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Posted on May 4, 2015

Violence and The Purge Franchise

Dawn Keetley

As someone who writes about horror, I was interested in the eruption of The Purge into the news this week after Freddie Gray died in police custody. As a story on CNN.com put it: “In a sobering example of life imitating art, the chaos sweeping the streets of Baltimore may have been partly inspired by a series of action-horror movies.” Some high-school kids apparently circulated plans about a “purge” on social media on Monday afternoon (April 27). ‘Baltimore going purge,” read one tweet.[i] And the riots themselves, later that night, were compared to The Purge: “The purge is happening in Baltimore,” tweeted at least one observer.[ii]

Posted on April 27, 2015

Trapped In a Mall: Consumerism & Religion in The Dawn Of The Dead (2004)

Elizabeth Erwin

With the hiatus of The Walking Dead, I’ve been missing my daily zombie fix and so I wanted to do a rewatch of The Dawn of the Dead (2004), a surprisingly satisfying remake of the 1978 original. While the two films share zombies, that’s about the only point of comparison. Unlike its predecessors, this film features zombies of a more threatening variety and is meant to critique American consumerism. In the wake of a zombie outbreak, a group of people take refuge in a mall where they attempt to salvage a little of their humanity.

Posted on April 25, 2015

Who is Katie? Paranormal Activity and Problems of Selfhood

Dawn Keetley

After a brief hiatus, the next installment in the Paranormal Activity franchise will be returning in October 2015. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension will apparently turn back to Katie (Katie Featherston) and, according to producer Jason Blum, will explain everything.[i] One thing I wonder if the film will explain is the photograph of Katie (with her boyfriend Micah) in the first installment, Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2007), that quite clearly is not a photograph of Katie.
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Posted on April 8, 2015

THE MEME REVOLUTION IN GORE VERBINSKI’S THE RING

Dawn Keetley

Gore Verbinski’s The Ring centers on an infamous videotape and was released, ironically, at the very moment in time (2002) that VHS was becoming obsolete, replaced by digital recording technologies. I recently taught the film, wondering if it still has anything to say, thirteen years later, now videotape truly is obsolete. I’m convinced, after another round of watching it, that The Ring is still very relevant. In fact, the film’s fundamental message—that the media are taking “us” over, replacing “brain cells” with images—is more true today than it was at the beginning of the millennium.

Posted on March 23, 2015

Empowerment of the Traditional in John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978)

Elizabeth Erwin

Released in 1978, John Carpenter’s Halloween not only gave Jamie Lee Curtis her definitive Scream Queen role but it also gave audiences one of the best known horror film villains of all time in Michael Meyers. On its face, the story is a simple one. On Halloween night, six-year-old Michael murders his sister and is placed in a psychiatric hospital. On the fifteenth anniversary of his incarceration, he breaks out intent on exacting revenge.

One of the reasons I keep coming back to this film is because of how effectively it uses cultural norms to elevate the horror.