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Posted on July 27, 2015

Horror Rewatch: Ringu (1998) and The Ring (2002)

Unlike many horror fans, I was not too impressed with The Ring (2002). As the story of a possessed video that once watched curses the viewer to death by a demonic spirit, the film is more interested in conveying a sense of dread than it is in creating bloody spectacles. And while I’m not necessarily against that approach in horror, I just never found the essential horror being explored all that compelling. And so it was with very little expectation that I went into a viewing of Ringu (1998), the Japanese film that The Ring remade. What I discovered is that watching these two films as companion pieces instead of as individual films yields a much more interesting commentary on the connection between community and monstrosity.

Posted on July 22, 2015

Cat People (1942): Coding Lesbianism Via Otherness

Elizabeth Erwin

For every lesbian horror victim, such as Brandy in Hallow’s End (2003), there exists a murderous lesbian, such as May Canady in May (2002), to remind us of the perversion traditionally associated with lesbian desire. Previously we looked at how Dracula’s Daughter coded its lesbian narrative in order to escape censor from the Legion of Decency. This week we will take a look at how Cat People (1942) established markers of “otherness” in order to code its queerness.

Just as in Dracula’s Daughter, the main character of Cat People, Irena Dubrovna, struggles against a part of her true identity she fears will render her an outcast. Irena, a Serbian immigrant, believes she is descended from a cursed tribe in which any woman who has her passions aroused will shape-shift into a killing panther. Irena’s life is complicated when she impulsively marries Oliver, a New York architect. Unable to be intimate with him for fear of the curse, Irena is sent to a psychiatrist in search of a cure. The audience is left guessing whether Irena’s paranoia is the result of sexual repression or whether her fears may be well founded.

Posted on July 7, 2015

Up from the Depths (1979) Film Review

Elizabeth Erwin

Directed by Charles B. Griffith, Up from the Depths is a gloriously hokey film that is less monster horror and more spoof horror, although that may not have been its intention. Capitalizing on the shark mania created by Jaws, the film echoes its film predecessor in delightfully absurd ways. The plot is a relatively straightforward one. After a significant underwater earthquake, a prehistoric shark rises up and immediately begins feasting upon the vacationers of a high-end resort. That the resort in question looks more like a set reject from Fantasy Island and less an affluent playground is just one of the many ways this film continually reminds us not to take it too seriously.

Posted on July 1, 2015

MTV’s Scream Review: Pilot

Elizabeth Erwin

When news broke that MTV was going to try its hand at episodic horror and that they had selected the Scream franchise as its model, many were wondering how the slasher elements would transfer to the small screen. Unlike other horror genres that seem an ideal fit for serialized and anthology television, slasher films often use a very specific pacing structure that can be hard to mimic beyond 90 minutes.

As a fan of the franchise, I was dismayed to learn that part of the deal to have Scream come to the small screen was an agreement that effectively took the prospect of a Scream 5 theatrical release off the table. Was the decision a sound one? Based upon the pilot, the jury is still out. If the 1996 Scream film was a self-referential slasher dripping with a 90s sensibility, MTV’s revamped version is a generic mishmash of slasher tropes with a decidedly 2015 flair. The end result is an uneven pilot that dangles enough questions of interest to merit tuning in for episode two.

Posted on June 26, 2015

Burying the Ex: Tedious Zombie Comedy

Elizabeth Erwin

Released June 19, 2015 via Video On Demand, Burying the Ex is a tedious foray into the world of zombie comedy. With characters devoid of any personality and a running time that far exceeds the material, this film achieves neither the humor nor the scares inherent in the zombie comedy genre.

To be fair, fusing horror and comedy is always tricky. While some films excel at blending these two genres (Psycho Beach Party, Tucker and Dave vs Evil), others tend to focus on one part of the equation at the expense of the other (Haunted Honeymoon, I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle). But rarely has a film so completely missed the mark so as to be rendered as utterly boring as Burying the Ex.