- Horror Movie - Horror Homeroom

Posted on July 2, 2024

Under Paris: Sharks Adapting to Ecological Damage

Dawn Keetley

In a recent Horror Homeroom Conversations podcast, we were discussing two ecohorror films – The Great Alligator (Sergio Martino, 1979) and Alligator (Lewis Teague, 1980) – and came to two conclusions. First, that Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975) casts an enormous shadow over the natural horror films that followed. And, second, that there is a formulaic plot structuring such films, one so incredibly common as to seem fixed, inevitable. As we described this plot in the podcast: 1) humans tamper with the natural environment; 2) as a result, a creature launches a rampaging attack on said humans; and 3) the besieged humans fight back – almost always winning. Given our discussion in this podcast, and my recent immersion in natural horror films, I was very excited when Xavier Gens’ new genre film, Under Paris (Sous la Seine) arrived on Netflix. And I was right to be excited: Under Paris is a great natural horror film and now resides among my top 5 shark horror films (I’ll give the whole top 5 at the end!)

a trapped group of five people look out of a door fearfully.

Posted on September 8, 2023

Flesh and Blood: Talking Deep Blue Sea (1999)

Elizabeth Erwin/ Podcast

In today’s episode, it’s part two of our deep dive into shark horror with Renny Harlin’s Deep Blue Sea (1999). Blending science fiction with horror, the film follows a crew of researchers as they try to replicate in sharks the brain cells of people with Alzheimer’s Disease. Predictably, the experiment does not end well. Known for its divisive heroine, campy reinterpretation of animal attack tropes, and some truly epic CGI sharks, Deep Blue Sea is the rare shark horror film that resists demonizing the sharks. But is that a good thing? We’re breaking it all down today with spoilers, so stay tuned!

Mentioned in this episode:

Sign the petition to have release its footage of the original ending to Deep Blue Sea
Our podcast on Crawl (2019)
Gwen’s take on Deep Blue Sea.
Tugan, Nuray Hilal. “Neoconservativism in the Science-Fiction Cinema: The Representation of Neoconservativism in Deep Blue Sea (1999).” International Journal of Eurasia Social Sciences / Uluslararasi Avrasya Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, vol. 9, no. 31, 2018.

A woman in a cage underwater is menaced by a shark

Posted on August 21, 2023

Blood in the Water: Talking Shark Night (2011) & The Shallows (2016)

Podcast

In today’s episode, we are diving into the depths of cinematic terror with Jaume Collet-Serra’s The Shallows (2016) and David R. Ellis’s Shark Night (2011). In The Shallows, a young woman on a pilgrimage to her late mother’s favorite surf haunt finds herself stranded on a rock as she faces off against a relentless great white shark. In Shark Night, a group of unsuspecting friends gather for a little lakeside R&R, only to find themselves being stalked by an assortment of toothy terrors. While both films ostensibly fall under the subgenre of ‘shark horror,’ their differing approaches have us considering the utility of the ‘shark as monster’ trope. Do these films offer up waters chummed with spine-tingling suspense and jaws-dropping scares? We’re finding out in today’s spoiler filled episode, so stay tuned!

REQUIRED READING

CITED IN EPISODE

BERGER, JOHN. “WHY LOOK AT ANIMALS?.” LITERATURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT; LEMNAGER, S., SHEWRY, T. EDS (1980): 32-42.
CLASEN, MATHIAS. “EVOLUTIONARY STUDY OF HORROR LITERATURE”
FUCHS, MICHAEL. “LOOKING THROUGH THE BEASTS EYES?: THE DIALECTICS OF SEEING THE MONSTER AND BEING SEEN BY THE MONSTER IN SHARK HORROR MOVIES”
KEETLEY, DAWN. BLAKE LIVELY DOESN’T NEED A BIGGER BOAT IN THE SHALLOWS.
LATTANZIO, RYAN. “JOHN CARPENTER HAS NO IDEA WHAT THE TERM ‘ELEVATED HORROR’ MEANS”

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Posted on August 13, 2023

The Black Demon: Shark Horror Meets Folk Horror

Dawn Keetley

It’s summer, so shark movies abound, notably Meg 2: The Trench (Ben Wheatley, 2023) and The Black Demon (Adrian Grünberg, 2023). Both films feature not just a shark but a megalodon, suggesting the need to up the ante when it comes to shark fare – the ante, in this case, being the shark’s size. Neither film is faring terribly well at the hands of critics, although The Black Demon seems to be marginally more highly-praised. It’s not, in truth, a very good film. It is, however, an interesting one.