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Posted on October 13, 2019

Schlock & Shock: Talking the Creepshow Franchise

Greetings thrill shriekers! In this episode of Horror Homeroom Conversations, we’re adding some shlock to our shock by reconsidering the Creepshow franchise. Beloved and reviled in equal measure for its decidedly campy love letter to EC horror comics of the 1950s, Creepshow is arguably still the standard for cinematic anthology horror. But does it deserve its accolades? We’re debating the franchise’s legacy and why the films still make our hearts go flopsy when we contemplate your sweet autopsy. So stay tuned!

Posted on October 10, 2019

Race & Historical Memory in Candyman (1992)

Elizabeth Erwin

The question as to whether an examination of societal inequality can exist in the space between documented historical atrocities and traditional horror filmmaking is answered, although only in part, by Bernard Rose’s Candyman (1992). Heavy on the visceral thrills we expect from the genre, the film succeeds in asking some very pointed questions about race and class, even if the answers are deeply problematic. Certainly, Candyman’s titular villain is a unique manifestation of the intersection between race and historical memory in popular culture and so I am interested in taking a closer look at the film’s underlying social narrative.

Posted on September 29, 2019

A Conversation with Paul Tremblay: On Writing, Being a Guitar Hero, and Horror

Guest Post

Bram Stoker Award for Novel in 2015. Nominated for the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award for Novel in 2017. Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award for Novel in 2019. Board Member for the Shirley Jackson Awards. Named Horror’s Newest Big Thing by GQ. The laundry list of accomplishments makes it hard to forget that Paul Tremblay is human and not just an exemplar of the new horror scene, taking his place at the top of the food chain. In the best way possible, though, Paul Tremblay is nothing like what you expect him to be.

Paul Tremblay wants to connect. He is open and approachable. As a writer, Tremblay found consistent success in self-awareness and patience. From the moment that Joyce Carol Oates provoked his love of reading, through his deep dives into Stephen King and Clive Barker, and to his eventual leap into writing and publishing, Tremblay has maintained a steady pace upward. Most importantly, Tremblay is human. He worries about mortgages and college tuition payments, and he enjoys his teaching job. He’s a music nerd, a guitar player, a father, and a husband. Things get into his head and, sometimes, he feels overwhelmed. Regardless of all of it, Tremblay produces some of the most interesting and terrifying horror fiction ever written.

Posted on September 13, 2019

Doomwatch: Hybrid Folk Horror

Dawn Keetley

Doomwatch (1972) is infrequently cited in the burgeoning scholarly and popular conversations on folk horror, and yet I would argue that it is in fact a key text.[i] Its hybrid generic form manifests both what is and what is not folk horror; it exemplifies folk horror, in other words, both positively and negatively. Indeed, the Doomwatch’s shift toward the end is a brilliant illustration of how the trajectory of the folk horror plot can be negated.

The 1972 Doomwatch (called Island of the Ghouls in the US, emphasizing its ‘horror’) was directed by Peter Sasdy, who also directed 1972’s The Stone Tape (written by Nigel Kneale), a staple of the folk horror canon. The screenplay was written by Clive Exton, and the film was produced by Tigon British Film Productions, the company behind such folk horror classics as Witchfinder General (1968) and The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971). Doomwatch is based on the BBC series of the same name, which ran between 1970 and 1972. Both film and TV series feature a government agency called the Department for the Observation and Measurement of Scientific Work, dedicated to tracking down unethical and dangerous scientific research.

Posted on August 29, 2019

Monstrous Excess as Access to Horror Cinema

Guest Post

In W. Scott Poole’s excellent monograph, Monsters in America (2011), he charts American history by exploring its monsters, arguing that the former is best understood through the latter (4). As he establishes this thesis in the book’s introduction, Poole provides a deceptively compelling insight as a brief throwaway line; he writes, “A monster is a beast of excess, and monster stories are tales of excess” (xiv).¹ His point here is that monsters defy easy definitions because horror films tend to seek out contradictions and complexities and subvert narrative conventions, reveling in the (bloody) excess of rendering them on screen in the form of a monster and all of the carnage it wreaks.

There is another way to read Poole’s claim, however, that monsters tend to be defined by a characteristic or two that have been taken to the extreme, that have exceeded what society considers normal. Understanding this interpretation of the role that excess plays in the creation of a monster can open up how we make meaning of horror films. Read more