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Posted on April 4, 2016

Stay Tuned: Serialized Storytelling and The Walking Dead

In 2013, George A. Romero famously told The Big Issue, “They asked me to do a couple of episodes of The Walking Dead but I didn’t want to be a part of it. Basically it’s just a soap opera with a zombie occasionally. I always used the zombie as a character for satire or a political criticism and I find that missing in what’s happening now.” While I disagree with Romero’s assertion that The Walking Dead lacks social commentary, last night’s cliffhanger ending does raise some questions as to the show’s approach to serialized storytelling.

That the show utilizes established soap opera tropes is without question. From the Rick/Lori/Shane love triangle that results in a pregnancy of questionable parentage to an ample supply of teenage angst courtesy of Carl and Enid, the show has a consistent track record of employing storytelling devices first manifested in the soap opera format. Yet, unlike Romero, I believe that this approach to the narrative is ultimately beneficial because it creates an unusually high degree of audience involvement.

Posted on April 3, 2016

3 Clues about Glenn’s Fate Tonight on AMC’S The Walking Dead

Dawn Keetley

I want to say up front that I have not read any spoilers for the season six finale of The Walking Dead, which is due to air tonight. But I have read the comics, and I don’t think there’s anyone out there at this point who isn’t anticipating the appearance of Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) on tonight’s episode—along with his trusty bat Lucille. Not least, Negan and the bat have featured in the most recent trailer for the finale.

Speculation has been rife that a major character will die tonight at the hands of Negan—or, I should say, rumors are flying about which major character will die tonight.

Posted on April 1, 2016

We Are Still Here (2015) Review

Gwen

2015 | Not Rated | USA | Ted Geoghegan | 84 min

Grade: C

Synopsis: After losing their son, Anne (Barbara Crampton) and Paul (Andrew Sensenig) Sacchetti move to rural New York to cope with their recent tragedy. Upon moving into the 120 year old home, the Sacchettis come to realize that it also endured a few traumas of its own. Anne mistakenly assumes that her son Bobby is reaching out to her from the grave, so she invites family friends and spiritual gurus May (Lisa Marie) and Jacob (Larry Fessenden) Lewis to solicit some answers. What they find is an evil deeply entrenched in the town itself that lurches forth every 30 years…and you guessed it, the Sacchettis moved in right at the 30 year benchmark.

Review: We Are Still Here is just…kinda…there.

Nuts and Bolts: We Are Still Here is a good movie. There are no dreadful flaws, nor any amazing crescendos. I typically stay away from reading reviews when I pick which movies to watch; however, as I anxiously wait for my copy of Haunted Honeymoon (1986) to arrive, I got caught up in the internet and saw some amazing reviews of We Are Still Here that piqued my interest. Unfortunately the reviews pumped the movie up so much that it didn’t take much to set me up for a letdown. So I will let you make up your own mind but I will at least tell you what works and what doesn’t work.

Posted on March 29, 2016

Short Cuts: Senior Citizen Rage in Homebodies (1974)

Elizabeth Erwin

From Minnie and Roman Castevet in Rosemary’s Baby (1968) to Grandpa Chapman in Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), American horror has a troubling track record in how it depicts aging. Often used as a means of creating a sense of otherness, age is portrayed consistently as being horrific and fraught with evil undercurrents. Culturally, this makes sense. It is not at all surprising that as society has created new means by which to stave off the appearance of aging, the preponderance of elderly, villainous characters in film has increased. And certainly the fact that most of these villains are elderly females is not coincidental.

And so it was with great interest that I recently watched the cult classic Homebodies (1974). Revolving around the plight of a group of senior citizens who are displaced from their homes in the name of gentrification, the film’s portrayal of its elderly characters reflects the “evil elderly” construct while simultaneously inverting its more problematic elements, specifically that age is something to be feared. In the scene above, the tyrannical land developer meets his demise courtesy of the ingenuity of Mattie, the ringleader of the group. With a dark humor sensibility (the gang deals with Mr. Crawford’s foot not being encased in the cement by simply chopping it off), this scene is vital in positioning the elderly killers as both threatening and deserving of our sympathy.

Posted on March 28, 2016

The Birds and Night of the Living Dead

Dawn Keetley

Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful film, The Birds, was released on March 28, 1963—fifty-three years ago today.

Among the many ways in which The Birds broke new ground, helping to shape the modern horror film, is in its profound influence on George A. Romero’s inaugural zombie film, Night of the Living Dead (1968).

Numerous critics have pointed out the similarities of the two films, and the ways in which The Birds created the narrative formula that would be emulated by so many zombie films. [i] The birds, like zombies, are dangerous en masse, as they flock and herd—and birds and zombies are also largely silent. Both The Birds and Night of the Living Dead, moreover, involve humans trying to board themselves up in structures that inevitably prove vulnerable: grasping dead hands and beaks always manage to penetrate their walls.

Both films also left in obscurity the origins of the mysterious attacks by the birds and the returned dead, each of which represented a grotesque overturning of natural law. As The Birds’ ornithologist, Mrs. Bundy (Ethel Griffies) proclaims, birds are “peaceful” and different species of birds would “never” flock together. Her definitive pronouncements (like those that insist the dead are dead) prove, of course, spectacularly wrong.