- Horror Movie - Horror Homeroom

Posted on December 1, 2021

Poor Monsters and Monstrous Poverty in Antlers

Guest Post

The moments when Scott Cooper’s ambitious foray into the horror genre–Antlers–comes closest to being truly terrifying instead of just jump-scary are those featuring a far more insidious evil than the CGI creature shedding the titular antlers. The connection between these two is one of the more interesting, if ambiguous, aspects of a monster movie which ultimately fails to overcome the latent bias of its sketchy source story. Nick Antosca’s “The Quiet Boy,” the source story for Antlers, looks at its cold, derelict white trash setting with a distanced disdain compromising its teacher protagonist Julia’s (Keri Russell) concern for her alarmingly withdrawn pupil Lucas (Jeremy T. Thomas). Read more

Posted on November 20, 2021

Lamb: A Tender Tale of Grief, Full of Hidden Horror

Guest Post

Folklore, fable and family dynamics breed a challenging chimaera of a movie the horror of which arrives with the self-evidence of fairy tales. Such are part of the inspiration for Icelandic debut-director Valdimar Jóhannsson’s captivating cinematic condensation of mythologic motifs from his home country. Its people’s close conjunction to nature – a relation revealed by seemingly incidental scenes to be far less symbiotic than the protagonist couple on their remote, yet idyllic sheep farm might believe – drives a metaphor about grief and gifts that were never ours for the taking. This image of giving and receiving is augmented by the narrative’s starting on Christmas Night.

black and white line drawing of a faceless priest

Posted on October 4, 2021

Midnight Mass Takes us to the Church of Dread

Guest Post

I have done my best to write a spoiler-free piece about Midnight Mass. Light spoilers are unavoidable, but I promise I have preserved the most major of twists and turns.

Horror centered on faith and religion has percolated through the genre since its earliest days, stories sprouting from the festering fears of demons, witches, and the Devil in all his incarnations. It is a sub-genre rife for use, and one that gashes nerves, especially for the more devout audience members. I would not consider myself a religious person, but I grew up hearing about my father’s time in a Catholic seminary, a path he opted out of just before the priesthood. I like to joke that I ended up with all the guilt and none of the fun stuff like faith. As I discovered my love of horror, we talked about The Exorcist, a movie he deemed the most terrifying thing he had ever seen because of its Catholic roots. When I finally watched the film it was unsettling, although not as disturbing to me as it was to him. What did stick with me was Father Karras’s grappling with life, death, and trauma. I invoke that film, and that character because Mike Flanagan’s new limited series Midnight Mass is about as Catholic as horror can come, and through his writing and directing, Flanagan filters the hopes of horrors of humanity through the faith and traumas of Crockett Island’s small and isolated community. Read more

a man and a woman stand outside in the snow

Posted on August 15, 2021

Werewolves Within’s Politics of Niceness: Good Neighbors and Feminist Killjoys

Guest Post

Werewolves Within (2021, dir. Josh Ruben), a comedy-horror whodunnit about a snowed-in small town community under attack by a werewolf, succeeded in making me laugh and in keeping me invested in the mystery throughout. In addition to fine comic performances, it engages with multiple contemporary political issues, including sexual harassment, gentrification, and the ethics of building a pipeline near a protected forest. I was excited that the central characters include Finn, a Black forest ranger (Sam Richardson); Cecily, a young woman postal worker (Milana Vayntrub); and Devon and Joaquim, a gay couple (Cheyenne Jackson and Harvey Guillén). This is more diversity than I would’ve expected for a small town in Vermont, plus great public service representation! With all of those elements present from the beginning, I had high hopes for Werewolves Within as a horror-comedy that might have something interesting – or even inspiring – to say about one or a combination of these narrative elements.

Despite enjoying Werewolves Within, however, I felt somewhat let down by it. It didn’t meet my expectations, and all of those signposts of a seemingly liberal politics, of engagement with meaningful issues, turned out to be mere surface dressing. The movie both-sides the debate about the pipeline, never once mentions Finn’s Blackness (even as he is nearly shot by a white man), and ultimately undermines the feminist critiques Cecily presents throughout the film. Read more

Posted on June 22, 2021

A Chilling Summer Treat: Image Comics’ Ice Cream Man serves up horror outside the Season of the Witch

Guest Post

Summertime is the time for water games in the backyard, day-long visits to the amusement park, and chilly rocket pops from your neighborhood ice cream man. But summertime is also the time to ready oneself for the chilling spooky season that is just around the corner, and one of Image Comics’ horror series — Ice Cream Man, written by W. Maxwell Prince & illustrated by Martin Morazzo — is ready to serve up any deadly delicacy — & more! — that you can imagine.

Simply know that the just desserts come with a price. Read more