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Posted on May 1, 2022

Hollow Wicker Tree

Guest Post

Horror movie makers sometimes consider religion as a cheap add-on to a plot. Little do they realize that a carefully constructed religion can convey very real fear. The Wicker Tree (2011), spiritual successor to The Wicker Man (1973), demonstrates this distinction clearly.

The Wicker Man, released the same year as The Exorcist, had something in common with that vastly more successful movie. The main theme of both is based on religion out of time. Father Karras doesn’t believe in demons, not in the modern 1970s! Meanwhile, on the island of Summerisle, Sergeant Neil Howie is confronting revivalist pagans who will eventually kill him as a sacrifice to their old gods. Such people hadn’t existed, he assumed, since the days of the Venerable Bede. The seventies were part of the pivot period for religion in horror. Certainly, religion has been part of horror from the very beginning (Dracula and his crucifix, Henry Frankenstein knowing what it feels like to be God), but it was brought to the foreground beginning in 1968 with Rosemary’s Baby. Then The Wicker Man showed that religious plots could be transatlantic. The movie, however, had greater success in the United States than in the United Kingdom.

Posted on April 23, 2022

Ratting out Disney: From Willard to Ratatouille

Guest Post

There are those who, growing up in the seventies, didn’t realize that Michael Jackson’s chart-topping single “Ben” was about a rat. In 1971 one of the most successful films at the box office was Willard. Apart from a remake in 2003, the movie fell from public consciousness despite its box-office success. Ben (1972) was, of course, the sequel to Willard, named after the main rat in the initial film.

The lack of awareness of this connection suggests that in wider culture the influence of Willard is under-appreciated. Consider Disney’s 2007 smash hit, Ratatouille. Both the original Willard and Ratatouille have similar layouts and, upon close reflection, some very similar scenes. Let’s begin with the socially awkward young man. In Willard, it’s well, Willard. His father started a successful steel mill that has been taken over by his shady second-in-command, Al Martin. In Ratatouille Alfredo Linguini, a socially awkward young man, gets a job in the restaurant his father (whom he didn’t know) started. Not only that, but the sous chef, Skinner, has taken the business over from the departed Gusteau. Two young men are both working in their fathers’ businesses, which were unjustly taken from them.

Posted on April 17, 2022

Norwegian horror: “The Innocents” tells of infantine evil and inherent bias

Guest Post

Casual cruelty and playful perversion make up the slow-burning scares of writer-director Eskil Vogt’s sophomore feature, The Innocents (De uskyldige), whose child characters convey a creepy conception of ethical sentiment. Privileged protagonist Ida (excellent as her young co-stars: Rakel Lenora Fløttum) vents her frustration about her parents’ move to a bare concrete complex by torturing her autistic sister Anna (Alva Brynsmo Ramstad) and engaging in animal abuse. Rapidly escalating, the agony the little girl and her new friend Ben (Sam Ashraf) inflict first upon insects and invertebrates, then a trustful cat, unmasks the inhumane impulses central to the menacing morality lesson offered up by this film.

Posted on April 6, 2022

NEGATIVE SPACE: A descent into the Unknown

Guest Post

There is no doubt that the writings of H. P. Lovecraft have enjoyed a significant renaissance of late. In both literary academia and mainstream culture, his idiosyncratic oeuvre has now been properly recognised for codifying and popularising a unique form of horror commonly known as ‘The Weird’. In an essay written by Lovecraft himself, aptly titled ‘Notes on Writing Weird Fiction’, he deftly outlines the specifics of this distinct sub-genre, explaining how his own particular brand of horror stories evoke a disturbing and fearful sense of the unknown by violently exposing his characters to an insidious alterity that exists beyond the bounds of human reason and perception.

Posted on March 26, 2022

Office Killer: Working from Home is Horror

Guest Post

In The Shock Doctrine Naomi Klein describes the process of “disaster capitalism.” To simplify greatly, she notes that the neoliberal free market has evolved to take advantage of national crises and seemingly “natural” disasters, using these moments of collective distraction and general freak-out to stealthily implement intensifying exploitative policies and social arrangements. The COVID pandemic has set off another round of this predation, forcing us to turn our homes into offices, blend our domestic work with paid labor, pay for our own office supplies, and manage the psychological fallout that results from these changes. Meanwhile, we are advised to concentrate on the bright side of this brave new world – “More time with your loved ones!” “You can wear pajamas to work!” – while ignoring the dangers and downsides, “More time to get isolated and abused by domestic partners!” “More time to never be done with work!” For those of us who see the cup as half empty, we can find an avenging spirit in the protagonist of the only film directed by famed photographer Cindy Sherman, Office Killer, a horror film made in 1997 but still relevant today.

Spoilers follow! Read more