- Horror Movie - Horror Homeroom

Posted on August 19, 2021

CFP – Reel Demonology: Ed and Lorraine Warren and The Conjuring Universe

Currently consisting of seven (eight if one counts The Curse of La Llorona) interconnected films with additional entries in the pipeline, The Conjuring universe (2013-present) serves as one of the touchstone horror franchises of the modern era. Despite rising to industry prominence as one of the most profitable horror franchises of all time and one of the few properties to effectively execute a shared universe story world, The Conjuring universe has only been the subject of a few studies where it is often assessed alongside analogous, but thematically different, films such as Paranormal Activity (2009) and Insidious (2011). To fill this gap, the proposed collection will offer the first in-depth academic analysis of The Conjuring universe, its constituent films, and its mythology.

Suggested topics for this proposed collection include but are not restricted to:

The Conjuring universe’s use of religious iconography
Analyses of themes that cut across films in The Conjuring universe
Close analyses of individual texts (e.g., The Nun, Annabelle: Creation) in The Conjuring universe
Assessment of the real-life cases informing The Conjuring universe, including Ed and Lorraine Warren
Analyses of ‘sub-franchises’ (e.g., The Conjuring and Annabelle) in The Conjuring universe

Please send by (December 1) a 200–400 word abstract and a 50–100 word academic biography: Todd Platts (toddkplatts@gmail.com).

Preference will be given to proposals received by December 1, 2021. All notifications of acceptance will be emailed no later than December 31, 2021. If an abstract is accepted, essays can be expected to be between 6,000 and 7,500 words in length (including references).

Further inquiries should be sent to Todd Platts (toddkplatts@gmail.com).

Posted on August 6, 2021

What To Do When the Exorcist Is Absent

Guest Post

The Conjuring franchise, after that of Godzilla, is the highest box-office grossing horror film series of all time. Although this summer’s quiet installment, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) wasn’t received with accolades, it nevertheless follows the trajectory set from the beginning of the series—demons are here and they must be handled by the Catholic Church. Otherwise, the resourceful are left to alternative methods, as the films in the universe repeatedly show.

There’s a good case to be made that demons, as we think of them today, rely heavily on their presentation in The Exorcist (1973). Although demons occurred in horror cinema earlier than that, The Exorcist delineated them as terrifying monsters, based, in large part, on the premise that they really did exist. Many movies took that premise and used it to compel both audiences to watch and demons to leave. Enter Ed and Lorraine Warren. Read more

Posted on January 26, 2018

10 Horror Films about Sleep Disorders

Dawn Keetley

Sleep is becoming one of the crisis points of late modernity, as the steady encroachment of the “24/7” plugged-in world only intensifies sleep’s already uncanny nature.[i] To sleep is to slip into a realm of darkness, irrationality, and the supernatural. This realm is not only profoundly opposed to the contemporary illuminated world, but it has always lain uncomfortably close to death. Indeed, the Western way of sleeping has been described as a “lie down and die” model.[ii] To walk or talk while sleeping, moreover, is to act in ways divorced from the world of light and reason, to act without volition and the consent of the mind. The body that acts becomes something other than the person it appears to be; it generates uncanny doubles and evokes the profoundly uncanny uncertainty as to whether, as philosopher Dylan Trigg puts it, “‘I’ am truly identifiable with my body itself.”[iii] Horror films in the twenty-first century in particular have turned to sleep to exploit its inherently uncanny nature and the way it suggests that we are not always in control of who we are and what we do.