Horror Homeroom

Posted on December 30, 2021

When we were pagans: The Land of Blue Lakes

Dawn Keetley

The Land of Blue Lakes (2021) is an independently-produced film directed and written by Arturs Latkovskis. It is the first Latvian found footage horror movie, although that doesn’t quite do the film justice. It is also a Latvian entry (again, perhaps the first) in the folk horror genre – and, according to director Latkovsis, it is at least ‘half documentary as it is using the real history of the locations where it was set’.[i] ‘The Land of the Blue Lakes’ is a term for the Latgale region of Latvia, one of the historic Latvian lands, lying in the easternmost part of the country. The film is, among many other things, a beautiful visual record of the lakes and islands of the region, as five friends set off on a canoe trip – heading, in particular, to see the ‘stone of the sacrificed’, a key site in the mythology of the region.

Posted on December 29, 2021

Falling into the Ethical Abyss of The Platform

Guest Post

Class hierarchy is the critical focus of Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s dystopic horror The Platform, but it should not obscure the film’s intrinsic exploration of interlocking existential and ethical instability. The brutal boost in social injustice in our own pandemic prison has given all the more relevance to The Platform’s sardonic scrutiny of human susceptibility to rationalized ruthlessness.

The current consolidation of class limits is accurately mirrored by the hermetically closed setting. Regulated by an obscure administration, the so-called Vertical Self-Management Center is an architectural allegory for economic inequality. Each of its stacked cells contains two inmates anticipating a specific gain from their voluntary detention. The Center’s purpose is said to be eliciting “spontaneous solidarity.“ Even though the narrative marks this piece of information as unreliable, solidarity — a concept commonly perceived as a socio-psychological remedy for precariousness — remains a focal point. Due to the recent renaissance of solidarity rhetoric, the plot’s implementation of this concept provides a poignant link to the present and might help us to reflect upon the nature of solidarity as well as the public discourse in which it is used. In a reality profoundly different from the pre-pandemic times of the film’s release, one that hinges social access on medical certificates and their local validation, the scene in which the protagonist Goreng (Iván Massagué) asks for a diploma in exchange for his detention seems much more momentous. A Quixotic hero in more than one sense, Goreng gets into a cell to gain “a degree” of freedom, just to become painfully aware that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Read more

Posted on December 25, 2021

Midnight Mass and Spiritual Abuse

Guest Post

Content Warning: This article discusses heavy spoilers for Midnight Mass, manipulation, and emotional and spiritual abuse.

Horror holds a mirror up to your psyche and dares you to look at your own risk: it’s a realization of your worst fears. Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass (streaming on Netflix) is no different. And for me, a devoutly religious person (Protestant, if you’re curious), the image within the dark mirror of my psyche is the specter of a trauma I’ve survived: spiritual abuse.

Most dedicated horror fans are well aware that abuse can be perpetrated through psychological and emotional means.[i] Spiritual abuse is a similar beast. WebMD defines spiritual abuse as: “Any attempt to exert power and control over someone using religion, faith, or beliefs.”[ii] And Midnight Mass is a veritable hit parade of red flags for spiritual abuse. This post aims to compare every bullet point within WebMD’s guide to spiritual abuse against what the residents of Crockett experience in Midnight Mass.[ii] Read more

Posted on December 19, 2021

Krampusnacht in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania

Dawn Keetley

Krampus events are springing up around the US – raising the question of why? What draws Americans to this figure indigenous to the Alpine regions of Austria, Bavaria, and southern Germany?

The answer lies most obviously in the human need for ritual – that is, events organized on a calendrical or ‘natural’ rhythm that thus bypass the increasingly insistent presence of holidays controlled (and often created) by corporate interests. While not created by corporations, Christmas certainly seems to have been hijacked by them. In his book about the Krampus as an integral part of “the old, dark Christmas,” Al Ridenour points out that this commercialism may be a particular problem for those Americans “who came of age in the rebellious punk-rock era.” For this generation, the ‘savage’ Krampus “seems to express the requisite countercultural contempt for the Coca-Cola guzzling, bloated patriarch of all that is consumerist and parental.”[i] Krampus represents a darker seam of US culture, one that seeks a form of ‘authenticity’ in the face of a stultifying consumerism—a dark counterpoint to artificial light.

Posted on December 17, 2021

Crones, Crime, and the Gothic, Conference at Falmouth University UK

Call for Papers

Crones, Crime, and the Gothic

In-person Conference

Falmouth University UK, 10-11 June 2022

Older women have traditionally been portrayed negatively in folklore, fairy tales, literature and film, for example. Images of witches, evil stepmothers, shrivelled, bitter ‘spinsters’, and vindictive, bullying women abusing positions of power are rife in Western culture. Yet, perhaps things are changing. A new emphasis on the need to discuss and understand the menopause seems to be at the heart of this. This conference examines historical representations of the ‘crone’ in relation to crime and Gothic narratives. But it also looks ahead and globally to examine other types of discourses and representations. Bringing older women to the fore of the discussion, this conference aims to go global and really shake up the way that the ‘crone’ is thought about and symbolized.