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Posted on May 31, 2016

Southbound (2015) Review

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A lonely stretch of desert highway in the American Southwest, offers five stories of terror in the horror anthology Southbound.

Synopsis: On a desolate stretch of desert highway, weary travelers – two men on the run from their past, a band on their way to the next gig, a man struggling to get home, a brother in search of his long-lost sister and a family on vacation – are forced to confront their worst fears and darkest secrets in a series of interwoven tales of terror and remorse on the open road.

Directed by Roxanne Benjamin (producer, V/H/S 1-3), David Bruckner (V/H/S), Patrick Horvath (Entrance) and the film collective known as Radio Silence (V/H/S), the movie stars Kate Beahan (TV’s “Mistresses,” The Wicker Man), Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (V/H/S), and Mather Zickel (TV’s “Masters of Sex,” Hail, Caesar!).

Horror anthologies. I love and respect them for what they are and what they aren’t. For me, it all started with Creepshow then Tales From The Crypt TV series came along and before I knew it, I was building a top ten list of favorites including Tales from The Darkside The Movie, Body Bags, V/H/S/, The ABC’s Of Death, Tales Of Halloween and A Christmas Horror Story. Now I’ve added Southbound to the list. Read more

Posted on May 1, 2016

Monstrosity, Creation, and Feminism in Penny Dreadful

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Guest Author: Cayla McNally

Both seasons of Penny Dreadful have similar themes: guilt, repression, creation, monstrosity, and the confluence of the sacred and the profane. A huge part of the thematic narrative is duality, a secret self that is harbored away, repressed. As monstrosity is repressed, as the secret self is repressed, the power the characters have over themselves weakens. Ethan represses his lupine nature, which causes him to erupt violently when he does transform. Vanessa represses her natural sexuality, which then leaves her vulnerable to possession. Victor represses Lily’s history, which helps her realize she is immortal.

Monstrosity exists in all of the characters, in two different categories:

-Dorian, Lily, John/Caliban, and Ethan are monstrous in a supernatural way. Control and consent become overarching themes as well, existing at the crossroad of creation and monstrosity. The creatures who see themselves as monsters (Ethan, John/Caliban, Lily) had no control in their creation; rather, they can only control what they choose to do with their monstrosity. Read more

Posted on April 28, 2016

Everything You Need to Know about Penny Dreadful Before Sunday

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Guest Author: Cayla McNally

Popular Gothic TV show Penny Dreadful is making its return to Showtime this weekend, and I am beyond excited! Named after a popular form of 19^th century pulp novel, the show is a twisted tale of the dark and supernatural goings-on in Victorian London. The first two seasons have been a beautiful and harrowing ride, and I am curious to see where show creator John Logan will take it next. It can be hard to remember everything that happened in the eighteen episodes of this complex and detailed show, so below you will find season recaps to bring us up to speed for season three. Caution, spoilers abound.

Season 1

Season one begins with, of course, a grisly murder of a woman and her young child, plucked out of their home in the dead of night. The killer remains mysterious and on the loose, though many fear that Jack the Ripper has returned. Meanwhile, Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) approaches American sharpshooter Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett); she offers to pay Ethan handsomely for his skills on some “night work.” Intrigued, Ethan agrees to join Vanessa and Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton), and promptly follows them- unawares- into a vampire den. It is revealed that Sir Malcolm’s daughter- and Vanessa’s best friend- Mina (Olivia Llewellyn) was captured by one of the creatures. They are attacked, and manage to kill one of the nest’s main vampires; they take the body to Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway), who discovers that there are glyphs written under the creature’s skin. Egyptologist Ferdinand Lyle (Simon Russel Beale) later discerns that the glyphs are from the Egyptian Book of the Dead and foretell the end of the world. He also believes that the vampires are using Mina as bait, and really want Vanessa. Read more

Posted on April 18, 2016

Patriarchy and Monstrosity in 10 Cloverfield Lane

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Guest Author: Cayla McNally

When I saw 10 Cloverfield Lane (Dan Trachtenberg, 2016) I was stunned, to say the least. Having seen Cloverfield in all its shaky-cam glory in 2008, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this iteration, and I certainly didn’t expect the film to be as feminist as it is.

It tells the story of Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who jilts her fiancé, gets into a car accident, and wakes up chained to a wall. She is being held there by Howard (John Goodman) who claims to have brought her to his underground bunker in order to save her life. He also claims that a large-scale attack occurred shortly after her accident, thus making leaving the bunker impossible. His story is corroborated by Emmett (John Gallagher, Jr.), who helped build the bunker and witnessed the attack. However, Michelle is rightfully skeptical, and as the narrative unwinds, the truth proves to be more sinister than originally imagined.

At its heart, 10 Cloverfield Lane is ultimately a story of private and public disaster, of oppression on a micro and macro level, and of the banality of monstrosity. Patriarchy, the practice of disenfranchising and infantilizing women, often with the goal of silencing and protecting them, is – without revealing everything- the true monster of the film. Read more

Posted on February 24, 2016

Origins of the Final Girl: Ann Radcliffe and American Mary

Guest Post

Laura Kremmel

In Ann Radcliffe’s 1794 four-volume Gothic novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho, the heroine Emily is incarcerated in the castle of Udolpho after her father’s death and the subsequent guardianship of her aunt and new husband, Montoni. Montoni brings her to Udolpho in order to coerce her to marry his friend, Morano, threatening her virginity, and her life until she agrees to do so. Emily, in other words, is in a position of subordination, instability, and danger typical of eighteenth-century Gothic literature: we see it in Walpole’s Castle of Otranto, Lee’s The Recess, Lewis’s The Monk, and the list goes on. Some version of female incarceration happens in nearly all of Radcliffe’s novels, though Udolpho is her most iconic.

Though Radcliffe’s heroines may not be as obviously strong and independent as the horror film women discussed during Women in Horror Month, I want to argue for them as precursors to Carol Clover’s “Final Girls”: women who, through their own ingenuity, survive the men (or monsters) who threaten them with violence and/or sexual assault.

Udolpho is well-known for exhibiting Radcliffe’s characteristic “explained supernatural”: Suggestions of a supernatural force throughout the text are revealed to be the misinterpretation of natural and easily-explained occurrences by the heroine. However, the “natural” threat to her life and person is still very real. The men who fill the castle and stalk the hallways of Udolpho make murder and rape more terrifying than any supernatural element. But what makes Udolpho noteworthy in the context of Women in Horror Month is that, despite the images of death and horror that Emily encounters around every corner of her new prison/home, she refuses to be intimidated into a marriage with a man she despises, and she eventually escapes with the help of her sympathetic servant and a mysterious stranger.