We must theorize horror. (We must horrify theory.) * …instead of arriving at a clear grip on what kind of entity is horrifying, we are confronted with the feeling that there is this something that must harm us according to its very essence. Horror retains this character of indefinite something […]
If you read a lot of horror literature because you like to be scared, then you’re probably a normal, healthy person. If you read horror literature to fulfill some deeply personal predisposition, be assured there is probably something odd and unwholesome about you. Don’t ever let anyone tell you it’s […]
1. Director Justin Kurzel’s latest feature film, The Order, tells the true story of a group of white power terrorists in the Pacific Northwest who killed Jewish radio “shock jock” Alan Berg, bombed porn theatres and a synagogue, counterfeited money, robbed banks and armored cars, and planned other attacks and […]
“Please remember — you are dealing with the human form.” Those are the first lines of dialogue spoken in a David Lynch film, his 1968 short “The Alphabet”. * While working on Blue Velvet, David Lynch tried desperately to get the rights to This Mortal Coil’s then-recent version of Tim […]
The Substance ends with voices calling out: So beautiful! We love you! You’re irreplaceable! These words are what everyone who seeks fame and attention wants to hear and can never hear enough of. Narcissism is a bottomless pit — no attention, no love, no praise is ever enough. Nor could […]
Since writing my previous post about loneliness and horror, I’ve had cause to think a lot about varieties of loneliness, lostness, violence (physical and especially psychological), and intimacy. Some has been purely theoretical, trying to continue to tease out some ideas I explored in that post, some has been more immediate, […]
At the end of February, my favorite critic of horror cinema, Willow Catelyn Maclay, wrote a piece for her Patreon titled “The Aesthetic of Loneliness in Horror”. It’s subscribers-only, so I won’t quote much from it here, but I’ve been thinking about it ever since I first read it, and […]