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Posted on April 25, 2015

Who is Katie? Paranormal Activity and Problems of Selfhood

Dawn Keetley

After a brief hiatus, the next installment in the Paranormal Activity franchise will be returning in October 2015. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension will apparently turn back to Katie (Katie Featherston) and, according to producer Jason Blum, will explain everything.[i] One thing I wonder if the film will explain is the photograph of Katie (with her boyfriend Micah) in the first installment, Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2007), that quite clearly is not a photograph of Katie.
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Posted on April 24, 2015

It Follows (2014) and Unfriended (2015) Film Reviews: Gwen’s Take

Gwen

Review: It Follows and Unfriended offer a much needed return to social commentary.

I think the release dates of It Follows and Unfriended are quite serendipitous. Let me explain why. I wholeheartedly agree with Dawn’s assessment that It Follows expounds upon one of horror’s greatest standing rules that if you have sex, you die. However, I feel that the movie speaks to a broader subject matter which includes age old gossip as well as the current digital age.

Yes, those who died in It Follows had sex. The horror however, lies in what follows from having sex. It speaks directly to reputation, image, self-worth, and literal images that follow the act. For decades prior to the cyber era, women especially feared for and guarded their reputation.

Posted on April 23, 2015

Top 10 Made for TV Movies- Horror Edition

Elizabeth Erwin

When I was eight years old, my mother made the very unfortunate decision to let me watch Fatal Vision (1984), a made for television movie recounting the suspected murder of a pregnant woman and her two children by her Green Beret husband. To call the experience traumatic would be a vast understatement. Not only did I hide all the kitchen knives much to my grandmother’s chagrin, but I also made it a point to sleep under a wall of stuffed animals thinking that they’d provide the necessary protection should a family member decide to gut me in the middle of the night. My lingering psychosis aside, there is something about watching on the small screen a classically constructed horror film with clearly defined television tropes that makes the horror feel more intimate. Here is my list of the top 10 scariest, most tingle inducing made for television movies ever to air on American broadcast television.

Posted on April 19, 2015

Unfriended (2015) Film Review: Elizabeth’s Take

Elizabeth Erwin

Unfriended (2015)

R | 83min | 2015 | USA | Levan Gabriadze

Synopsis: On the one-year anniversary of the death of a fellow classmate, six friends are forced to remain online and answer to her spirit.

Review: Horror fans will find better acting and more thrills in an episode of ABC’s Pretty Little Liars.

Posted on April 19, 2015

Unfriended (2015) Film Review: Dawn’s Take

Dawn Keetley

Unfriended takes a staple of the horror tradition—teens getting killed one at a time—and gives it an innovative twist: the entire film is “set” (if that’s the right word) on the desktop of the main character, Blaire Lily (Shelley Hennig). Through the course of the film, Blaire skypes with her boyfriend and friends, messages on Facebook, watches YouTube videos, and Googles a few things. The film immerses us in a wholly cyber world in which people connect entirely through social media.