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Posted on April 25, 2015

Who is Katie? Paranormal Activity and Problems of Selfhood

Dawn Keetley

After a brief hiatus, the next installment in the Paranormal Activity franchise will be returning in October 2015. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension will apparently turn back to Katie (Katie Featherston) and, according to producer Jason Blum, will explain everything.[i] One thing I wonder if the film will explain is the photograph of Katie (with her boyfriend Micah) in the first installment, Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2007), that quite clearly is not a photograph of Katie.
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Posted on April 8, 2015

THE MEME REVOLUTION IN GORE VERBINSKI’S THE RING

Dawn Keetley

Gore Verbinski’s The Ring centers on an infamous videotape and was released, ironically, at the very moment in time (2002) that VHS was becoming obsolete, replaced by digital recording technologies. I recently taught the film, wondering if it still has anything to say, thirteen years later, now videotape truly is obsolete. I’m convinced, after another round of watching it, that The Ring is still very relevant. In fact, the film’s fundamental message—that the media are taking “us” over, replacing “brain cells” with images—is more true today than it was at the beginning of the millennium.

Posted on March 23, 2015

Empowerment of the Traditional in John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978)

Elizabeth Erwin

Released in 1978, John Carpenter’s Halloween not only gave Jamie Lee Curtis her definitive Scream Queen role but it also gave audiences one of the best known horror film villains of all time in Michael Meyers. On its face, the story is a simple one. On Halloween night, six-year-old Michael murders his sister and is placed in a psychiatric hospital. On the fifteenth anniversary of his incarceration, he breaks out intent on exacting revenge.

One of the reasons I keep coming back to this film is because of how effectively it uses cultural norms to elevate the horror.

Posted on March 20, 2015

THE POSTHUMAN MONSTER OF WES CRAVEN’S SCREAM (1996)

Dawn Keetley

Noël Carroll’s theory of art-horror has always seemed a particularly compelling one to me—that the genre is defined by a monster characterized by impurity, by the yoking together of contradictory categories (the living dead, for example), thus evoking fear and revulsion in the viewer.[i] His theory notoriously has difficulty, though, accounting for the very human “monsters” of some horror films.[ii] What do we make of Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) in Wes Craven’s groundbreaking 1996 film, Scream? Billy is human, isn’t he? In fact he’s the very normal boyfriend of the heroine, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), seemingly no different from any other high-school student.
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Posted on March 16, 2015

AHS Freak Show & Its Depiction of Societal Normality

Gwen

Season 4 of FX’s American Horror Story premiered October 8, 2014, with Freak Show. Set in 1950s Jupiter, Florida this season rethinks the truths behind post-war “normality” that still permeate society today. Frequently people reflect upon the 1950s with nostalgia or through the lens of the television set, with shows like Father Knows Best (1954-1963) and The Donna Reed Show (1958-1963). What they tend to see is the grey flannel suits, the Levittowns, and pearl-clad housewives who find fulfillment through vacuuming and raising children. Freak Show takes the images and prescriptive behaviors from the 1950s and recasts normality in the spirit of Grace Metalious’ Peyton Place (1956).