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Posted on November 30, 2015

The Walking Dead: Did the Carol/Morgan Scene Go Too Far?

SPOILERS BEHIND THE CUT

There is an obvious danger in trying to suss out the success or failure of a season of television that has only reached the midway point. Not only are arcs halfway developed, but things we assume to be true often turn out to be something wholly different.

When I initially sat down to write up my assessment of The Walking Dead’s sixth season thus far, I was not nearly as frustrated with the show as some critics. With three near perfect episodes opening the season and a brilliantly plotted, and even more bravely timed, peek into Morgan’s backstory, my criticisms of the show had been largely confined to pacing issues. And then the fight scene between Carol and Morgan aired.

Posted on November 28, 2015

We Need to Talk About Judith: Why Children Matter in the Zombie Apocalypse

Guest Post

SPOILERS BEHIND THE CUT

One aspect of The Walking Dead that has always bothered me, and has been commented on elsewhere [i], is the obvious stupidity of having a child within the zombie apocalypse. Season two will forever ignite me in anger because of Rick’s reaction to Lori’s wanting to end her pregnancy because she shockingly thought it might be a good idea not to pop out some more children now that they live in a zombie-infested world.

Posted on November 27, 2015

Slow Violence, Environmentalism, and The Walking Dead

Dawn Keetley

There is much to say about The Walking Dead and many people saying it, so I feel there’s room before the upcoming mid-season finale of season 6 to write about something a little bit off the beaten track.

Especially since the beginning of season 6, I’ve been thinking that among the many things the zombies of The Walking Dead connote is the slow lurch of catastrophic environmental damage.

My theory is, no doubt, in large part due to the fact that I’ve been reading Rob Nixon’s excellent 2011 book, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Nixon coins the term “slow violence” to describe long-term ecological devastation, “a violence that occurs gradually,” a “violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is typically not viewed as violence at all.” Nixon argues that while sudden cataclysmic environmental disasters (typhoons etc.) are easy to narrativize, it’s harder to tell stories about often almost-imperceptible “slow violence.”[i] I would suggest that one place to look for such stories is the zombie narrative—because, for me at least, the term “slow violence” also inevitably conjures up zombies (the slow kind, anyway!).

Season 6 has offered the repeated shot of Daryl (Norman Reedus) on his motorcycle, cresting the hill of a rural road with a horde of walkers looming behind him, as he tries to lead them away from the community of Alexandria. This image suggests the way in which the consequences of a reckless use and misuse of our planet follows slowly but inexorably behind us.

Posted on November 15, 2015

Watching Horror Films in a Time of Terror

Dawn Keetley

Last night, Paris was attacked: news organizations are reporting that French President François Hollande has identified the terroristic violence as an “act of war” perpetrated by ISIS.[i]

Like many, I was transfixed to the news last night, horrified by what was unfolding in France. I happened to be away from home, in upstate New York for the Ithaca International Fantastic Film Festival. And watching the news from Paris made me wonder why I was here. Why watch and write about films—especially horror films—when there’s so much horror happening in real life?

Posted on November 6, 2015

The Resurgence of Folk Horror

Dawn Keetley

If you haven’t yet heard of folk horror, this post will serve as your introduction to a subgenre that seems to be experiencing something of a renaissance. It’ll also get you ready for the release onto VOD on Friday (November 6) of what promises to be a compelling example of that renaissance—The Hallow, a British-Irish co-production filmed in Ireland, and directed by Corin Hardy. The official trailer includes the tag-line, “Nature has a dark side,” getting at what I think is perhaps the most distinctive characteristic of folk horror: Nature is no longer content to be background. Nature has power, agency, in folk horror. It lives, moves, acts, overpowers, destroys.

By most accounts, the term “folk horror” was coined by Mark Gatiss in a 2010 BBC documentary on the history of horror. Gatiss identified three films as the core of this tradition—Witchfinder General (1968), Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971), and The Wicker Man (1973). Recent discussion of this newly-defined horror subgenre (almost all on websites and blogs) has begun to uncover both its roots and its persistence, looking back to late nineteenth-century writers of “weird” fiction, like M. R. James and Algernon Blackwood, and recognizing the contemporary renaissance of folk horror in Wake Wood (David Keating, 2010) and Ben Wheatley’s Kill List (2011) and A Field in England (2013). I should add to the list, too, the upcoming The Witch (Robert Eggers, 2015) and The Forest (Jason Zada, 2016).