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Posted on June 3, 2015

The Return of the Woolly Mammoth: Fortitude and The Thaw

Dawn Keetley

Horror has always been interwoven with science—ever since Professor Van Helsing in Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931) asserted (about vampirism) that the “superstition of yesterday can become the scientific reality of today.” So it’s no surprise that the recent spate of woolly mammoth carcasses, emerging from thawing permafrost mostly in Siberia, should coincide with the appearance of the woolly mammoth in horror film and TV—specifically (to date) The Thaw (Mark A. Lewis, 2009) and the TV series Fortitude (2015), produced by Sky Atlantic and broadcast in the US on Pivot January to April, 2015.

Posted on June 1, 2015

Horror Rewatch: Paranormal Activity 2 & Disembodied Horror

Elizabeth Erwin

Released in 2010, Paranormal Activity 2 provides a prologue of sorts to the horror that was portrayed in the first film. I chose the second installment of this franchise to rewatch because it best lays out the mythology of the film as well as providing far more character development that what we saw in the original film. In a nutshell, the film follows a family that is being haunted by a demonic spirit. When the lead female character becomes possessed, the family takes drastic measures to save her and the baby whose very existence inspired the return of the spirit.

One thing I’ve been struggling with is the monster as a disembodied force in the Paranormal Activity franchise. Read more

Posted on May 27, 2015

Poltergeist (1982 and 2015): Guilt and the American Dream

Dawn Keetley

In anticipation of the remake of Poltergeist, directed by Gil Kenan, produced by Sam Raimi, and released on May 22, 2015, I re-watched the original Poltergeist from 1982, produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Tobe Hooper. It’s not the best horror film ever made, by any means, but it has a certain compelling power—and I realized on re-watching it, that the film’s power comes in large part from the fundamental innocence of the Freeling family, who become the target of the dead’s fury. The Freelings are also guilty, though—and it is this paradoxical co-existence of innocence and guilt in this paradigmatic middle-class suburban family that drives the film.

Posted on May 22, 2015

Top Ten Horror Comedy Movies

Gwen

The weather up here in the Northeast is improving and as we all get a little more Vitamin D from the sun I suspect the regional seasonal affective disorder is waning. Perhaps this is why I felt compelled to move toward the lighter side of the horror genre. Join me in celebrating some of the funniest horror comedies from over the years. I am going to preface this list by saying that I did not purposefully bias the list toward the 1980s (despite my overt preference for the decade). The 1980s are naturally a crucible for horror comedy and from a numbers standpoint this decade easily dominated the others with its overwhelming marriage between horror and cheese. The list is in chronological order as to not influence your expectations; the descriptions are a combination of my thoughts and imdb. I must also thank USA Up All Night for introducing me to most of these masterpieces.

Posted on May 20, 2015

The Unique Monstrosity of Jigsaw

Elizabeth Erwin

Lauded as a significant entry in the catalog of torture porn, Saw became one of the highest grossing horror films in recent memory. The 2004 film opens with two characters chained in a dilapidated bathroom. Instructions detailing how to escape are left by an unknown assailant but there is a catch. One of the characters must kill the other if he wants to live. What follows is a game of cat and mouse in which our ringleader, named Jigsaw, uses physical and psychological horrors to test the will of his “players.”
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