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Posted on June 15, 2015

The Legion of Decency & Perversion in Early Horror

As a genre known for pushing the boundaries of good taste, horror films occupy a unique position within American cinema. Because horror triggers an emotional response in audiences via the presentation of scenes meant to revile and offend, what is deemed to be horrific is largely dependent upon the time in which a film is made. In the 1930s, horror films were in a state of evolution. Trading in the supernatural, dreamlike qualities that defined 1920s horror, the films of the 1930s relied upon “otherness” as a marker of monstrosity. Villains came from far away lands and posed a threat to the American dream. Complicating these narrative was a calculated movement by critics of the genre concerned that depictions of perversion and violence within films were threatening the moral integrity of the culture. The end result of this effort to “clean up” films was a move by those making horror films to code stories so as to not arouse criticism.

Posted on June 11, 2015

Rewatch: Environment and Race in The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms

Dawn Keetley

As part of a series of posts on the relatively neglected horror films of the 1950s, I want to begin with The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, directed by Eugène Lourié, and released in 1953 by Warner Brothers Studios. It was the first of the “monster” films that have come to define the decade—before Godzilla, before Creature from the Black Lagoon. The monster is a rhedosaurus, long buried in the ice north of the Arctic Circle and released during a routine test of an atomic bomb. It then tracks a path down to its former home, now New York City, and wreaks havoc on lower Manhattan before being taken down by a radioactive isotope shot into its neck in the midst of its rampage through Coney Island Amusement Park.

Horror films from the 1950s in general, and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms in particular, are accruing an increasing importance in the current moment because they so directly address environmental crisis. The atomic explosion that opens Beast from 20,000 Fathoms causes sheets of ice to cascade into the ocean. The shots of catastrophic glacial melting reminded me of a documentary I just watched, Chasing Ice, released in 2012 and documenting the effects of climate change on the glaciers in Greenland, Iceland, and Alaska: like Beast, the centerpiece of Chasing Ice was glacial ice sliding into the ocean.

Posted on June 9, 2015

Insidious 3 Film Review: The Demon Death Drive

Dawn Keetley

Insidious 3 is the directorial debut of the talented Leigh Whannell, the screenwriter for Saw (2004), Dead Silence (2007), Insidious (2011), and Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013). Demonstrable proof that Whannell can direct as well as write (and act), Insidious: Chapter 3 is quite different, and more disturbing, than the first two Insidious films. It’s telling that the tagline on the movie poster is “This is how you die,” because the film seems itself to be driving toward death, with little to lighten the mood. The mise-en-scène reflects the darkness of the film’s trajectory, exuding decay: while the first two films have a generally lighter, suburban mise-en-scène, the latest installment is set in an old, dark, urban apartment building, and centers on a family struggling both to make ends meet and to deal with the loss of a wife and mother. Read more

Posted on June 8, 2015

Hostel 2: Eli Roth’s Homage to Friday the 13th, Part 2

Dawn Keetley

Friday the 13^th (Sean S. Cunningham, 1980) famously culminates with the Final Girl, Alice (Adrienne King), decapitating Pamela Vorhees (Betsy Palmer). Although she survives the first round of carnage at “Camp Blood,” Alice’s luck runs out as Friday the 13^th, Part 2 (Steve Miner, 1981) begins. Still traumatized, she lives only long enough to see the worst of her nightmares realized: while making tea and feeding her cat, Alice is attacked and killed by Jason Vorhees, bent on avenging his mother.

Alice’s death is shocking for any viewer who may have expected (and hoped) she would reprise her role as plucky survivor: it approximates the devastating murder of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) halfway through Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960). It’s also a narrative trick that Eli Roth adopts in Hostel: Part 2 (2007), offering more evidence of his allegiance to the slasher tradition.

Posted on June 5, 2015

NBC’s Hannibal Review: Visual Horror at its Finest

Elizabeth Erwin

Season 3, Episode 1

Episode Title: “Antipasto”

Prior to this season of Hannibal, creator Bryan Fuller promised that the first few episodes would serve as mini films designed to reset the series. Last night’s foray into Hannibal (Mads Mikkelson) and Bedelia’s (Gillian Anderson) life on the run in Europe certainly fit the bill as we spent the entire hour with the two and heard not a peep from anyone remotely affiliated with the FBI. The decision to hone in on the couple and their complicated relationship helped to solidify the evolving nature of these two characters while also suggesting that the coming season will upend our expectations as to where the true horror of the series resides. With its hallucegenic quality and its languid plotting, “Antipasto” is easily one of the show’s finest hours.