- Horror Movie - Horror Homeroom

Posted on November 27, 2021

Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin – Folk Horror

Dawn Keetley

As numerous mainstream outlets have very recently declared, folk horror is definitely having a moment. On October 29, 2021, both No Film School and The New York Times described a folk horror “renaissance.” Tellingly, both of these articles center two newly-released high-art / international films—Scott Cooper’s Antlers (produced by Guillermo del Toro) and Valdimar Jóhannsson’s Lamb, the latest horror installment from A24. Both films promise to be, dare I say it, “elevated folk horror,” and, indeed, both articles mention—as recent examples of folk horror—films that have definitely been central to the “elevated horror” movement (e.g., The Witch, Midsommar, The Lighthouse, It Comes at Night, and The Wailing). What these articles fail to mention, though, is folk horror’s recent incursion into films that fall very much on the low end of the prestige spectrum.

Both Mike Nelson’s Wrong Turn (2021) and William Eubank’s Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin (2021) exploit the recent resurgence of folk horror. Both depict a cosmopolitan, urban, and diverse group of young people traveling way out of their comfort zone only to discover an archaic, rural community bound together by old laws and rites and, specifically, by forms of human sacrifice.[i]

green image of woman dressed as a nurse looking at the camera

Posted on November 8, 2021

Never seen before now: Grave Encounters and the Allure of Paranormal TV

Guest Post

Popular ghost hunting shows come in a variety of flavors with a universal appeal to cheese and camp. There’s the wildly popular roto-rooting Ghost Hunters originally airing on Sci-Fi and the bro-fest that is Ghost Adventures usually repeating every tired episode on Discovery+’s pantheon of channels. Even Ozzy, Sharon, and Jack Osbourne have joined the pseudo-scientific quest to prove what usually happens just slightly off camera. Shows like these all follow a similar formula. They are contingent on the audience’s willingness to blend our disbelief with what is manufactured on screen. By the end of the show there is still no proof of the hereafter, of residual or intelligent hauntings, or of demons who have chosen to just loiter in abandoned buildings for kicks. Viewers return from the spectacle safe from their tentative exploration into the outer limits of their knowledge. If the ghosts are not real, then at least we know the rules of our universe still hold, right? Read more

priest in a white robe on the pulpit with open arms

Posted on October 13, 2021

How Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass Criticizes Charismatic Christianity & Christian Nationalism

Guest Post

When Midnight Mass, Netflix’s latest horror hit series, took the horror fandom by storm on social media, I knew I was in for a treat. And I was not disappointed. Mike Flanagan has been producing solid horror projects ever since his powerful and eerie haunted house horror, Oculus (2013). His works tend to explore our relationship with trauma using horror narratives to elevate the affective responses. In his latest effort, Midnight Mass, Flanagan shifts his focus to religious beliefs as a means to explore trauma and violence. Many other writers have highlighted Flanagan’s nuanced criticism of “faith,” which sets the series apart from other less empathetic religious-horror fare. Like other mainstream discussions of religion in popular culture, these analyses and deep readings of the series offer all-encompassing conclusions using vague and often complex terms such as “faith,” “religion,” and “cult” without much critical unpacking. What sets Midnight Mass apart from other religious-horror films, such as The Exorcist (1973), Midsommar (2019), or Red State (2011), is its awareness of the devastating effects of neoliberal capitalist ideology on charismatic Christian movements.

Before analyzing Midnight Mass, let me clarify both aforementioned terms. Charismatic Christianity is a religious movement that emphasizes an individualist approach to Christianity. It highlights a personal relationship with Jesus, prophecy and biblical literalism, glossolalia, faith healings, and other “gifts” from the Holy Spirit. In essence, in charismatic Christianity, practices are understood to be less about the community and more about the individual. For example, in Charismatic Catholicism, a movement heavily inspired by its Protestant counterpart, the Eucharist, representing communal worship, becomes less important as more individualized forms of worships are put forth. Read more

darkened image where a man is faintly made out

Posted on September 8, 2021

Mike Flanagan’s Devotion to Negative Space

Guest Post

Mike Flanagan has developed into a writer-director at the forefront of contemporary horror, both in television and film. His work displays a horror auteurism that sets him apart from his contemporaries, with one particular stylistic marker rising above: Flanagan’s devotion to negative space. Negative space is everything around the main subject in an image. Positive space accounts for the subject of the image, that which we are drawn to focus on. Flanagan’s process suggests a careful deployment of negative space to build tension towards a terrifying payoff. Through an examination of two scenes from Flanagan’s oeuvre, one from the limited series The Haunting of Hill House (2018) and the other from the film Doctor Sleep (2019), I intend to lay out how Flanagan’s use of negative space defines his approach to filming horror.

back view of a man who looks in the distance while a wolf howls

Posted on August 29, 2021

Surviving Winter and Nature in The Long Dark

Guest Post

In the dead heat of August, I often find myself longing for the depths of winter. With the tail-end of summer upon us, I’ve been satisfying that longing by playing Hinterland Studio’s The Long Dark, a video game set in a seemingly endless Canadian winter on an abandoned island where you are forced to fend for yourself. Perhaps survival isn’t your idea of escapism, but The Long Dark offers something much more unnerving than an idyllic tromp through the snowy woods. Specifically, The Long Dark’s horror as a survival game rests on the premise of ecophobia, the ever-present threat of nature, the very real limits of the human body, and the intrusions of the past. The Long Dark reveals that survival is a constant confrontation with the mundane horror of homeostasis.

The Long Dark is by no means a new game—it was released in 2014 as a sandbox-type survival game, and it is the survival mode that this piece will focus on. Later, Hinterland added a story mode, and by then it had gained a loyal following of fans. Survival mode has varying degrees of difficulty: Pilgrim, Voyageur, Interloper, and Stalker. While Pilgrim is fun for new players who want a more atmospheric experience, Voyageur is a good mix of animal-threat and atmosphere that will frequently push your character to its limits. Read more