams is currently making another short film, more explicitly within the horror tradition, called Paralysis, about a woman suffering from a sleep disorder. In an interview with Graveyard Shift Sisters about her latest film, Williams recounts that one of her professors at NYU told her to “Write what you’re afraid of.” Williams adds, “I ALWAYS start there.”