Horror Homeroom

Posted on November 12, 2019

Halaloween: A Muslim Horror Fest

Guest Post

Perhaps the most significant development in horror films since the year 2000 is the dramatic impact that filmmakers from outside of the US are having on the genre. Japan’s “J-Horror”, the French Extremity, and the horror-inflected fantasies of Mexico’s Guillermo del Toro all found audiences ready to try something different after the often underwhelming output of the 1990’s. Superb movies from this period like The Others (Spain), A Tale of Two Sisters (Korea), Let the Right One In (Sweden), and The Babadook (Australia) attest to the fact that excellent genre films are coming from all over the world.

The venerable Michigan Theater took the globalist trend a distinct step further in October of 2019 by hosting Halaloween, which, as far as I can tell, is the first ever festival with a lineup comprised entirely of horror films from Muslim countries like Turkey, Indonesia, and Tunisia. The festival was produced by The University of Michigan’s Global Islamic Studies Center.

Posted on November 7, 2019

Scaredy Cats: Talking What Frightens Us

Elizabeth Erwin

In this special episode of Horror Homeroom Conversations, we’re talking about what movies have scared the hell out of us over the years. From irascible aliens to malevolent ghosts to religious zealots, we’re breaking down our biggest fears and thinking about why it is that we are so drawn to horror.

Posted on October 30, 2019

In Two Minds: Stephen King, George A. Romero and The Dark Half

Guest Post

The 30th anniversary of Stephen King’s The Dark Half, published in 1989, seems to offer an opportune moment to take a look at the collaboration between King and George A. Romero that brought King’s novel about a writer’s alter ego to the screen.

It’s perhaps unsurprising that the late George A. Romero is so often associated with Stephen King. Having become firm friends in the 1970s – King even has a small cameo in Romero’s Knightriders (1981) – the two masters of horror first worked together on Creepshow (1982), a tribute to the colourful horror comics that they both loved in their youth. They collaborated again on its sequel Creepshow 2 (1987) and the cult anthology series Tales from the Darkside (1983–1988), which was designed to capitalise on Creepshow‘s modest commercial success (and was even intended to carry its title before Romero and his frequent producer, Richard P. Rubinstein, chose to rebrand the series for Tribune Broadcasting and avoid a potential rights dispute with Warner Brothers).

Posted on October 13, 2019

Schlock & Shock: Talking the Creepshow Franchise

Elizabeth Erwin

Greetings thrill shriekers! In this episode of Horror Homeroom Conversations, we’re adding some shlock to our shock by reconsidering the Creepshow franchise. Beloved and reviled in equal measure for its decidedly campy love letter to EC horror comics of the 1950s, Creepshow is arguably still the standard for cinematic anthology horror. But does it deserve its accolades? We’re debating the franchise’s legacy and why the films still make our hearts go flopsy when we contemplate your sweet autopsy. So stay tuned!

Posted on October 10, 2019

Race & Historical Memory in Candyman (1992)

Elizabeth Erwin

The question as to whether an examination of societal inequality can exist in the space between documented historical atrocities and traditional horror filmmaking is answered, although only in part, by Bernard Rose’s Candyman (1992). Heavy on the visceral thrills we expect from the genre, the film succeeds in asking some very pointed questions about race and class, even if the answers are deeply problematic. Certainly, Candyman’s titular villain is a unique manifestation of the intersection between race and historical memory in popular culture and so I am interested in taking a closer look at the film’s underlying social narrative.