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Posted on April 1, 2023

“Talk About Ni’Jah, Get Stung”: Unpacking Swarm, a Sweet Take on Slashers

Guest Post

The horror genre is currently experiencing an interesting slasher renaissance. Our favorite masked killers such as Leatherface, Ghostface, and Michael Myers have all seen reboots, sequels, and even requels in the last few years. However, not all slasher fans have been satisfied with these remakes and have been itching for a new take on the slasher that isn’t just a gorier remake of the original. Janine Nabers and Donald Glover’s new series Swarm is a fresh take on the classic subgenre that gives us all of the gore without the killer hiding behind a mask. Rather, our slasher is a Black person who kills whenever they must to protect their goddess, pop star Ni’Jah.

Played by Dominique Fishback, Andrea Green, “Dre,” is a part of a larger group of Ni’Jah fans called the swarm. If this group sounds familiar, you’re not mistaken as this group is meant to represent the Beyonce stans’ BeyHive. What Naber and Glover seem to be homing in on is the toxic nature of fandom, exploring how far a fan will go to meet their favorite artist. However, what I find most salient in this series is the subversion of the slasher subgenre and the exploration of what happens to a Black Queer child who is left unprotected by their community. Dre’s character tells us that when everyone and everything casts you out of society, the only place left to run to is a Ni’Jah concert. Read more

Posted on March 21, 2023

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey – The Representational Dangers of “Fun” Horror

Guest Post

Horror films provide paradoxical feelings of fear and fun, offering ways of navigating societal darkness while simultaneously giving us humorous delight. In the case of, Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (Rhys Frake-Waterfield, 2023), it punches up toward Disney IP and punches down on marginalized audiences. However, the film ultimately spends far more time doing the latter, with its violence and aggression squarely trained on women. Any attempt to speak back to larger forms of power—like Disney’s draconian use and expansion of intellectual property law to protect its economic interests to the detriment of creativity and play—ultimately becomes a fig leaf for what this film really wants to do: dehumanize, sexualize, and punish women.

Posted on January 17, 2022

Scream – Another Great Installment in the Franchise

Guest Post

This is a spoiler-free review. A spoiler-filled one will come later on when Scream is accessible to people who may prefer not to venture into a movie theater quite yet.

There are no bad Scream (1996) sequels. After Wes Craven took us to Woodsboro for the first time in 1996, he returned to Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) and that dreaded Ghostface mask three more times, and while none of the subsequent films reached the heights of the first, they each more than justified their inclusion in the franchise. Scream 2 (1997) positively vibrates with the joy Craven and company take in skewering sequels while nonetheless navigating powerful arcs for Sidney, Gale (Courteney Cox), and Dewey (David Arquette). Plus, Sidney’s play rehearsal remains one of the single most fascinating set pieces in any of the films. Scream 3 (2000) is a bit schlocky, yes, but injecting more camp into the franchise while moving the needle on industry satire is delicious. Scream 4 (2011) goes back to Woodsboro with flair and the best script since the original. That is, until Scream (2022) came along to crash the party.

Posted on June 5, 2021

The 21st Century Slasher Film: CFP for Special Issue #5

Call for Papers

When Siskel and Ebert famously launched their offensive against what they labeled as “Women in Danger films,” they effectively positioned slasher films as anti-feminist, exploitative, and lacking all artistic merit. But in the intervening years, this once much maligned sub-genre has enjoyed increasing acclaim for its subversive potential and reflection of cultural norms. This special issue seeks to examine the elements of the “new slasher” that potentially explain this shift.

We invite submissions on any 21st century slasher film(s). Emerging and advanced scholars, popular writers, and fans are invited to submit abstracts on any aspect of the sub-genre. We are especially interested in abstracts that engage with slasher film conventions. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

Slasher tropes reimagined
Performance and identity
The impact of critical acclaim upon horror’s association with ‘low-brow’ culture
Monstrous nature and its evolution
How camp and pastiche code audience reception
Reboots and audience expectation
Location and narrative dread
Horror sub-genre crossovers
Engagement with postmodernist theory
Reflection of societal taboo

We would especially like to include articles on: Freaky, Halloween, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, Black Christmas, and All the Boys Love Mandy Lane.

Please submit abstracts of 500 words and a brief bio to Dawn Keetley and Elizabeth Erwin at horrorhomeroom@gmail.com and dek7@lehigh.edu by July 15, 2020. Articles will be limited to 2,500 words and should be written for a general audience. Completed essays will be due September 15, 2020. We welcome all questions and inquiries!

Posted on May 14, 2021

Announcing the Bloodcurdling Book Club Podcast!

Elizabeth Erwin

Listen, we love horror films, and we especially love talking about them on our podcast Horror Homeroom Conversations. But we also love ranting and raving over dark and disturbing popular fiction! And so, the Bloodcurdling Book Club was born.

This bi-weekly (we hope) podcast deep dives into one spine-tingling read per episode and we’re thrilled to kick things off with Cameron Roubique’s masterful Kill River (2015). Billed as a slasher film in book form, the story follows four campers who stumble upon an abandoned waterpark in the middle of the woods. What follows is a heart pounding game of cat and mouse with twists we did not see coming. But did it successfully capture the shlock and gore of 80s horror, or did it get lost in the nostalgia? Dawn and I delve into how Roubique’s story interacts with slasher conventions in some surprising and effective ways in this episode.

And because every slasher deserves a sequel, we’re also dropping a second episode that looks at Kill River 2 (2017), which follows the Final Girl back into suburbia and asks some uncomfortable but essential questions about what it really means to survive a traumatic event at a young age. We’re also including below a reading primer for anyone wanting to learn more about the slasher sub-genre and its conventions. If you enjoy these episodes, please let us know by rating and reviewing!

You can buy Cameron Roubique’s Kill River here (advertisement):

Suggested Reading on the Slasher Film

Anderson, Aaron C. Rethinking the Slasher Film: Violated Bodies and Spectators in “Halloween’’, `’Friday the 13th”, and “A Nightmare on Elm Street”. University of California, San Diego, 2013.

Christensen, Kyle. “The Final Girl versus Wes Craven’s” A Nightmare on Elm Street”: Proposing a Stronger Model of Feminism in Slasher Horror Cinema.” Studies in Popular Culture 34.1 (2011): 23-47.

Clayton, Wickham, ed. Style and form in the Hollywood slasher film. Springer, 2015.

Clover, Carol J. “Her body, himself: Gender in the slasher film.” Representations 20 (1987): 187-228.

Creed, Barbara. The monstrous-feminine: Film, feminism, psychoanalysis. Psychology Press, 1993.

Keisner, Jody. “Do you want to watch? A study of the visual rhetoric of the postmodern horror film.” Women’s Studies 37.4 (2008): 411-427.

Kendrick, James. “Razors in the Dreamscape: Revisiting” A Nightmare on Elm Street” and the Slasher Film.” Film Criticism 33.3 (2009): 17-33.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual pleasure and narrative cinema.” Visual and other pleasures. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 1989. 14-26.

Nolan, Justin M., and Gery W. Ryan. “Fear and loathing at the cineplex: Gender differences in descriptions and perceptions of slasher films.” Sex Roles 42.1 (2000): 39-56.

Nowell, Richard. Blood money: A history of the first teen slasher film cycle. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2010.

Petridis, Sotiris. Anatomy of the Slasher Film: A Theoretical Analysis. McFarland, 2019.

Rieser, Klaus. “Masculinity and monstrosity: Characterization and identification in the slasher film.” Men and Masculinities 3.4 (2001): 370-392.

Rockoff, Adam. Going to pieces: the rise and fall of the slasher film, 1978-1986. McFarland, 2011.

Trencansky, Sarah. “Final girls and terrible youth: Transgression in 1980s slasher horror.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 29.2 (2001): 63-73.

Wee, V. (2005). The Scream Trilogy,” Hyperpostmodernism,” and the Late-Nineties Teen Slasher Film. Journal of Film and Video, 57(3), 44-61.