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Posted on May 29, 2016

The Other Side of the Door (2016) and Wake Wood (2009): Folk Horror and Grief

Dawn Keetley

DEFYING DEATH IN THE HORROR FILM: Since at least Pet Sematary (1989), we’ve known it’s not a good idea to try to bring loved ones back from the dead. Indeed, this theme goes back still further. What was Frankenstein (1931), in the end, if not a warning about what happens when you raise the dead? But if horror is at bottom about the inevitability of death, it’s also about our efforts to defy that inevitability—efforts that are at the same time heroic and dangerously hubristic. Both The Other Side of the Door and Wake Wood demonstrate this in terrifying fashion.

The release last week of The Other Side of the Door (2016), directed by Johannes Roberts, written by Roberts and Ernest Riera, and starring Sarah Wayne Callies (The Walking Dead, Colony) and Jeremy Sista (Six Feet Under, The Returned), is a dramatic manifestation of the fact that we’ll never get over (or around) the implacability of death.

Indeed, we can see the persistence of the human desire to overcome death in the fact that The Other Side of the Door is strikingly similar to another relatively recent Irish folk horror film—Wake Wood (2009), which was directed by Arthur Keating and stars Aidan Gillen (Game of Thrones), Eva Birthistle (The Children), and Timothy Spall (Harry Potter, Mr. Turner). Both films are worth watching, both in and of themselves and also because of what their similarities say about an enduring theme of horror. Read more

Posted on May 18, 2016

The Devil’s Woods (2015)

Dawn Keetley

In the Irish folk horror film, The Devil’s Woods, four friends (Keith, Jen, Jay, and Katie) head from Dublin to a music festival in the country, with the intent of camping in the woods. On the way, they run afoul of some unfriendly locals in the wonderfully-named local pub, The Hatchet Inn, and then, once in the woods, they are inexplicably terrorized by strange figures in masks.

Here’s the trailer:

Posted on May 2, 2016

Echoes of Horror: Short Cut

Gwen

Earlier this week I was asked to create a twenty minute training presentation as part of a job interview. In their gross misstep, I was encouraged to train the team on “anything”. It was mentioned that previous candidates had done trainings on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or even how to do the perfect round house kick. Bouncing between ideas of how to cast spells from Harry Potter and teaching the team how to count and sex horseshoe crabs, (if you had any doubt about my nerd credentials, I believe this confirms it) I opted to go with a power point presentation on “How To Survive an 80s Horror Film”.

While working on the presentation, I found myself thinking about the ways that horror permeates broader culture. It is a well-known fact that there have been several horror comedy films and spoofs such as the Scary Movie franchise. But that is too obvious. Likewise, hip hop has borrowed elements of horror for emphasis within rap lyrics.[i] I looked back on my many nights watching USA Up All Night with Rhonda Shear and I immediately thought about the film Summer School (1987). For all you fans of Agent Gibbs on NCIS, this film is worth a look. More important to this brief analysis, are the characters of Chainsaw (Cameron) and Dave (Riley).

Chainsaw and Dave are presented as a little left of center at first. In an attempt to impress a beautiful foreign exchange student, they put on a display that involves lots of fake blood and some vicious bunnies. Only to be met with the source of their inspiration, Anna-Maria (Udenio) saying, “It’s disgusting…I love it!” These guys don’t fit the mold, none of the kids in Summer School do, not even the teacher. They might love prosthetic limbs, gore, and outlandish attire, but they are really good kids. More prominently, Chainsaw and Dave are able to turn negative labels on their ear by challenging the principal’s assessment of the kids as “psychopaths”. Read more

Posted on November 24, 2015

#Horror Review (2015)

Dawn Keetley

101 mins | Tara Subkoff | (USA) | 2015

Grade: B

Synopsis: Six twelve-year-old friends gather for a sleepover at the fabulous Connecticut home of Sofia (Bridget McGarry), whose mother, Alex, is played by Chloë Sevigny. The girls alternately create various scenarios so they can upload pictures and verbally abuse each other. One of the girls, Cat (Haley Murphy), crosses the line, telling the one girl who’s not unhealthily thin, Georgie (Emma Adler) that she should kill herself. She’s kicked out of the house and soon the other girls realize they are being stalked online and then in deadly reality.

#Horror is the writing and directorial debut of Tara Subkoff, actress and fashion designer. She has talked quite explicitly about her interest, in this project, in marrying the horror film to social commentary. Mentioning some of her favorite horror films and directors (Wes Craven, The Exorcist, Halloween, The Shining), she describes horror’s important work of “social commentary,” its way of “talking about politics.” Subkoff’s interest in social commentary pervades #Horror, which directly speaks to our obsession with electronic devices and social media. According to Subkoff, cultural narcissism is reaching boiling point: “we’re just obsessed with ourselves and promoting ourselves,” she said, in an interview on Quiet Earth.[i] Subkoff also takes aim at cyberbullying, as the girls in #Horror pass up no opportunity to ridicule and abuse each other in person and on social media.

Posted on November 15, 2015

Watching Horror Films in a Time of Terror

Dawn Keetley

Last night, Paris was attacked: news organizations are reporting that French President François Hollande has identified the terroristic violence as an “act of war” perpetrated by ISIS.[i]

Like many, I was transfixed to the news last night, horrified by what was unfolding in France. I happened to be away from home, in upstate New York for the Ithaca International Fantastic Film Festival. And watching the news from Paris made me wonder why I was here. Why watch and write about films—especially horror films—when there’s so much horror happening in real life?