Jackie Kong released four feature films between 1981 and 1987, including the horror films The Being (1981) and Blood Diner (1987). She directed all four films, while also working variously as screenwriter, producer and editor on individual productions. In this essay, I use Kong’s experiences of making horror films in the 1980s as a way of critically revisiting our histories of 1980s horror film culture. I offer a feminist model of doing horror film history: not only uncovering and illuminating the unknown or little-known work of women in horror film, but also critically thinking about the way we write our histories, and what this might say about our representation of personal, cultural and national identities. Ultimately, this essay is guided by the following question: what might a feminist historiography of horror cinema look like?
{"title":"Towards a feminist historiography of horror cinema","authors":"A. Peirse","doi":"10.1386/host_00056_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00056_1","url":null,"abstract":"Jackie Kong released four feature films between 1981 and 1987, including the horror films The Being (1981) and Blood Diner (1987). She directed all four films, while also working variously as screenwriter, producer and editor on individual productions. In this essay, I use Kong’s experiences of making horror films in the 1980s as a way of critically revisiting our histories of 1980s horror film culture. I offer a feminist model of doing horror film history: not only uncovering and illuminating the unknown or little-known work of women in horror film, but also critically thinking about the way we write our histories, and what this might say about our representation of personal, cultural and national identities. Ultimately, this essay is guided by the following question: what might a feminist historiography of horror cinema look like?","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43556296","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}
An analysis of the horror films of late 1970s and early 1980s argues that although this period is usually understood as one that was dominated by the slasher film, it was actually one defined by a wave of big-budget horror films. Furthermore, through an analysis of the reception of these films in mainstream publications such as the New York Times, the article not only explores features and trends that these films were understood as exhibiting but also the broader discourses through which films were either championed or condemned by reviewers.
{"title":"Beyond the slasher film: History, seriousness and the problem of the children’s audience in the critical reception of big-budget horror in the late 1970s and early 1980s","authors":"M. Jancovich","doi":"10.1386/host_00052_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00052_1","url":null,"abstract":"An analysis of the horror films of late 1970s and early 1980s argues that although this period is usually understood as one that was dominated by the slasher film, it was actually one defined by a wave of big-budget horror films. Furthermore, through an analysis of the reception of these films in mainstream publications such as the New York Times, the article not only explores features and trends that these films were understood as exhibiting but also the broader discourses through which films were either championed or condemned by reviewers.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43064619","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}
Focusing on The Believers (1987) and Angel Heart (1987), this article examines how occult crime is framed through the central male protagonists’ fragmented subjectivity in the respective investigation narratives. Through close analysis of the films’ shared cinematic languages of horror and neo-noir, I present how these texts are in direct dialogue with the ‘Satanic Panic’, the contemporary phenomenon of religious hysteria propagated by Reaganite conservatism and the New Christian Right. I argue that post-Vietnam masculine identity anxieties are intimately tied, and interrogated in these films, as part of a traumatic national history of white, patriarchal Satanic scapegoating and theocratic hegemony in the United States.
{"title":"Another man’s memories: Masculine trauma and Satanic Panic in The Believers (1987) and Angel Heart (1987)","authors":"C. Gough","doi":"10.1386/host_00054_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00054_1","url":null,"abstract":"Focusing on The Believers (1987) and Angel Heart (1987), this article examines how occult crime is framed through the central male protagonists’ fragmented subjectivity in the respective investigation narratives. Through close analysis of the films’ shared cinematic languages of horror and neo-noir, I present how these texts are in direct dialogue with the ‘Satanic Panic’, the contemporary phenomenon of religious hysteria propagated by Reaganite conservatism and the New Christian Right. I argue that post-Vietnam masculine identity anxieties are intimately tied, and interrogated in these films, as part of a traumatic national history of white, patriarchal Satanic scapegoating and theocratic hegemony in the United States.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43805917","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}
Critiquing representations of women, their bodies and their sexuality is an established tradition in horror studies. Indeed, the 1980s is a particularly important era for analysing the (mis)representation of women in horror. Such critiques are primarily based on analyses of the woman-on-screen as seen through the gaze of characters, creators and imagined audiences. This article takes an altogether different perspective, focusing instead on discursive representations of women, their bodies and sexuality in the words of actors, creators, critics, fans and journalists in Fangoria magazine throughout the 1980s. This retrospective insight highlights the legacy of women’s place in horror and its implications for the relationship between popular culture(s) and contemporary political economies of gender in/equality.
{"title":"‘Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps?)’: Critiquing representations of women throughout the 1980s in Fangoria magazine","authors":"Lexi Webster","doi":"10.1386/host_00055_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00055_1","url":null,"abstract":"Critiquing representations of women, their bodies and their sexuality is an established tradition in horror studies. Indeed, the 1980s is a particularly important era for analysing the (mis)representation of women in horror. Such critiques are primarily based on analyses of the woman-on-screen as seen through the gaze of characters, creators and imagined audiences. This article takes an altogether different perspective, focusing instead on discursive representations of women, their bodies and sexuality in the words of actors, creators, critics, fans and journalists in Fangoria magazine throughout the 1980s. This retrospective insight highlights the legacy of women’s place in horror and its implications for the relationship between popular culture(s) and contemporary political economies of gender in/equality.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41578476","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}
In the 1970s rape became a central focus of second-wave feminist activism, and also, as censorship waned, a frequent narrative event in New Hollywood cinema, often, as a number of critics noted, in strikingly misogynistic forms. A few films, however, reflect and engage with second-wave feminism’s new perspectives on sexual assault. Sidney Furie’s The Entity (1982) uses its horror premise, a woman repeatedly raped by an invisible, aethereal attacker, as a powerful metaphor for what feminists termed ‘rape culture’. The film enlists our identification with, and sympathy for, its protagonist in her struggle against both the invisible rapist and against a medical establishment that denies the truth of her experience. Larry Cohen’s God Told Me To will be briefly considered as a film that reimagines the story of Jesus’s conception in feminist terms as sexual violation and Abel Ferrara’s Ms. 45 will be discussed as a representation of women’s experience of rape culture.
20世纪70年代，强奸成为第二波女权主义激进主义的中心焦点，随着审查制度的削弱，强奸也成为新好莱坞电影中经常发生的叙事事件，正如许多评论家所指出的那样，强奸往往以惊人的厌女形式出现。然而，一些电影反映并参与了第二波女权主义对性侵的新视角。西德尼·福瑞（Sidney Furie）的《实体》（The Entity）（1982）以其恐怖的前提，一个女人被一个看不见的以太攻击者反复强奸，作为女权主义者所说的“强奸文化”的有力隐喻。这部电影在主人公与隐形强奸犯和否认其真实经历的医疗机构的斗争中获得了我们的认同和同情。拉里·科恩（Larry Cohen）的《上帝告诉我》（God Told Me To）将被简要地认为是一部用女权主义的术语将耶稣的概念重新想象为性侵犯的电影，阿贝尔·费拉拉（Abel Ferrara）的《45岁的女士》（Ms.45）将被讨论为女性强奸文化体验的代表。
{"title":"Sidney Furie’s The Entity: Horror and rape culture","authors":"Vernon Shetley","doi":"10.1386/host_00057_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00057_1","url":null,"abstract":"In the 1970s rape became a central focus of second-wave feminist activism, and also, as censorship waned, a frequent narrative event in New Hollywood cinema, often, as a number of critics noted, in strikingly misogynistic forms. A few films, however, reflect and engage with second-wave feminism’s new perspectives on sexual assault. Sidney Furie’s The Entity (1982) uses its horror premise, a woman repeatedly raped by an invisible, aethereal attacker, as a powerful metaphor for what feminists termed ‘rape culture’. The film enlists our identification with, and sympathy for, its protagonist in her struggle against both the invisible rapist and against a medical establishment that denies the truth of her experience. Larry Cohen’s God Told Me To will be briefly considered as a film that reimagines the story of Jesus’s conception in feminist terms as sexual violation and Abel Ferrara’s Ms. 45 will be discussed as a representation of women’s experience of rape culture.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43641651","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}
Snuff, like porn, has been challenged by feminist and other political debates around representations focused on the body, exaggerated performance, claims of ‘realness’ and concerns about representing and/or encouraging violence against women. Thus, it is not surprising that simulated snuff horror, as a subgenre, is heavily influenced by the same technological changes that have also affected the porn industry: the content of the videos, how the videos are produced and how they are consumed. I argue that the decontextualized digital context of media production and consumption has especially lent itself to the subgenre of horror I refer to as ‘simulated snuff films’ and aids in the longevity of snuff mythology. I use the terminology simulated snuff films to differentiate these fictional, from authentic snuff. Building on Steve Jones’ work, I explore the consumption of simulated snuff films that are scary real ‐ fictional content that purposefully attempts to approximate the imagined look of a real snuff film ‐ and films that are real scary ‐ authentic depictions of extreme sexual violence and death ‐ which may not give the appearance of being real or may be read by audiences as being faked. Further, using Jean Baudrillard’s theories of Simulation and Simulacra (1981), I argue that the case of Luka Magnotta, and his now infamous internet videos, exemplifies the hyperreality of snuff films in the post-9/11 context. To put it another way, simulated snuff films now appear more real than authentic recordings of murder in the digital sphere.
{"title":"Real scary/scary real: Consuming simulated and authentic horrors in the digital era","authors":"Meg D. Lonergan","doi":"10.1386/host_00046_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00046_1","url":null,"abstract":"Snuff, like porn, has been challenged by feminist and other political debates around representations focused on the body, exaggerated performance, claims of ‘realness’ and concerns about representing and/or encouraging violence against women. Thus, it is not surprising that\u0000 simulated snuff horror, as a subgenre, is heavily influenced by the same technological changes that have also affected the porn industry: the content of the videos, how the videos are produced and how they are consumed. I argue that the decontextualized digital context of media production\u0000 and consumption has especially lent itself to the subgenre of horror I refer to as ‘simulated snuff films’ and aids in the longevity of snuff mythology. I use the terminology simulated snuff films to differentiate these fictional, from authentic snuff. Building on Steve Jones’\u0000 work, I explore the consumption of simulated snuff films that are scary real ‐ fictional content that purposefully attempts to approximate the imagined look of a real snuff film ‐ and films that are real scary ‐ authentic depictions of extreme sexual violence\u0000 and death ‐ which may not give the appearance of being real or may be read by audiences as being faked. Further, using Jean Baudrillard’s theories of Simulation and Simulacra (1981), I argue that the case of Luka Magnotta, and his now infamous internet videos, exemplifies\u0000 the hyperreality of snuff films in the post-9/11 context. To put it another way, simulated snuff films now appear more real than authentic recordings of murder in the digital sphere.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47035470","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 soundtrack and score for Ari Aster’s 2018 film Hereditary, illustrating how the sound design heightens the film’s emotional and psychological impact by delivering unseen elements of the narrative auditorily and through its inclusion of sonic elements that can directly affect audience members physiologically. Hereditary’s narrative is strongly supported by musician Colin Stetson’s evocative score, which relies heavily upon his ability to coax unusual sounds from reed instruments by using uncommon fingerings, accompanying vocalizations, percussive key striking and circular breathing. After a brief synopsis and examination of the film’s themes, the article delves into particular elements that make Hereditary’s soundscape so effective, including the Shepard tone, infrasound, subliminal and corporeal sounds, and the use of silence, exploring in-depth how the sound design supports and enriches the film by building tension, enhancing dread, triggering fear and delivering unseen narrative information in a shorthand way. The article also has a wider application in that it discusses how the critical-yet under-theorized element of sound design is crucial to horror entertainments’ ability to create affect in a variety of ways and shows how the sonic components used in Hereditary have a demonstrated efficacy as shown by their use in a wide variety of horror films and thrillers.
{"title":"The sound of evil: How the sound design of Hereditary manifests the unseen and triggers fear","authors":"Beth Kattelman","doi":"10.1386/host_00050_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00050_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the soundtrack and score for Ari Aster’s 2018 film Hereditary, illustrating how the sound design heightens the film’s emotional and psychological impact by delivering unseen elements of the narrative auditorily and through its inclusion of sonic\u0000 elements that can directly affect audience members physiologically. Hereditary’s narrative is strongly supported by musician Colin Stetson’s evocative score, which relies heavily upon his ability to coax unusual sounds from reed instruments by using uncommon fingerings,\u0000 accompanying vocalizations, percussive key striking and circular breathing. After a brief synopsis and examination of the film’s themes, the article delves into particular elements that make Hereditary’s soundscape so effective, including the Shepard tone, infrasound, subliminal\u0000 and corporeal sounds, and the use of silence, exploring in-depth how the sound design supports and enriches the film by building tension, enhancing dread, triggering fear and delivering unseen narrative information in a shorthand way. The article also has a wider application in that it discusses\u0000 how the critical-yet under-theorized element of sound design is crucial to horror entertainments’ ability to create affect in a variety of ways and shows how the sonic components used in Hereditary have a demonstrated efficacy as shown by their use in a wide variety of horror\u0000 films and thrillers.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47889246","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}
A discussion of the relationship between the horror genre and the western and a brief introduction to the articles that make up the current issue.
讨论恐怖类型与西方的关系，并简要介绍构成本期的文章。
{"title":"Introduction","authors":"M. Jancovich","doi":"10.1386/host_00042_2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00042_2","url":null,"abstract":"A discussion of the relationship between the horror genre and the western and a brief introduction to the articles that make up the current issue.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48956631","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}
Ralickas identifies the horror of technology in Lovecraft’s fiction as the human subject’s abject fear of machinery, whose alienating nature symbolically underscores the ubiquity of the Second Industrial Revolution’s mass-produced recording and electrical devices including the phonograph, the telegraph, the photographic camera and the typewriter.
{"title":"The horrors of technology in the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft","authors":"Vivian Ralickas","doi":"10.1386/host_00047_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00047_1","url":null,"abstract":"Ralickas identifies the horror of technology in Lovecraft’s fiction as the human subject’s abject fear of machinery, whose alienating nature symbolically underscores the ubiquity of the Second Industrial Revolution’s mass-produced recording and electrical devices including\u0000 the phonograph, the telegraph, the photographic camera and the typewriter.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41572565","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 Clive Barker’s early work, specifically: The Damnation Game (1985) and The Hellbound Heart (1986), and assorted short stories from his Books of Blood collections. After outlining the appropriateness of rhetorically minded classical dialectics, the article illustrates the layered complexity of Barker’s dialectics that are woven throughout his literature. These dialectics cross over one another at nexuses between worldly tensions as well as physical/metaphysical tensions. This article suggests that these nexuses of horizontal (worldly) and vertical (physical‐metaphysical) axes provide a unique framework that invites readers to rhetorically participate in the philosophical tensions within horror fiction itself. Ultimately, this investigation demonstrates how horror literature can uniquely stretch the imagination of both the artist and audience to make the narrative intellectually engaging.
本文将分析Clive Barker的早期作品，特别是《The Damnation Game》(1985)和《The Hellbound Heart》(1986)，以及他的《Books of Blood》系列中的短篇小说。在概述了古典辩证法修辞学思想的适当性之后，文章说明了巴克辩证法的分层复杂性，这些辩证法贯穿于他的文学作品中。这些辩证法在世俗张力和物理/形而上学张力之间相互交叉。这篇文章表明，这些水平(世俗)和垂直(物理-形而上学)轴的联系提供了一个独特的框架，邀请读者在修辞上参与恐怖小说本身的哲学紧张关系。最终，这项调查证明了恐怖文学是如何独特地扩展艺术家和观众的想象力，使叙事具有智力吸引力的。
{"title":"Clive Barker’s rhetorical dialectics: Stretching the intellectual imagination","authors":"Gavin F. Hurley","doi":"10.1386/host_00045_1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00045_1","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines Clive Barker’s early work, specifically: The Damnation Game (1985) and The Hellbound Heart (1986), and assorted short stories from his Books of Blood collections. After outlining the appropriateness of rhetorically minded classical dialectics,\u0000 the article illustrates the layered complexity of Barker’s dialectics that are woven throughout his literature. These dialectics cross over one another at nexuses between worldly tensions as well as physical/metaphysical tensions. This article suggests that these nexuses of horizontal\u0000 (worldly) and vertical (physical‐metaphysical) axes provide a unique framework that invites readers to rhetorically participate in the philosophical tensions within horror fiction itself. Ultimately, this investigation demonstrates how horror literature can uniquely stretch the imagination\u0000 of both the artist and audience to make the narrative intellectually engaging.","PeriodicalId":41545,"journal":{"name":"Horror Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46076827","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}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：