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Posted on October 6, 2018

Hereditary as Folk Horror

Guest Post

In a recent post on Ari Aster’s debut film Hereditary (2018), Brian Fanelli contends that “grief, mental illness, and the challenges of motherhood are the subconscious fears that erupt after the family suffers one loss after another.” Fanelli thus summarizes the traits passed down through the generations in the film; he also implicitly reads the text as an addition to a canon that follows what Dawn Keetley has identified as “an intriguing new trend in horror film: the horror of motherhood” and, on a larger scale, to what genre critics such as Tony Williams and Kimberly Jackson call “the family horror film.” I argue that a conjoined reading of these ideas in the context of the movie’s central horror plot—possession by a mythological demon as a result of ritualistic ceremonies—situates Hereditary within yet another new (or rather, revived) field in horror studies: folk horror.

Posted on October 3, 2018

Masculinity and Race in AMC’s The Walking Dead

Guest Post

AMC’s The Walking Dead is back Sunday October 7 for its 9th season. We’re going to run a series of posts about the series that are distilled versions of the arguments of chapters in our edited collection, The Politics of Race, Gender and Sexuality in The Walking Dead, recently published by McFarland. This collection is not at all the last word –and we’d like to open up more conversations about all these things in the show, especially as the issues raised in the book–and the arguments that get made–change as The Walking Dead narrative continues. To that end, we’re inviting submissions to Horror Homeroom that enter into conversation with this series of posts taken from our book. How do these arguments play out in seasons 8 and 9? If we publish your submission, we’ll send you a free copy of the book.

The first post in the series is from Brooke Bennett . . . This is what she has to say: Read more

Posted on September 22, 2018

The Wasted Promise of The Predator

Guest Post

The Predator should have been great. The cast is good, full of actors like Keegan-Michael Key and Alfie Allen who thrive even in small roles, and the behind the scenes talent is even better. Shane Black directs a script he co-wrote with Fred Dekker, both of whom worked on the incredibly fun ‘80s tween horror-comedy Monster Squad (1987). Shane Black shines when he takes a shaggy dog premise and injects some unexpected life in it, and that’s exactly what this movie—the fourth or sixth (depending on if you count the Alien Vs. Predator duo) film in a franchise that started in the late-80s—needed. The Predator ends up being kind of a tepid mess, however, especially in the third act. To misquote Monster Squad, The Predator needed some nards.

Posted on September 19, 2018

Interview with Grimmfest Senior Programmer

Dawn Keetley

Grimmfest is Manchester’s premium international festival of genre film, including (of course) horror, and it will be enjoying its 10^th anniversary when it opens on October 4-7, 2018. The final line-up is now out, and it includes some fantastic films.

This year, Grimmfest has partnered with House of Leaves Publishing in the promotion of their forthcoming book, Scared Sacred: Idolatry, Religion and Worship in the Horror Film, to offer day passes to the 2018 festival. For more information, please visit Scared Sacred‘s crowdfunding page.

Ahead of Grimmfest’s opening, I interviewed Senior Programmer Steve Balshaw about Grimmfest—and about the broader shape of horror today.

What do you think is distinctive about Grimmfest?

First and foremost, the range and selection of films. We are interested in exploring the darker side of cinema, in all its various forms. Obviously, our focus has always been on horror, and to a lesser extent science fiction, but we have also found space over the years for Southern Gothic, Crime and Film Noir, black comedy, Fantasy and even Sword and Sorcery, as well as cinema that it simply weird, wired and utterly uncategorisable. Genre cinema has always been pretty broadly defined anyway, and we will screen everything from grindhouse to arthouse. Over the years, we have developed an international reputation for pushing at the boundaries of genre, and focusing on more left-field and independent material, rather than more mainstream horror and sci-fi films. We like to stretch and redefine the parameters, and hopefully we will continue to do that. If we like a film, and think our audience will like it, or simply that they need to see it, we will try to find a slot for it.

Posted on September 15, 2018

Scared Sacred: Idolatry, Religion and Worship in the Horror Film

Dawn Keetley

We’re going to be posting a lot about the great projects the folks at House of Leaves Publishing are working on, including their first book, a collection of essays called Scared Sacred: Idolatry, Religion and Worship in the Horror Film. We’re committed to indie horror in all its forms, including writing and publishing, and we urge you to pre-order Scared Sacred House of Leaves Publishing’s websitefrom .

This week, House of Leaves shared a preview from Alexandra West’s chapter from Scared Sacred: “Onward Christian Soldiers: Eyes of the Believers in The Conjuring (2013) and The Conjuring 2 (2016).” You’ll find below an exclusive typeset sample of this preview, including John Sowder’s beautiful woodcut illustration. (Just click on the images to enlarge them.)