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Posted on August 13, 2020

The Return of the Girl-Monster – Part 2

In his groundbreaking book on queerness and horror, Harry Benshoff looked to the star of Cat People (1942) as not only a particularly sympathetic monster but a rare example of lesbian subtext in the early horror film: “Irena’s monstrous ability to turn into a panther and kill men […] serves as an oft-cited metaphor for lesbian sexuality in the films of this era.”[1] The early girl-monster is associated with sexuality that deviates from the strict heterosexual norm, whether by vampirically seducing and draining young women as in Dracula’s Daughter (1936), or by a more complicated mix of frigidity and passion. Irena could be read as queer in her avoidance of heterosexual intimacy, or read as too attracted to men, such that she is prone to improper and violent explosions of passion. The modern girl-monster, who almost exclusively preys on men, has left behind the Countess’s predatory lesbianism for the more ambiguous waters of Irena’s fraught passions. How queer is it? That depends on the movie.

Posted on August 11, 2020

The Christian Worldview of Annabelle: Creation

Guest Post

At the start of Annabelle: Creation (David F. Sandberg, 2017), the Mullins family is introduced as a typical, Christian American family in the early 20^th Century. They live happily together, play games together, and, most notably for the film’s plot, attend church together. Their faith forms the backbone of the movie’s backstory, as the parents, Samuel (Anthony LaPaglia) and Esther (Miranda Otto), pray to see Annabelle again after her untimely death, beginning the hauntings revolving around the Annabelle doll. Ultimately, the Mullins are not the focus of the film, however; rather, it is the two orphans, Linda (Lulu Wilson) and Janice (Talitha Eliana Bateman). In being shifted to the periphery, however, the Mullins become representative of the average person in the film’s setting—one who does not have plot armor to carry them through; instead, they are caught in the cosmic struggle between Good and Evil, God and Satan.

Posted on August 9, 2020

Masks in Horror Cinema: Review & Interview

Guest Post

Masks are ubiquitous in horror films, to the point that they’re almost like oxygen – prevalent enough that we hardly think about them, but it is difficult to imagine horror without them. When we think of the laconic villains of horror, many of them come standard with mask. Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, and Leatherface are obvious examples, but further reflection reveals that masks are important to the persona of a number of other movie monsters: while we see Hannibal Lecter’s face frequently in Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991) it’s hard to shake the image of him in the prison-assigned mask meant to restrain his cannibalistic tendencies.

Alexandra Heller-Nicholas’s new book, Masks in Horror Cinema: Eyes without Faces (2020), discusses all of these films, and many more, offering the first book-length overview of masks in horror cinema. But the importance of the book lies not in its function as a survey text, but in its fascinating readings of the different uses and symbolic functions to which masks can be put. With this entry into University of Wales Press’s new Horror Studies series, Heller-Nicholas has made an important contribution to an overlooked area of horror. Throughout this monograph, Heller-Nicholas not only helps to point out how frequently masks are an integral part of horror narratives, but she also works to unpack the variety of functions they serve.

Posted on August 5, 2020

The Rise of the Girl-Monster Part 1: Birth and Body

Sara McCartney

Beware the girl-monster, as deadly as she is beautiful. She is that compelling horror creature who is driven to bite, mutilate, and devour her victims out of an uncontrollable compulsion or appetite. She is most often characterized by her sharp teeth and unruly body, but rarely appears in the same form twice. The girl-monster is as old as the horror genre itself but, in the last 20 years, has enjoyed a renewed popularity and is, arguably, one of the most prolific horror cycles of the twenty-first century, as well as one of the least remarked upon.

Posted on August 3, 2020

Critical Approaches to Horror in Doctor Who – CFP

Call for Papers

Although Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman wanted his show to be educational and avoid so-called “bug-eyed monsters,” the popularity of the Daleks in the second serial ensured that it would be better known for scaring kids into hiding behind the sofa. Adaptable as the science-fiction program is to fit a variety of other genres (e.g. the Western, screwball comedy, romance, period drama), horror dominates its cultural memory and ongoing practice. While there have been some critical essays over the years examining this aspect of the show, no book has been devoted to a more sustained examination of the generic work of horror in Doctor Who. This edited collection will remedy that absence.