Horror Homeroom

Posted on October 16, 2020

The Legends of Sleepy Hollow

Guest Post

When autumn rolls around horror movies awake. Among the most enduring of stories for fall frights is the short story by Washington Irving, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” The story is simple: an outsider schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane, comes to Sleepy Hollow and is smitten by Katrina Van Tassel. Katrina’s beau, Brom Bones, frightens the credulous schoolmaster out of town by masquerading as the headless horseman of local lore. This secular ghost story became a big screen hit with the addition of a religious element to the script. This addition fueled two seasons of Fox’s sleeper hit of 2013, Sleepy Hollow. It also may have contributed to the series’ demise. How did all of this come about?

Published two centuries ago in 1820, Irving’s story was the basis for one of the early ghost films of the cinematographic era—The Headless Horseman (1922), directed by Edward D. Venturini. While horror films have a longer pedigree than is generally acknowledged, this was clearly an early attempt to translate a ghost story to cellulite. Two other silent films addressed the topic as well, but they don’t survive in film. Read more

Posted on October 14, 2020

Tech Horror During Covid: 8 Classic Films

Guest Post

Now more than ever, we’ve been living in a horror film, as the isolation of seven plus months of lockdown has forced us into a reality mediated almost entirely by screens. For those of us working remotely, days are spent on computers and in video meetings. We socialize through phones and laptops too: Zoom birthday parties, FaceTime calls with friends, and confessional Instagram stories. Every person I interact with is as far away or near as every other. They’re all talking heads inside the same digital squares, as known to me as actors on TV.

It’s strange to live through a time of so much illness and death when daily experience has become so nonphysical. The virus, of course, isn’t virtual at all. Unlike the supernatural transmissions in tech horror films, where a haunting is passed from one form of cursed media to another, Covid-19 spreads through bodily proximity. So, we aren’t living in a tech horror film exactly, but our dependence on digital technologies sets us up to appreciate the genre anew.

Posted on October 8, 2020

Dark Economies: Anxious Futures, Fearful Pasts – Conference CFP

Call for Papers

CFP Conference

Dark Economies: Anxious Futures, Fearful Pasts

Falmouth University, UK. 7-9 July 2021

After the success of the Folk Horror in the Twenty First Century conference hosted by Falmouth University, we are holding another related conference in 2021.

We are aiming to have a face to face conference at the beautiful Falmouth Campus in Cornwall. With sub-tropical gardens and the beach nearby, there will be a ‘Welcome to Dark Falmouth’ cemetery walk above the lovely Swanpool lake, an art exhibition, a gig and street food in place of the more usual staid conference dinner. If we’re going to beat Covid we want to do it in style!*

Posted on October 6, 2020

Deconstructive Nostalgia in Clown in a Cornfield

Guest Post

Adam Cesare’s first YA horror novel Clown in a Cornfield delivers exactly what it promises from the title. High school senior Quinn Maybrook, a city girl from Philadelphia, moves with her father to the rural town of Kettle Springs, Missouri, after a family tragedy. They’re looking to move on from this trauma, and so it’s ironic that they settle in Kettle Springs, a town rooted in the past. Quinn quickly assimilates into the surprisingly vibrant youth culture in the town, but she soon learns that not everyone is so fond of the town’s teens. The majority of the novel takes place over the course of one night, as a group of killer clowns attack Quinn and her new friends.

So, why killer clowns? As Brandon Cornett’s article on creepy clowns claims, clowns are terrifying because of their inherent unknowability. Their true emotions are hidden through the use of a painted-on facial expression that’s often overly exaggerated. Clowns fit well within the realm of the uncanny valley: they look one way, but, in the case of horror films, commit acts of violence that don’t always add up with their outward appearance – cheerful and animated. Read more

Posted on October 6, 2020

A Frendo in Need: Talking Clown in a Cornfield

Elizabeth Erwin

How much do we love Adam Cesare’s CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD (2020)? So much that we braved Zoom just to bring you this mini-episode! From its in-the-moment politics to its creative deployment of slasher tropes, Dawn and I are explaining why this novel deserves its buzz on this episode so stay tuned! SPOILERS ABOUND IN THIS EPISODE SO TAKE HEED.