Horror satisfies many social and psychological needs. These are the stories we are compelled to tell because they’re fun, because they’re exciting, because it’s natural to crave the thrill and the sweet, sweet dopamine of survival. They allow us to talk about trauma and grief and existential fear, […]
Halloween (1978) wasn’t the first slasher film, not by a long, long shot, and Laurie Strode wasn’t the first Final Girl, but — as I have discussed here before — the commercial appeal and success of Halloween codified the slasher subgenre and set the rules for at least […]
This week Guest Star Michelle Kisner writes about the challenging and transgressive German horror movie, Melancholie der Engel (2009). Keep up with her and all her film writing via Instagram at @robotcookie! ~~~ The 2009 German exploitation film Melancholie der Engel (The Angels’ Melancholia in English) has quite […]
Angela Englert is being tormented by demons from her past. She’ll be back next month! In the meantime, consider her piece on the video game, Until Dawn. ~~~ Horror has been part of video games since at least 1981’s 3D Monster Maze, but it’s not always a seamless […]
Bernard Rose’s Clive Barker’s Candyman is an intensely 1990s film. Characters smoke a LOT inside public places. A senior professor, Philip Purcell, refers to our main character Helen (Virginia Madsen) and research partner/Black Best Friend trope Bernadette (Kasi Lemmons) as “my two most beautiful graduate students” and there […]
Happy Death Day (2017) and Happy Death Day 2U (2019) together tell the story of bitchy sorority sister Theresa “Tree” Gelbman (Jessica Rothe), a slasher film trope with a difference. Shallow, flighty, and rude, Tree courts exactly the kind of cosmic justice that usually comes at the end […]
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The Cultural Gutter 