Posted on March 19, 2021

Host and Found Footage in the Age of COVID-19: Horrific Hyperreality

Guest Post

Everything happens over Zoom, now. Even séances. Host (2020), directed by independent British filmmaker Rob Savage, follows a group of friends who make the ill-informed decision to conduct a séance over Zoom. The group is whittled down, one by one, as they confront a supernatural entity they conjure through the internet. Host reveals the Zoom room as a haunted space, one that requires constant negotiation with (un)reality and disruptions in spatiality. While filmmakers around the world have been working with found footage for decades, the social upheaval of COVID-19 created a unique opportunity for horror to address our complicated relationship with technology during this period of forced isolation, collective grief, and desperate uncertainty. Read more

Posted on March 18, 2021

Candyman: Essential Reading

Dawn Keetley

Conversations about the Candyman franchise will undoubtedly be ongoing as we await Nia DaCosta and Jordan Peele’s “spiritual sequel.” To that end, we’ll be collecting essential reading here – so send us any further suggestions.

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Posted on March 15, 2021

What’s Wrong with Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh?

Dawn Keetley

After the success of 1992’s Candyman (directed by Bernard Rose), a sequel was inevitable. The 1995 Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh was directed by Bill Condon, who would go on to write and direct the acclaimed 1998 film, Gods and Monsters. Despite Condon’s later success, Farewell to the Flesh only makes it strikingly clear how badly we need the upcoming “spiritual sequel” to Candyman written by Jordan Peele and directed by Nia DaCosta. DaCosta’s Candyman will pick up from the 1992 original film, ignoring the sequels from 1995 and 1999—not a bad choice.

While the original Candyman has received—and deserves—much praise, it is not without its problems. In Horror Noire (2011), Robin Means Coleman has pointed out that Rose’s Candyman gives the white protagonist Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) and, indeed, all whites a pass: “Rather, he punishes Blacks” (189). And, in the end, Helen Lyle proves herself the hero of her own story and destroys Candyman (Tony Todd), emerging herself as the powerful monster poised to move the narrative forward. Again, as Means Coleman has pointed out, “this is a movie about celebrating White womanhood.” Candyman himself, she continues, “disappears along with the history of racism he brings. It is all about Helen as she becomes monstrous” (190).

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person in head contraption
Posted on March 12, 2021

Eight Medical Horror Films (and Two Shorts) to Watch in Quarantine

Guest Post

It sure is a strange time to watch medical horror. The tensions underlying much of the horror genre are especially palpable when engaging with the creepy hospitals, contagion anxieties, and frightful institutions that are the trademarks of this medically-oriented subgenre. Is horror harmless fun, important cultural work, ghoulish grave-dancing, or all of the above? What is the point – and the ethical ramifications – of engaging with imagined versions of the calamities we are actually experiencing? As a partial answer, I offer these eight medical horror films (and two shorts!), which explore the many terrors, anxieties, and hopes that we associate with medicine. Read more

man holds knife to woman's throat
Posted on March 9, 2021

Beavers Bite Back: Rape-Revenge, “Good for Her,” and Freaky’s Final Girl

Guest Post

Freaky (2020), directed by Christopher Landon, is a slasher movie with a body-swap twist: a teenage girl, Millie (Kathryn Newton), and a serial killer, the Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn) – through the dubious magic of an ancient Aztec curse – switch bodies and must deal with the unintended consequences. But the movie’s title is more than a nod to Freaky Friday; it’s also an indication of the way it mixes up – or gets freaky with – its genre classification.

Freaky establishes its slasher credentials early on, directly referencing earlier slashers like Halloween (1978) and Scream (1996) during its opening sequence of murders, and it’s obviously familiar with body-swap conventions as well (the cursed Aztec object, for instance). As a body-swap slasher, an unusual combination, some of its elements may not fit comfortably. Dawn Keetley writes, for instance, that “it felt pretty off-putting to be asked to identify with the Butcher’s body rather than Millie’s. One of my persistent pleasures in the slasher film is precisely in the Final Girl’s body. In this film, I’m asked to transfer that identification to Vince Vaughn.” The body-swap element might, then, undermine some of the effects of the slasher. And Freaky is certainly much bloodier than a typical body-swap movie, although it does retain the genre’s emphasis on gaining new perspective and understanding of others. Read more

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