Horror Homeroom

Posted on September 19, 2018

Interview with Grimmfest Senior Programmer

Dawn Keetley

Grimmfest is Manchester’s premium international festival of genre film, including (of course) horror, and it will be enjoying its 10^th anniversary when it opens on October 4-7, 2018. The final line-up is now out, and it includes some fantastic films.

This year, Grimmfest has partnered with House of Leaves Publishing in the promotion of their forthcoming book, Scared Sacred: Idolatry, Religion and Worship in the Horror Film, to offer day passes to the 2018 festival. For more information, please visit Scared Sacred‘s crowdfunding page.

Ahead of Grimmfest’s opening, I interviewed Senior Programmer Steve Balshaw about Grimmfest—and about the broader shape of horror today.

What do you think is distinctive about Grimmfest?

First and foremost, the range and selection of films. We are interested in exploring the darker side of cinema, in all its various forms. Obviously, our focus has always been on horror, and to a lesser extent science fiction, but we have also found space over the years for Southern Gothic, Crime and Film Noir, black comedy, Fantasy and even Sword and Sorcery, as well as cinema that it simply weird, wired and utterly uncategorisable. Genre cinema has always been pretty broadly defined anyway, and we will screen everything from grindhouse to arthouse. Over the years, we have developed an international reputation for pushing at the boundaries of genre, and focusing on more left-field and independent material, rather than more mainstream horror and sci-fi films. We like to stretch and redefine the parameters, and hopefully we will continue to do that. If we like a film, and think our audience will like it, or simply that they need to see it, we will try to find a slot for it.

Posted on September 16, 2018

Michael Tully’s Brilliant Don’t Leave Home–Reviewed and Explained

Dawn Keetley

It’s well over halfway through the year and claims about the best horror films of 2018 are gaining more legitimacy, so I feel on firm ground when I say that Michael Tully’s Irish horror film Don’t Leave Home will be in my top ten this year. It is directed and written by Tully, shot on location at beautiful Killadoon House in Celbridge, County Kildare, Ireland, and features stellar performances by its three leads—Anna Margaret Hollyman as Melanie Thomas, Lalor Roddy as Father Alistair Burke, and Helena Bereen as Shelly. Don’t Leave Home is eerie horror. It builds dread and has moments of jarring creepiness. It veers into non-narrativity at times, as resonant images fade and dissolve into each other. It is beautiful. It makes you think: I watched it and then had to watch it again, and I’m still not sure I understand it—not in a frustrating way but in a way that makes you realize there’s simply more to be understood. Don’t Leave Home will stay with me.

Posted on September 15, 2018

Scared Sacred: Idolatry, Religion and Worship in the Horror Film

Dawn Keetley

We’re going to be posting a lot about the great projects the folks at House of Leaves Publishing are working on, including their first book, a collection of essays called Scared Sacred: Idolatry, Religion and Worship in the Horror Film. We’re committed to indie horror in all its forms, including writing and publishing, and we urge you to pre-order Scared Sacred House of Leaves Publishing’s websitefrom .

This week, House of Leaves shared a preview from Alexandra West’s chapter from Scared Sacred: “Onward Christian Soldiers: Eyes of the Believers in The Conjuring (2013) and The Conjuring 2 (2016).” You’ll find below an exclusive typeset sample of this preview, including John Sowder’s beautiful woodcut illustration. (Just click on the images to enlarge them.)

Posted on September 12, 2018

Sleepaway Camp and the Transgressive Possibilities of Queer Spectatorship

Guest Post

After a quick Google search, I was astounded as to how many blogs denounce Sleepaway Camp (1983) as transphobic. I’ve always been conscious of the film’s inherent homophobia – two children touch each other after seeing their father and his partner in bed, suggesting homosexuality as a taught paedophilic behaviour – but I’m less certain of the film’s inherent transphobia. As a cisgender gay man, it’s questionable whether I can rightfully claim what is and isn’t transphobic, but watching Sleepaway Camp, something less regressive resonates within me.

Angela’s father embraces his partner (top) for Angela and her brother to mimic their behaviour (bottom)

I first recall watching Sleepaway Camp at 15 years old. Besides the ending, I hated it. The only thing that carried me through was Angela (Felissa Rose) who I felt desperately empathetic towards. A quiet, tortured soul, I wanted to like her. I certainly felt a proud grimace of hope whenever she opened her mouth to speak. Little did I know, I was Angela; she’s the bullied caricature of every queer kid. Read more

Posted on September 9, 2018

Mara: The Best Horror Feature about Sleep Paralysis

Dawn Keetley

Clive Tonge is from Northern England and has devoted his life to working in the film industry. While he has directed a couple of shorts, including the horror film “Sunday Best” (2011), Mara is his first feature film. Written by Jonathan Frank, Mara follows a criminal psychologist, Dr. Kate Fuller (Olga Kurylenko), as she arrives at a troubling murder site. A man is dead and it seems clear to everyone that his wife (Helena) did it. But she insists that her husband had been experiencing increasingly troubled sleep and that the night he died a “demon” entered their bedroom, sat on her husband’s chest, and choked him to death. As Kate investigates, she is led to a string of apparent strangers who have all shared the same terrifying night paralysis. More and more of them start dying inexplicably in their sleep, and soon Kate is investigating a phenomenon in which she too has become a victim.