Horror Film

Dr Lecter's Taste for ‘Goldberg’, or: The Horror of Bach in the Hannibal Franchise

by Carlo Cenciarelli

Journal of the Royal Musical Association 137, no. 1 (2012), 107-134

The repeated use of the ‘Goldberg’ Variations in the Hannibal Lecter saga offers a route into the complexities of... more The repeated use of the ‘Goldberg’ Variations in the Hannibal Lecter saga offers a route into the complexities of cinema's appropriation of Western art music. To an extent, the affiliation of Bach with a cannibalistic serial killer rehearses the notion of ‘classical music’ as socially and culturally other. Yet at the same time, from its first appearance in a memorable scene in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), the music is tied to the workings of a mass-media phenomenon. This becomes evident in the sequel, Hannibal (2001), where the ‘Goldberg’ Aria, used as title song, crossing in and out of the diegesis and mixed with sound effects, becomes part of the development of the character into a media franchise, of the romanticizing of his masculinity and the spectacularization of his violence. Thus, in the process of capitalizing on Lecter's success, the saga at once insists on classical music's otherness and blurs its difference from film music.

Su Dracula di Bram Stoker di F.F. Coppola ( ovvero Dracula, Gesù e la Sincerità)

by Ruggero Barberi

Fear, Horror, Terror: Violent Movies for Violent Times

by Thomas Riegler

Assuming a connection between violent periods and a violent pop culture, this article explores the present conjuncture... more Assuming a connection between violent periods and a violent pop culture, this article explores the present conjuncture of fear, horror and terror in American films and TV through comparison with matching themes in 1970s Hollywood cinema. Both the 1970s and 2000s can be categorised as“ages of fear, horror and terror”, shaped by political, social and economic crisis. Since 9/11 and the beginning of the War on Terror a new brand of explicitly violent horror movies has scored major box office hits. “Shoot ’em up”-scenarios and revenge thrillers feature prominently, as well as conspiracy and paranoia motives. In a similar way splatter horror and dark thrillers referred to the Vietnam War, political scandals and economic problems of the 1970s. Just as the then cultural products tell us: ‘There is something profoundly wrong with our world.’ Dark and nightmarish fantasies express anger and frustration about forces out of control, warlike events and estrangement between the public and elites. The conclusion is that real/reel violence and horror overlap/mirror each other.

The connection between real and reel horror

by Thomas Riegler

Assuming a connection between violent periods and violent pop culture, this contribution explores the present horror... more Assuming a connection between violent periods and violent pop culture, this contribution explores the present horror boom in American cinema with matching genre themes of the 1970s.
Since 9/11 and the proclamation of the “War on Terror”, a new brand of explicitly violent horror movies has scored major box office hits: Captivity, Hostel, Saw, The Devil’s Reject, Turistas, or Wolf Creek – films that have since became synonymous with “torture porn”. But from the point of view of many directors, experts, and fans this “reel” horror reflects the “real” horror of our time: War, terrorism, economic decline, corporate greed, natural disasters, and social collapse.

In a similar way the splatter horror of Night of the Living Dead, Last House on the Left, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had referred to the Vietnam War, a string of high profile political assassinations, racism, and urban riots. The 1970s was a time of paranoia about the rise of violent crime, economic woes resonated strongly, and the political system was engulfed in a serious crisis of confidence after the Watergate scandal.
 
Thus the conclusion is that real/reel violence and horror “mirror” each other in times of political, social, and economic crisis.

Skeletons Sail an Etheric Ocean: Approaching the Ghost in John Carpenter's The Fog

by Murray Leeder

Collective Screams: William Castle and the Gimmick Film

by Murray Leeder

Published in the Journal of Popular Culture, 2012

The Fall of the House of Meaning: Between Static and Slime in Poltergeist.

by Murray Leeder

Forget Peter Vincent: Nostalgia, Self-Reflexivity, and the Genre Past in Fright Night

by Murray Leeder

Targeting American Women: Middle-Class Female Audiences, Marketing, and the Women-in-Danger Pictures of 1978-84

by Richard Nowell

(Forthcoming)

By invoking the figure of the working-class male spectator, cultural elites and film scholars have tended historically... more By invoking the figure of the working-class male spectator, cultural elites and film scholars have tended historically to reduce so-called “women-in-danger” films to sinister fantasies celebrating the most sadistic, brutal, and depraved of responses to second-wave feminism and to those American women seen to benefit from the social and economic upward mobility it facilitated. In contrast, this article reveals the extent to which films like Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), Dressed to Kill (1980), and Visiting Hours (1982) were actually framed to appear relevant and of interest to middle-class thirty-something-plus women, particularly those who held, or envisaged themselves holding, positions of professional influence. Cultivating this potentially lucrative audience, it is argued, involved spotlighting sympathetic female protagonists, high-end fashion, heterosexual romance, female participation in the culture industries, and gender relations discourse. Accordingly, the article reveals that what are often deplored as the most misogynist films in American history were in fact framed contemporaneously in the US public-sphere as in part glossy, topical dramas warning middle-class women of a misogynist seem running deep in American society – in short as cautionary tales of a purported backlash.

Die Wiege des Bösen

by Heike Klippel

Klippel, Heike: Die Wiege des Bösen - Horror und Reproduktion. In: Schlicht, Corinna (ed.): Genderstudies in den Geisteswissenschaften. Beiträge aus den Literatur-, Film- und Sprachwissenschaften. Duisburg 2010, p. 131-138.

Die Wiege des Bösen

by Heike Klippel

Klippel, Heike: Die Wiege des Bösen - Horror und Reproduktion. In: Schlicht, Corinna (ed.): Genderstudies in den Geisteswissenschaften. Beiträge aus den Literatur-, Film- und Sprachwissenschaften. Duisburg 2010, p. 131-138.

Disability in Two "Doctor Stories" - accepted for publication in Jones T, D Wear, and LD Friedman, editors. Health and Humanities Reader. (New Brunswick: Rutgers U Press, forthcoming 2012).

by Martha Stoddard Holmes

Das Adoptivkind als bestrafender Parasit – Das Wagnis der Gastfreundschaft als Todesurteil in 'Orphan' (2009)

by Marco Heiter

In: Jörg van Bebber (Hg.): Dawn of an Evil Millennium. Horror/Kultur im neuen Jahrtausend, Darmstadt 2011, S. 608-615.

Auf den Spuren eines kannibalischen „Phallogozentrismus des Fleisches“ in Jorge Michel Graus 'Somos lo que hay' (Mexiko, 2010)

by Marco Heiter

veröffentlicht vom Herausgeber unter dem Titel:
Phallogozentrismus des Fleisches – Der karnivore Geschlechterdiskurs am Beispiel des Kannibalenfilms 'Somos lo que hay' (Mexiko, 2010) von Jorge Michel Graus [sic]

in: Denkbilder. Das Germanistikmagazin der Universität Zürich, Nr. 29 / Herbst 2011, S. 33-36.

"'Can't Sleep, Clowns Will Eat Me': Telling Scary Stories"

by Mathias Clasen

Chapter in Carsten Gansel & Dirk Vanderbeke (eds.), 'Telling Stories: Evolution and Literature'. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012. Uncorrected proofs.

‘Human monstrosity: rape, ambiguity and performance in Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)’ in Baumgartner, Holly & Roger Davis (eds.), Hosting the Monster (Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 2008).

by Lucy Donaldson

The monstrous in Rosemary’s Baby is embodied in both the real and the supernatural. The film’s narrative hinges on a... more The monstrous in Rosemary’s Baby is embodied in both the real and the supernatural. The film’s narrative hinges on a central hesitation between the delusions of a pregnant woman and the existence of Satanism, yet I would argue that despite the inherent ambiguity of the plot, Rosemary’s husband Guy (John Cassavetes) represents the monstrous through both explanations. The positioning of him as the monster is crucially demonstrated by Rosemary’s rape. The film presents this as a nightmare where the semi-conscious Rosemary (Mia Farrow) is surrounded by a coven, approached by her naked husband who transforms into the devil and then rapes her. The next morning her husband claims he had sex with her unconscious body so as not to miss optimum conception. In this paper I would like to suggest that whether Guy exchanges Rosemary’s body to incubate the antichrist or not, the rape is still crucially performed by Guy and it is the duplicitous nature of his behaviour towards his wife and total disregard for her body that makes him monstrous.
  Furthermore, I would like to argue that detailed consideration of performance is the key to understanding his monstrousness and its effect on engagement with him. Through Guy’s status as an actor, combined with the various levels of performance he generates throughout the film - in the form of rehearsals as well as impressions and ridicule - Cassavetes reveals a detailed portrayal of actorly self-absorption, phoniness and charm that emphasises the depth of his duplicity regarding his wife’s body. By scrutinising the film’s depiction of rape, during the nightmare and after it, I will demonstrate how the notion of performance in both the literal physical embodiment of a monster and as selfish husband/rapist reveals Guy’s monstrousness as supernatural and real and the difficulties this represents in our engagement with him. 

‘Access and Excess in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)’ in Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism, 1, 2010.

by Lucy Donaldson

‘“The suffering black male body and the threatened white female body”: Ambiguous Bodies in Candyman’, The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, 9, 2011.

by Lucy Donaldson

‘“Normality is Threatened by the Monster”: Robin Wood, Romero and Zombies’, CineAction, 84, 2011, 24-31.

by Lucy Donaldson

Essay on the movie Shutter - Patricia Danakas, 2011

by Patricia Danakas