The classification of films as folk horror runs into the usual problem (and fascination) of genre taxonomy, the fuzzy set, where many texts meet some criteria and hardly any fit completely. This article suggests that thinking about Dario Suspiria and the 2018 version, directed by Luca Guadagnino, might, even though both films may seem to lack key folk horror elements, provide insight into deeper spatial-temporal structures that animate the subgenre. The 2018 Suspiria is less a remake of Argento’s original than an excavation of its historical and geographical subtexts. The central dance work in Guadagnino’s film, named Volk , activates changing connotations of the word ‘folk’, opening up both films to a reading in which Guadagnino’s reconstitution of Argento’s film recapitulates folk horror’s central dynamic, the horrifying yet desired revelation of a past that has been spatially present all along, waiting to be uncovered.
{"title":"Volk horror and the revival of history in Suspiria","authors":"Catherine Belling","doi":"10.1386/host_00071_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00071_1","url":null,"abstract":"The classification of films as folk horror runs into the usual problem (and fascination) of genre taxonomy, the fuzzy set, where many texts meet some criteria and hardly any fit completely. This article suggests that thinking about Dario Suspiria and the 2018 version, directed by Luca Guadagnino, might, even though both films may seem to lack key folk horror elements, provide insight into deeper spatial-temporal structures that animate the subgenre. The 2018 Suspiria is less a remake of Argento’s original than an excavation of its historical and geographical subtexts. The central dance work in Guadagnino’s film, named Volk , activates changing connotations of the word ‘folk’, opening up both films to a reading in which Guadagnino’s reconstitution of Argento’s film recapitulates folk horror’s central dynamic, the horrifying yet desired revelation of a past that has been spatially present all along, waiting to be uncovered.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135323699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines the pioneering American weird literature writer Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) through the critical lens of the ecogothic, arguing that he resituates the gothic within the real or imagined landscapes of the American frontier, his ‘frontier gothic’ epitomized by the image of ‘the cabin in the woods’. In his writings, the frontier gothic becomes transitional boundary genre on the ‘frontier’ between the earlier gothic and later folk horror, where not just isolated cabins of lone prospectors, but whole rural communities find themselves in a similarly abject, ruinous moral condition. The liminal ‘frontier’ nature of the ecogothic is repeated in miniature in the specific way in which abandoned cabins in isolated gulches become ecogothic ‘day-old’ ruins, quite distinct from a gothic ruin in its lacking civilized boundaries between interior and exterior, culture and nature, epitomized by the image of ‘blank windows’ and doorless doorways.
{"title":"Somewhere in the outer darkness: Locating the frontier (eco)gothic of Ambrose Bierce","authors":"Paul Manning","doi":"10.1386/host_00069_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00069_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the pioneering American weird literature writer Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) through the critical lens of the ecogothic, arguing that he resituates the gothic within the real or imagined landscapes of the American frontier, his ‘frontier gothic’ epitomized by the image of ‘the cabin in the woods’. In his writings, the frontier gothic becomes transitional boundary genre on the ‘frontier’ between the earlier gothic and later folk horror, where not just isolated cabins of lone prospectors, but whole rural communities find themselves in a similarly abject, ruinous moral condition. The liminal ‘frontier’ nature of the ecogothic is repeated in miniature in the specific way in which abandoned cabins in isolated gulches become ecogothic ‘day-old’ ruins, quite distinct from a gothic ruin in its lacking civilized boundaries between interior and exterior, culture and nature, epitomized by the image of ‘blank windows’ and doorless doorways.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135323701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Timelines of Terror: The Fractured Continuities of Horror Film Sequels, Josh Spiegel (2023)","authors":"Shane H. Weathers","doi":"10.1386/host_00075_5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00075_5","url":null,"abstract":"Review of: Timelines of Terror: The Fractured Continuities of Horror Film Sequels , Josh Spiegel (2023) Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 195 pp., ISBN 978-1-47669-165-7, p/bk, £30.95","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135323708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines Ari folk horror film, Midsommar , in the context of Swedish ethnonationalist ideologies and their connections to environmental and cultural preservation. Reading the film through Michael Dylan Foster and Jeffrey A. Tolbert’s concept of the folkloresque, I draw correlations between its structural, fairy tale framing and manipulation of folkloric imagery in order to interrogate its deliberate representations of cultural and historical inauthenticity. Further, this article analyses Midsommar ’s transnational milieu and its narrative emphasis on the ambiguous traditions and rituals of the rural Swedish commune, the Hårga, to argue that the film gestures towards a nostalgic appropriation of folkloric culture which highlights the ethnonationalist, anti-immigrant agenda of the far-right in Sweden. Midsommar thus provides a generative space for illuminating the complex relationship between folk tradition, nature and ethnic homogeneity at the intersections of environmental preservation and Scandinavian/American politics.
本文在瑞典民族主义意识形态及其与环境和文化保护的联系的背景下，研究了阿里民间恐怖电影《米德索玛》。通过迈克尔·迪伦·福斯特(Michael Dylan Foster)和杰弗里·a·托尔伯特(Jeffrey A. Tolbert)的民俗概念来阅读这部电影，我得出了它的结构、童话框架和对民俗意象的操纵之间的相关性，以便质疑它对文化和历史不真实性的刻意表现。此外，本文还分析了《米德索马尔》的跨国背景及其对瑞典乡村公社(ha rga)模棱两可的传统和仪式的叙事重点，认为这部电影倾向于对民俗文化的怀旧挪用，突显了瑞典极右翼的民族主义和反移民议程。因此，Midsommar提供了一个生成空间，在环境保护和斯堪的纳维亚/美国政治的交叉点上，阐明了民间传统、自然和种族同质性之间的复杂关系。
{"title":"‘Once upon a Midsommar…’: Nature, nationalism and the Swedish folkloresque","authors":"Stacey Anh Baran","doi":"10.1386/host_00070_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00070_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines Ari folk horror film, Midsommar , in the context of Swedish ethnonationalist ideologies and their connections to environmental and cultural preservation. Reading the film through Michael Dylan Foster and Jeffrey A. Tolbert’s concept of the folkloresque, I draw correlations between its structural, fairy tale framing and manipulation of folkloric imagery in order to interrogate its deliberate representations of cultural and historical inauthenticity. Further, this article analyses Midsommar ’s transnational milieu and its narrative emphasis on the ambiguous traditions and rituals of the rural Swedish commune, the Hårga, to argue that the film gestures towards a nostalgic appropriation of folkloric culture which highlights the ethnonationalist, anti-immigrant agenda of the far-right in Sweden. Midsommar thus provides a generative space for illuminating the complex relationship between folk tradition, nature and ethnic homogeneity at the intersections of environmental preservation and Scandinavian/American politics.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":"152 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135323706","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Review of: Critical Approaches to Horror Comic Books: Red Ink in the Gutter , Fernando Gabriel, Pagnoni Berns and John Darowski (eds) (2022) London: Routledge, 251 pp., ISBN 978-1-03219-570-4, h/bk, £130
{"title":"Critical Approaches to Horror Comic Books: Red Ink in the Gutter, Fernando Gabriel, Pagnoni Berns and John Darowski (eds) (2022)","authors":"Michael Goodrum","doi":"10.1386/host_00074_5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00074_5","url":null,"abstract":"Review of: Critical Approaches to Horror Comic Books: Red Ink in the Gutter , Fernando Gabriel, Pagnoni Berns and John Darowski (eds) (2022) London: Routledge, 251 pp., ISBN 978-1-03219-570-4, h/bk, £130","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135323700","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
While folk horror has never been identified as exclusive to western cinema, most studies of the topic have so far been strongly aligned with western world-views, philosophies and methodologies. This makes it difficult to apply their findings to films made in non-Christian non-western countries, such as Thailand. This article discusses Banjong Pisanthanakun’s film Rang Song ( The Medium ) (2021) as a case in point to demonstrate how folk horror operates as a mode in Thai cinema. Building on the existing studies and modifying the current definitions of folk horror to apply them to the Thai cultural context, the article argues that Thai folk horror narratives are steeped in representations of the urban–rural divide that pit metropolitan Bangkok against low-income provinces (in particular, the northeastern region of Isan) and reflect on cultural tensions related to ethnicity and class.
{"title":"From folklore to horror: The Medium as a case for Thai folk horror","authors":"Katarzyna Ancuta","doi":"10.1386/host_00073_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00073_1","url":null,"abstract":"While folk horror has never been identified as exclusive to western cinema, most studies of the topic have so far been strongly aligned with western world-views, philosophies and methodologies. This makes it difficult to apply their findings to films made in non-Christian non-western countries, such as Thailand. This article discusses Banjong Pisanthanakun’s film Rang Song ( The Medium ) (2021) as a case in point to demonstrate how folk horror operates as a mode in Thai cinema. Building on the existing studies and modifying the current definitions of folk horror to apply them to the Thai cultural context, the article argues that Thai folk horror narratives are steeped in representations of the urban–rural divide that pit metropolitan Bangkok against low-income provinces (in particular, the northeastern region of Isan) and reflect on cultural tensions related to ethnicity and class.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135323711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Our introduction to this Special Issue is premised on the fact that the rich critical work on folk horror has far from exhausted what can be (and needs to be) said about folk horror. There is a particular need for scholarship that extends its reach beyond Britain and for that which self-consciously interrogates, expands and complicates initial theoretical formulations of folk horror. There is a need, in short, for a ‘second wave’ of folk horror criticism that develops the first – that attends more specifically, for instance, to modes within folk horror (and folk horror as a mode), to the ways in which folk horror productions are rooted in particular places and regional lore, and to the ways in which those productions deploy literary, narrative, aesthetic, visual and acoustic strategies. There is also a need to identify and interrogate (in specific contexts) the key (defining) concepts of folk horror, especially the ‘folk’, folklore and horror – all three of which this introduction explores before it introduces the six essays in this Special Issue.
{"title":"Folk horror: An introduction","authors":"Jeffrey A. Tolbert, Dawn Keetley","doi":"10.1386/host_00067_2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00067_2","url":null,"abstract":"Our introduction to this Special Issue is premised on the fact that the rich critical work on folk horror has far from exhausted what can be (and needs to be) said about folk horror. There is a particular need for scholarship that extends its reach beyond Britain and for that which self-consciously interrogates, expands and complicates initial theoretical formulations of folk horror. There is a need, in short, for a ‘second wave’ of folk horror criticism that develops the first – that attends more specifically, for instance, to modes within folk horror (and folk horror as a mode), to the ways in which folk horror productions are rooted in particular places and regional lore, and to the ways in which those productions deploy literary, narrative, aesthetic, visual and acoustic strategies. There is also a need to identify and interrogate (in specific contexts) the key (defining) concepts of folk horror, especially the ‘folk’, folklore and horror – all three of which this introduction explores before it introduces the six essays in this Special Issue.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":"85 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135323702","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This essay draws on insights from the study of trans-diegetic sound and Michel Chion’s theory of the acousmêtre to begin to explore how voice and vocalic sound function in a selection of folk horror works for screen, with a close focus on Zone Blanche (2017). Not only do folk horror works make for rich subjects for voice studies, but they have the potential to offer new theoretical insights to voice itself. Through what I identify as its genre-bound obsessions with vocal (dis)embodiment, trans-generational possession and (non)dualism, folk horror engages with vocalic rather than semantic aspects of voice. In so doing, it threatens that which – so contemporary philosophers of voice such as claim – the figure of voice assures: authentic individuality. The problematics of voice, particularly its status as a fictive space at ‘the border of the human’ (: 658), are revealed as fertile ground for folk horror. Vocal borderscapes encompass conceptual oppositions between human and animal, individual and collective, nature and culture, voluntary and involuntary, animate and inanimate. As a genre, I argue, folk horror is uniquely suited to staging the problems of dualism, unfolding the tensions, contradictions and violences such conceptual oppositions produce.
{"title":"Voice and folk horror: The borders of the human","authors":"Clair Le Couteur","doi":"10.1386/host_00072_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00072_1","url":null,"abstract":"This essay draws on insights from the study of trans-diegetic sound and Michel Chion’s theory of the acousmêtre to begin to explore how voice and vocalic sound function in a selection of folk horror works for screen, with a close focus on Zone Blanche (2017). Not only do folk horror works make for rich subjects for voice studies, but they have the potential to offer new theoretical insights to voice itself. Through what I identify as its genre-bound obsessions with vocal (dis)embodiment, trans-generational possession and (non)dualism, folk horror engages with vocalic rather than semantic aspects of voice. In so doing, it threatens that which – so contemporary philosophers of voice such as claim – the figure of voice assures: authentic individuality. The problematics of voice, particularly its status as a fictive space at ‘the border of the human’ (: 658), are revealed as fertile ground for folk horror. Vocal borderscapes encompass conceptual oppositions between human and animal, individual and collective, nature and culture, voluntary and involuntary, animate and inanimate. As a genre, I argue, folk horror is uniquely suited to staging the problems of dualism, unfolding the tensions, contradictions and violences such conceptual oppositions produce.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135323704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article considers Washington Irving’s ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ as a work of nineteenth-century American folk horror for how the story’s depiction of nature suggests provincial people as an especially fearful collective entity. With additional consideration of Tim Burton’s film adaptation, Sleepy Hollow (1999), this article provides an ecocritical analysis of the tale’s landscapes and objects to assert that supernatural belief is manufactured partly by the idea of rural existence as physically and culturally separate from urban areas. Moreover, the article illustrates how reading the story’s phantasmal terrors as sourced by environmental catalysts can diminish hierarchies that are rooted in rural and urban dichotomies.
{"title":"Phantasmal ruralism: A terror of folk ecology in Washington Irving’s ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’","authors":"Joshua Myers","doi":"10.1386/host_00068_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00068_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers Washington Irving’s ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ as a work of nineteenth-century American folk horror for how the story’s depiction of nature suggests provincial people as an especially fearful collective entity. With additional consideration of Tim Burton’s film adaptation, Sleepy Hollow (1999), this article provides an ecocritical analysis of the tale’s landscapes and objects to assert that supernatural belief is manufactured partly by the idea of rural existence as physically and culturally separate from urban areas. Moreover, the article illustrates how reading the story’s phantasmal terrors as sourced by environmental catalysts can diminish hierarchies that are rooted in rural and urban dichotomies.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135323705","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Although written before the COVID-19 pandemic, Amy Seimetz’s She Dies Tomorrow is widely regarded as speaking to collective social anxiety. In the film, Amy is convinced that she will die the next day. She tells her friend, Jane, who becomes convinced that she too will die. Everyone that Jane tells catches the conviction and it spreads like a virus. This article offers an alternative reading, analysing the film as a meditation on (horror) cinema as a vehicle for affective bodily contagion. Filmic images and sounds are intangible and do not physically touch viewers yet can nevertheless carry affect that makes bodies respond to and sometimes replicate what is shown on screen. Similarly, in She Dies Tomorrow, an intangible idea causes affective response and mimesis, as well as audio-visual hallucinations. The article explores how contagious anxiety might be spread through cinematic objects, drawing from affect, phenomenology and object-oriented ontology (OOO). Finally, it explores the film’s engagement with both Derrida’s spectrality of cinema and the nature of the horror genre.
{"title":"Epidemic of affect: Contagious anxiety and cinematic metaphor in She Dies Tomorrow (2020)","authors":"Jennifer Kirby","doi":"10.1386/host_00063_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00063_1","url":null,"abstract":"Although written before the COVID-19 pandemic, Amy Seimetz’s She Dies Tomorrow is widely regarded as speaking to collective social anxiety. In the film, Amy is convinced that she will die the next day. She tells her friend, Jane, who becomes convinced that she too will die. Everyone that Jane tells catches the conviction and it spreads like a virus. This article offers an alternative reading, analysing the film as a meditation on (horror) cinema as a vehicle for affective bodily contagion. Filmic images and sounds are intangible and do not physically touch viewers yet can nevertheless carry affect that makes bodies respond to and sometimes replicate what is shown on screen. Similarly, in She Dies Tomorrow, an intangible idea causes affective response and mimesis, as well as audio-visual hallucinations. The article explores how contagious anxiety might be spread through cinematic objects, drawing from affect, phenomenology and object-oriented ontology (OOO). Finally, it explores the film’s engagement with both Derrida’s spectrality of cinema and the nature of the horror genre.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44841385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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