Alfonso Zavala, Jr. Within the past few decades, Hollywood has released legacy sequels and reboots of many well-known film franchises. These include popular titles such as Star Wars and even Jurassic Park (now rebranded as Jurassic World). Many of these recent sequels have been met with extreme controversy due to characters, plot and storytelling decisions […]
Andrés Emil González When Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up from a coma near the beginning of Danny Boyle’s classic zombie film, 28 Days Later (2002), he does so wholly alone. This is not so surprising in a film and, indeed, a whole subgenre of horror fixated on the idea of societal breakdown and the survival […]
Cullen Wade “Swimming isn’t a sport. Swimming is a way to keep from drowning.” —George Carlin, Playin’ with Your Head Springboard If, as it’s speculated, our prehistoric ancestors learned swimming to escape predators1, I doubt many of the millions of Americans who use swimming pools every year are consciously practicing how to avoid being […]
Adam Pasen Much has already been made of the conspiracy themes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (Kim Henkel, 1995); the alleged “shameless remake” follows final girl Jenny (Renée Zellweger in her first starring role) and her ill-fated friends trying to survive the prom night from hell after crashing their black Lincoln Continental on […]
Emily Naser-Hall Cristóbal León and Joaquin Cociña’s The Wolf House (2018) commences with an illusion of pastoral ideal. Analog footage displays a table laden with honey-filled jars, the voices of children singing an off-key melody crafting an atmosphere of peacefulness. This honey, the voiceover narration explains, is the lifeblood of an enigmatic community known only […]
Ava DeVries In the horror genre, scholars tend to view gendered violence as solely a women’s issue—the victims are so often young (white) women, and the crazed axe murderers are so often (white) men. When the opposite is true, it’s considered subversive or even feminist. Similarly, analyses of feminist horror are frequently filtered through a […]
Kevin Cooney Rich in motifs associated with folk horror- from collective derangement to debilitating superstitions- Daiei Motion Picture Company’s The Whale God (1962) depicts a village’s descent into madness in its quest to slay a deified cetacean known as Kujiragami, or the Whale God. Rather than fitting neatly into the folk horror genre, however, the […]
Allison Goldstein Wild Zero (1999) is an authentically fun and unexpectedly earnest rock ’n’ roll horror comedy that never quite found the audience it deserved. The movie follows Japanese garage punk band, Guitar Wolf (vocalist/guitarist Guitar Wolf, bassist Bass Wolf, and drummer Drum Wolf), as they bond with their superfan, Ace (played by Masashi Endō), and fight […]
Laura Kremmel The New Zealand film The Rule of Jenny Pen (2024) is an innovative addition to a growing number of films about aging, care homes, and dementia, and it stands out for its lack of supernatural elements as the source of abuse and horror. Like films such as The Manor (2021), terror comes not […]