New (To Me) Horror: Spring & Summer 2019

SPOOKY

Midsommar (2019)

This movie is spectacular. Despite sharing common themes with Ari Aster’s masterpiece Hereditary (2018), it’s a completely different film. It’s equally soul-crushing, though the ending is might leave you feeling ambivalent (in a good way). His first film is superior, but something about Midsommar makes it equally compelling. Also we need more good cult-themed horror movies. Massive TW for multiple suicides (one in particular may be especially upsetting to neurodivergent people like myself) and sexual assault.

Cold Fish (2010)

Sion Sono makes some of the best and most disturbing horror. TAG (2015) is one of my favourites, and Strange Circus (2005) is impossible to forget. This film makes me wanna die less after watching it than Strange Circus, but just barely. Take an stagnating family and mix in serial killers, exotic fish, and trauma and you get Cold Fish. TW for sexual assault multiple times over.

The Wind (2018)

A fantastic nonlinear slow burn by a female director. Emma Tammi’s film walks the line between spooky and psychological. By the end you’re not 100% sure which option is better (or worse?). The setting is empty and unsettling in its isolation, but the two female leads give the movie all the life it needs. While certain aspects are definitely predictable, that doesn’t detract from the story at all.

Creepy (2016)

I love Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 1997 serial killer horror film Cure. In some ways I feel like it’s the Japanese Seven (1995). It’s atmospheric and the mystery is super compelling. I don’t want to give anything away. Just watch it. Creepy is a return to the serial killer and mystery themes, but has a completely different vibe despite some shared elements. I don’t want to give anything away about this one either. It’s my second favourite horror movie I’ve seen this year (after Midsommar).

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (BOOM! Studios)

Wow wow wow. This updated take on the Buffyverse is A++. It stays true to the characters (though for some it’s closer to how they evolved later in Buffy/Angel rather than how they started off) and the overall spirit of the Buffy tv series while changing up enough things to make it new and unpredictable. For example, Willow has her sexuality figured out at a much earlier age. This is great because it reflects the changes that have happened since the series aired in the 90s/early 2000s, and also because there’s a queer character whose story doesn’t revolve around her struggles with her sexuality. It’s not that those storylines aren’t great or valid. The issue is that so many works of fiction involving LGBT+ characters are solely about that, and their character does not receive any further consideration. I could go on. Maybe in a future post. I will say that this will probably make most Buffy fans very happy.

Violent and Vile Women in Excision and Martyrs: Feminism in Modern Horror Films

*reposted from my personal blog*

In the summer of 2013, between my third and fourth years of university, I took a gender and pop culture class. In this course I was given freedom to pursue my particular areas of interest, so of course I chose horror. The essay below is the result and one of my favourite things that I’ve ever written. This version is slightly shorter and more concise than the original, because I had to pare it down to present it in a symposium in 2014. At one point in time this was the basis of my English Honours project. I had planned an expanded version discussing multiple films. However I had to drop Honours for mental health reasons and finished my degree early instead. The idea of this essay, my distinct perspective on horror, sitting and collecting pixelated dust on my laptop feels wrong. So I’ve decided to publish it here, and in the future I will expand upon these ideas on my horror blog.

Note: Because of the content of these films, the essay is cisnormative. The two films only deal with cisgender ideas of womanhood and femininity and so that it what I discussed.

Violent and Vile Women in Excision and Martyrs:

Feminism in Modern Horror Films

While historically horror has been considered a notoriously misogynistic genre, the impact of feminism can be seen when examining recent horror films made outside of Hollywood. Richard Bates, Jr.’s 2012 American film Excision and Pascal Laugier’s 2008 French film Martyrs exemplify dynamic representations of women on screen. Both films are distinct in their depiction of women in atypical or unexpected roles, they undermine the prevalent portrayals of sexuality in film, and they present a significantly different relationship between women and violence. Villainous or ambiguous female characters are the backbones of these movies, and crucial in destabilizing gendered film norms.  Through dissecting the depiction and subversion of gender and sexuality in Excision and Martyrs, this paper will show the distinct and confrontational presence of feminism through female characters in horror films.

Feminism in horror specifically is distinct from other genres due to the nature of horror films. They are inherently challenging, depicting chaos in cultures which inform and promote normalcy and stability.  Horror films can “[project] particular fears and threats that destabilise the perceived dominant consensual paradigms of contemporary existence” (McCann 237) revealing “that those paradigms of stability, civility, orthodoxy and superiority are in fact a fallacy” (McCann 237). This creates a space for horror films to expose, pervert, and demolish gendered tropes.

Excision is explicitly subversive in its intentions because it is deliberately mimicking and systematically unravelling the ‘coming-of-age’ teenager film. Writer Carmiel Banasky highlights in her review that Excision is “an angsty response to movies like She’s All That (where the ugly girl transforms into a supermodel upon removing her glasses),” built around “suburban clichés that are embraced and undermined by the end of the film.” The camera follows Pauline as she ascends into a beautifully grotesque madness. This inevitably ends in the loss of her ability and even desire to maintain normalcy. Initially the film follows “Pauline-centric adventures” (Banasky). At school as she experiences the normal uncomfortable teenage milestones including sex, a dance, banal classes, and bullying. When she’s at home she’s either enduring family dinners where no one is able to connect to her, or communicating in the dark to her version of God. These comically offbeat scenes are intercut with her surrealistically vivid surgical dreams, creating unease because the audience knows this is foreshadowing. Pauline is hopelessly obsessed with excision. She refuses to conform, resulting in “attempts to excise herself from the mundanity of her suburban upbringing” (Banasky). In a conclusion that is “altruistic” (Banasky) from Pauline’s perspective, but “disastrous” (Banasky) to an outsider, her actions “culminate in a literal excision” (Banasky).

An atypical female lead is integral to warping the expected norms of a teenage drama or comedy. Pauline is unlike any other protagonist in part because she alternates moment to moment between being the hero, anti-hero, villain, and victim. She is not “easily compartmentalized” (Jason Bailey) like many other women in pop culture.