A young girl, pale and sickly, stares menacingly at the camera
Posted on November 10, 2023

The Devil Inside: Talking The Exorcist (1973)

Elizabeth Erwin/ Podcast

In today’s episode, we are finally tackling the film Roger Ebert called “a raw and painful experience” that “transcends the genre of terror, horror, and the supernatural.” We are, of course, talking about William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973). Based on William Peter Blatty’s novel of the same name, the film is an acknowledged classic trafficking in body horror and demonic possession, scenes of which have morphed into head turning, pea-soup laced pop culture shorthand. But is there more to this story than meets the eye? We’re breaking it all down today with spoilers so stay tuned.

References/Mentioned in this Episode

Clover, Carol J. Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film-Up. Princeton University Press, 2015.

Collative Learning. ⁠The even darker underbelly of THE EXORCIST – film analysis⁠. YouTube, 24 January 2017.

Ebert, Roger. “⁠The Exorcist⁠.” RogerEbert.com, 23 December 1973.

⁠Happy Haunts Library⁠, YouTube, 2023.

Heffernan, Ryan. “⁠The 9 Most Hilarious ‘The Exorcist’ Parodies in Movies and TV Shows⁠.” Collider, 9 October 2023.

Schuetz, Janice. ““The exorcist”: Images of good and evil.” Western Journal of Communication (includes Communication Reports) 39.2 (1975): 92-101.

Williams, Marlena. Night Mother: A Personal and Cultural History of The Exorcist. Mad Creek Books, 2023.

Winter, Douglas E.⁠ Faces of Fear: Encounters with the Creators of Modern Horror⁠. Berkley Trade, 1985, pp. 36-49.

Posted on November 9, 2023

Saw: Liberalism’s Favourite Franchise

Guest Post

I recently came across a web-comic that satirised the premise of Breaking Bad. The gist of it is that Breaking Bad would never work in a country with free healthcare, since Walter White’s impetus for selling drugs is to cover the exorbitant cost of his cancer treatment.

Now this is arguably an oversimplification, but it is funny nonetheless and does illustrate how neoliberalism is often a driving force behind films and series.  This is especially so if the media in question is a US-based production where the liberal ideology of individual choice, meritocracy, and pulling oneself up by their bootstraps is firmly entrenched in the larger social consciousness. In the US, you are the master of your own fate, and you don’t need a handout. Now while it might not, at first glance, appear to be the case with the Saw franchise, the series has a deeply entrenched philosophy of aggressive individualism that covertly celebrates liberalism and glosses over systemic and societal factors underpinning many social ills.

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Posted on October 28, 2023

Horror Literature: Special Issue #8

Special Issue #8

This special issue on horror literature ranges from the exploration of queer sexuality in a late nineteenth-century horror novella to explorations of creativity, ecological crisis, sexual taboo, trauma and grief in twenty-first-century horror fiction. The incredible span and diversity of the fiction taken up by the essays here – and the importance and complexity of the questions asked by that fiction – make it clear that horror literature may well be one of the most important of literary genres. And we may well be living through another boom, another golden era, of horror production.

We have essays by: Elizabeth Erwin, Dawn Keetley, Gavin F. Hurley, Steffen Hantke, Kat Albrecht, David Edwards, Marco Malvestio, Irene Pagano, Alissa Burger, Emma Hallock, Amira Shokr, Carina Stopenski, Jacob Babb, and Isaiah Frost Rivera.

Cover art by Andrew Foley

Enjoy as a flipbook or download the full issue

A teenager in a yellow robe holds a petrified hand.
Posted on October 26, 2023

A Hand to Hold: Talking Talk to Me (2023)

Elizabeth Erwin/ Podcast

In today’s episode, Australian horror takes center stage courtesy of Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou’s Talk to Me (2023). In the film, Mia, who is grappling with the imminent second anniversary of her mother’s death, attends a party with Jade, her best friend, and Riley, Jade’s brother. There, they are given the opportunity to commune with the spirit world via an embalmed hand. Predictably, things do not go according to plan. With unrelenting hype and a domestic box office gross outpacing other A24 releases, the film is a potent hybrid of gore and dread but is it the best horror film of the year so far? We’re breaking it all down today with spoilers so stay tuned!

Posted on October 25, 2023

Face to Face: Indigenous Experience and Zombie Cinema

Guest Post

In June 1981, Minister of Fisheries Lucien Lessard authorised more than 300 Quebec Provincial Police (QPP) to raid the Restigouche Reserve in relation to restrictions placed upon the indigenous peoples by the Department of Fisheries: the point of contention was salmon fishing rights; the Mi’kmaq claimed their right to fish salmon six nights a week while the Quebec government attempted to limit their fishing to three days a week as, according to them, their fishing practices were endangering the salmon population. A survey commissioned by the Mi’kmaq and undertaken by Dr. Alan Roy demonstrated the indigenous salmon haul did not exceed 1,200 fish a year, a smaller amount compared to the 1,800 per year that were fished by commercial organisations (Ambroziak). Despite this, the QPP raid occurred and, one of the young people involved was Mi’kmaq Jeff Barnaby:

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