Black Christmas (1974)

1974’s Black Christmas is a film that greatly surpassed my expectations. Going into it on Joe Bob Briggs’ “Red Christmas” special, I expected a classic slasher from the time period: annoying characters you kinda hope will die, a classic Final Girl situation, and an outside world oblivious to the killer’s actions. However, it is my view that Black Christmas is thoughtful, relevant, and includes a number of impressive cinematic techniques, as well as a wealth of fascinating discussion points. In a predominantly female cast, I felt that the characters in the film, aside from those used only for comic relief, had a depth to their personality and were experiencing very real issues any college student might find themselves facing.

The very first thing that caught my eye in the film, aside from the killer’s chilling POV shots, was some of the costume choices in the first party scene of the film. Margot Kidder’s character Barb is wearing a black choker that says “YES,” and Olivia Hussey’s Jess is wearing a sweater depicting giant hands that cover her chest. While I doubt that Bob Clark intended for a commentary on consent to be made by the wardrobe in his film, that is where those subtle visuals took me as a viewer. Sexual harassment, and the agency of women to make their own choices, come up several times in Black Christmas. The obscene phone calls from Billy, Jess’ pregnancy, and the house mother’s mockery of Mr. Harrison’s insistence that his daughter is not in college to drink and pick up boys, all speak to important issues of women’s freedom that were relevant in 1974 and are relevant today.

The depictions of Jess’ pregnancy and desire for an abortion are particularly striking in the film. Her boyfriend Peter’s reactions honestly make him a more terrifying villain than the actual killer. While Billy’s bloodlust and obscene phone calls are certainly disturbing, an abusive boyfriend is a much more realistic threat for a woman in college to face. Peter’s violent outburst and vague threats are frankly chilling, and make it clear to the audience that getting an abortion should be Jess’s choice, and her choice alone. Another moment in the film drives this point home is that when Jess has to explain why she is afraid of Peter to Lieutenant Fuller, he does not chastise her for wanting an abortion. Instead, he takes her seriously, makes an effort to stop the obscene phone calls, and tries his best to reach the house before it is too late as Billy begins his final killing spree.

Despite the police believing that Peter was the killer and the case is closed, overall, Fuller responds very seriously to the concerns of the women in the film. Aside from the idiotic Sargent Nash, the women in this film are listened to and believed. As disgusting as Billy’s actions and language are, this film does not feel misogynistic in the way that many early slashers do. The female characters have agency in their world, make their own choices regarding their bodies and sexuality, and the men who try to help them are allowed to live, while the ones who threaten them are not. It’s true that Billy probably kills Jess following the closing credits, in classic slasher fashion, but I will remember Black Christmas as a film that did its female characters justice, even as it picked them off one by one.

Sharp Objects (2018) & It (2017/2019)

I was about halfway through watching Sharp Objects when the idea for this essay struck me. After realizing Sophia Lillis was playing the young versions of both Camille Preaker and Beverly Marsh, I started to notice similarities in the experiences of their characters; two women traumatized in their childhoods, returning as adults to their small hometowns to face those traumas head on. I initially wanted to write about ‘place’, and the way that a horrific event can linger, or repeat itself, in the place where it happened, focusing on the similarities between Derry and Wind Gap, and the differences between different characters’ responses to the trauma they suffered in those towns. However, after finishing Sharp Objects, and after seeing the second chapter of It, I realized that Derry or Wind Gap could really be anywhere. Evil does not originate from a place, but from within people. Leaving Derry does not do Beverly Marsh any more good than leaving Wind Gap did Camille Preaker. If there is anything these films have in common, it is how they show that violence, trauma, or evil can follow a person anywhere.

Lillis as Camille Preaker

Lillis as Beverly Marsh

Before I get into it, however, there are a couple of comments I need to make about It: Chapter Two. Firstly, I didn’t particularly like the film. I felt the first It film was drastically more cohesive, and while neither movie was particularly scary, made a much better horror film. Chapter Two, unfortunately, felt more like a sci-fi action comedy with jump-scares. I specifically had serious issues with the film’s tone and how character arcs were handled/not resolved. While I have not read Stephan King’s novel, I am curious to find out how that text differs tonally from its on-screen counterpart. Secondly, and most importantly, I did not feel like this adaption updated some of its content in a way I would have expected to see in 2019. The attack on the gay couple reads differently set in 1984 as it is in the book, than it does set in 2016 in the film--especially considering how horrifically the violence of this scene was portrayed. And while I would not have asked for this scene to be cut entirely, I would have preferred for the film to have redeemed the undercurrent of homophobia in the storyline more successfully. While revealing to the audience that Richie had been in love with Eddie since childhood was an appreciated gesture, it was apparently too subtle for a surprising number of straight audiences to even pick up on. Furthermore, the depth of Richie’s internalized homophobia, as well as the fact that what Pennywise calls his “dirty little secret” is never revealed to the Loser’s Club in any explicit way, makes the film’s attempt to say “Don’t worry! We’re not homophobic!” fall more than a little flat. I could probably go on and on about this for pages, but since sexuality is not the theme in this film I actually wanted to address, I will move on.

The list of similarities between Beverly’s experience and that of Camille in Sharp Objects is pretty astounding. Both women were abused by a parent, and both dealt with that trauma in extremely self-destructive ways. Camille copes through excessive drinking and self harm, while Beverly never truly escapes her past by marrying a man who treats her almost exactly like her father did. When she returns home however, we see where her journey deviates from Camille’s. Most of the Losers have an individual scene where they conquer their demons, and in Beverly’s she finds herself locked in a bathroom stall, much like that from the first film, which fills with blood while her various childhood tormentors try to break in. While I understand how meaningful it is to have her and Ben save each other in this scene, I would have liked to see Beverly combat her past on her own. It is her personal inability to break out of the cycle of violence her father initiated that leads her to end up in an abusive relationship, and rather than simply being saved from it by a ‘good man’, Beverly needed reconcile these issues for herself outside of a romantic context involving Ben. Similarly to the ‘damsel in distress’ plotline of the first film, Beverly is stripped of much of her agency, leaving her dependent on boys who often don’t seem to view her as more than an object of their romantic whims.

To return to Sharp Objects, there is an energy much like ‘It’ that resides in Wind Gap. While it may not manifest literally in the form of a dancing clown, the influence of ‘It’ lives inside many of the residents of Camille’s hometown—a personification of the abject impulses within human beings that drive them to harm one another. For many ‘It’ is passed down like a disease from abuser to victim, forcing its vessels to reenact the trauma they experienced. However, rather than focusing on these traumatic events themselves, Sharp Objects addresses the aftereffects and repercussions of those acts on the people who suffered them, as well as the people who stood by and watched. When Camille returns to her hometown, she has a very literal demon to conquer, rather than an entity like Pennywise. Like Beverly, Camille returns home hiding the physical marks of the pain she has suffered, and it is only through acknowledging and accepting that her mother is responsible for her sister’s death, as well as her own abuse, that Camille is able to move on from her past. While most characters have varying degrees of knowledge of what happened to Camille’s sister Marian, or to Anna and Natalie, no inhabitant of Wind Gap was truly spared. While those directly involved, namely Amma and Camille, find outlets to re-enact the violence that was done to them by their own mother, Camille takes that trauma out on herself, while Amma follows in her mother’s footsteps, killing girls her age, albeit in a much more gruesome fashion that Adora’s rat poison.

While ‘It’ does not literally exist in the world of Sharp Objects, it is clear that similar questions of what makes people do bad things to one another are being asked by both films. Derry and Windgap share a lot of common threads: repeated cycles of violence, missing/dead children, and abusive, unhelpful, and incompetent adults. However, there is one particular difference that I find most fascinating, one defining characteristic that separates the perpetrators of violence in these two towns. The killers in It are men, and the killers in Sharp Objects are women. This distinction creates an interesting parallel between Henry Bowers and Amma Crellin in particular. Bowers was abused by his father, and went on to abuse, and later attempt to kill, members of the Loser’s Club, while Amma was abused by her mother, and went on to kill three of her friends. I find it extremely interesting that both cycles of violence remain within the gender of these two characters. While Bowers is ultimately killed by the Losers, Amma’s true nature is only revealed in the final seconds (as well as a mid-credits scene), as the killer that Wind Gap had been searching for throughout the entirety of the series. While it comes as a shock that Adora was not actually responsible, having Amma exposed as a killer makes the prominent theme of cycles of violence lock into place.

The greatest difference between Bowers and Amma, and Beverly and Camille, is how the two sets respond to the trauma they experienced in their childhoods. Bowers and Amma externalize the violence that was done to them, while Beverly and Camille internalize it. While many of the Losers were victims of abuse, it is as if It saw a violent potential in Bowers that could be exploited, that was not present in other characters. If you cannot resist It, you become It. The same could be said about Amma Crellin. Alternatively, Camille and Beverly were required to conquer their own internal roadblocks of self-loathing in order to free themselves from their painful pasts. If there is any message that both It and Sharp Objects are trying to get across, it is that traumas cannot go unconfronted. You can move away from where something terrible happened, and you can try to forget, but eventually, you have to go home and "kill that f**king clown." 

Midsommar: The Horror of Relationships *Spoilers*

Before I even saw Midsommar, the first description I heard of it was that similarly to the way Hereditary explores the horrific elements of familial relationships, Midsommar would focus on horror stemming from a romantic relationship. After actually seeing the film, I’m not sure if this description is completely accurate. The most horrific aspects of the movie, the deaths of Dani’s family at the hands of her sister aside, are in fact simply a result of the cultish practices of the Swedish commune the main characters visit. And honestly, I would describe the actual scenes of “horror” in the film as being more visually shocking and gory, than actually frightening. As interesting as some of the traditional practices may be on a philosophical level (namely the life-cycle ending cliff dive at the age of 72), close up shots of the old man’s face being bashed in, along with other should-be horror sequences, feel like cheap scares to me.

The aspects of Midsommar that interest me the most actually have little to do with it being a horror film. Firstly, it is essential to point out the absolutely gorgeous location and cinematography in this film. If nothing else, it is beautiful. Particularly captivating are the subtle visual hallucinations Dani experiences as a result of the trippy mushroom tea she is served constantly throughout the movie. I would also commend Aster on his desire to create a horror movie where all the terrifying experiences of the characters happen in broad daylight. However, the best scenes and the most interesting subject matter in this film are actually a result of the more dramatic and dialog focused aspects, rather than the horror itself.

Specifically I would like to highlight the ways in which Dani and Christian’s toxic relationship is explored from both of their points of view, particularly in the first third of the film. He is initially presented as being extremely dismissive and unresponsive to her needs, however, we quickly realize that he feels smothered by her clinginess, and his friends encourage him numerous times to end their relationship, since it is also unhealthy for him. However, after the death of her family, he becomes trapped; she is unable to function on her own, and sees him as the only person she has left in the world. When she discovers his plans to go to Sweden without her, the single most tense scene of the film takes place.

In and all too real depiction of gaslighting and guilt-tripping, the conversation begins with Dani’s displeasure at finding out from Christian's friends at a party that he had been planning a trip to Sweden without telling her. By the end of the conversation, she is apologizing to him, seemingly confused about how the situation was twisted to place the blame on her. Simultaneously, she guilts him into promising her she can come along on the trip, leaving him the task of informing his unsupportive friends that his girlfriend will be crashing their boys’ trip. Except when she leaves the room, he promises them she won’t actually be coming, he just had to make her feel like she would. Next thing you know, they’re on the plane to Sweden, Dani included. Overall this entire exchange feels way to familiar. Dani is made to feel as if everything is her fault, and Christian feels like he can’t say no to her out of obligation. It’s a perfect recipe for resentment later down the line.

Where the movie goes from there does not feel quite as thematically rich to me as the handful of scenes surrounding their relationship before they even leave for Sweden. Whatever messages this movie is trying to convey about cult behavior, support systems, and grief become muddled in shocking imagery and the visual splendor of Hårga. While it is clear that Midsommar tries to use gore and sexuality to disturb the audience, these attempts fall flat. Overall, as many have said, Aster’s next move should really be to make a film that isn’t horror. With less focus put on scaring the audience, the complex nature of his characters’ relationships could be explored to a fuller extent. 

In Defense of Twilight

Like many of my friends growing up, I was a Twilight hater. I was a firm believer that the books and movies were equally terrible, problematic, and simply not worth my time. However, several years later, my godmother forced me to watch all five Twilight movies in three days, insisting that I was blind to the ways in which the movies were just plain fun, and actually had something interesting to say. And now I have to admit, she was right. Not only has Twilight become a guilty pleasure movie that I have seen countless times, but I have given a fair bit of thought to how I could analyze the film in a new light. So here I am, on my horror blog, writing in defense of Twilight.

The first question I asked myself was: what role, if any, does Twilight play in the genre of horror? And while Twilight itself is not strictly speaking a horror film, what horror elements does it include, and what impact has it had (for better or worse) on the horror/vampire genre as it exists today? Well, the vampire itself is inherently an element of horror. As a monster that arose in its present form from Gothic Horror literature titles such as The Vampyre, Carmilla, and Dracula, the vampire has been a staple antagonist in horror film for decades. Classically, the character of the vampire has been used to explore the thematic relationships between sex, death, and violence. The vampire as a monster is an essentially sexual one. Vampires are often used as a catalyst for authors and filmmakers to explore ‘sexual taboos’, such as homosexuality/homo-eroticism in a text like Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, or female sexuality in a character like Lucy in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. To return to Twilight, I find it interesting to think about what similar themes the archetype of the vampire could be being used to explore, especially when keeping in mind the variety of sexually conservative themes brought in by Stephanie Meyer’s background. For the most part, I see these themes represented best in the character of Bella.

I’ll probably lose film critic cred for this but I must say...I mostly like Bella Swan as a character. No doubt that she has a lot of faults, but in many ways she is an extremely relatable depiction of a teenage girl with a crush. Her life-or-death relationship with Edward may seem dramatic, but honestly, most of the books’ readership was young girls whose feelings at that time probably felt very similar. However, my favorite thing about Bella in the context of sexuality, is that she is the main initiator of her physical relationship with Edward. Twilight flips the script on the classic pure heroine being seduced by the vampire. Instead, it is Bella who is trying to seduce Edward. She spends most of the books more or less sexually frustrated because her century-year-old vampire boyfriend wants to wait until marriage. I find this not only extremely entertaining, but also a pretty interesting inversion of such a standard vampire film troupe.

To return to what horror elements can be seen in the film, I see a number of common horror themes and tropes reflected in the series. And to be perfectly honest, several of the early Twilight films have actually scary moments. In the first film, the scene were the vampire James attacks Bella in her childhood dance studio is genuinely frightening. James is brutal, sadistic, and ruthless in a way very few other vampires in the Twilight universe are. The violence of the vampires is exemplified again in the new-born vampire army’s feeding frenzy in Eclipse. Additionally, the sequence where Bella is cornered by a group of men seemingly intending to sexually assault her as she walks alone at night is more than a little sickening. I chalk most of the fear factor in such seems up to Catherine Hardwicke’s stylized direction (I honestly would love to see her make a horror movie), but there is no denying that there are many elements of Twilight that carry on the legacy of vampire horror flicks past. Not to mention that the film’s set up is straight up horror. ‘Lonely girl moves to a small town with a secret family of immortal monsters’ seems like a movie that could have gone in a very different direction.

To wrap up, I’ll just say it. I love Twilight. What started out as a guilty pleasure watch has transformed into one of my favorite movies of all time. And of course, there are things to critique about these films. The unhealthy co-dependency of Edward and Bella or the anti-abortion undertones of the fourth film are perfectly valid aspects of this series to critique, and I could write another whole essay about them. However, today I wanted to write in defense of Twilight, because I see more than a couple good reasons that this series became the phenomenon that it did. It remains to this day, the highest grossing movie ever directed by a woman, and an integral part of the history of vampire cinema. So the next time you hear someone bashing Twilight, send them my way.

A Postmodern Deconstruction of Scream

Hello wonderful followers! I am currently in a Principles of Literary Criticism class at my university, and wanted to share one of my assignments with you! In the imaginary dialogue you’re about to read, prominent literary theorists and philosophers, Judith Butler and Jacques Derrida, will discuss the deconstuctive powers of Scream. Their conversation centers around the concept of the Final Girl, something that is clearly close to my heart. I encourage anyone who loves this movie as much as I do to check it out! Thank you!

(link below)

Scream Deconstruction

Joe Bob, Madman, & The 80s Slasher

This past Christmas, I happened to see an episode of Joe Bob Briggs’ The Last Drive-In on Shudder. And what a gift that turned out to be! Since his new weekly series premiered a couple months ago, I have been watching his double features almost every week. Showing everything from Q to Deathgasm, Joe Bob is most definitely one of the most charismatic hosts on television...ever. Not only does he seem to remember practically every fun-fact in existence about the movies he selects, but his opening monologue and mid movie tangents always leave me laughing, or cringing, or downright impressed.

However, while Joe Bob may be new to me, I have come to learn that he is definitely not new to the horror community at large. Starting out as a movie reviewer for a number of Texas newspapers, Joe Bob would move on to hosting a variety of film-centric TV shows, most notably TNT’s MonsterVision from 1996-2000, where his double feature format was first established. Complete with mail girls and drive-in totals, MonsterVision was the show that first really hooked horror fans on Joe Bob. In the summer of 2018, Shudder revived Joe Bob’s show, under the moniker of The Last Drive-In, when he hosted a 26 hour marathon of his favorite horror flicks. After two more successful marathons on Thanksgiving and Christmas, in March 2019 Joe Bob’s show became a weekly Shudder staple, where viewers could watch the series live every Friday night.

Last weekend, the first movie on The Last Drive-In was Joe Giannone’s 1982 slasher, Madman. Staring Gaylen Ross of Dawn of the Dead as the quazi-Final Girl, Madman tells the story of  Madman Marz, a killer who stalks the woods of a camp for gifted children, killing anyone who speaks his name above a whisper. However, Madman does not seem to adhere to classic slasher trope. This is partially because the slasher as we know it today did not yet exist in 1982, but it still feels worth mentioning. The reason why I refer to Betsy (Ross) as a “quasi-Final Girl” is that...she isn’t. Not only does Betsy break the Final Girl rules (she’s blonde, sexually active, and well, dies), but she is also survived by two other characters in the film, Max and Richie.

Honestly, it's pretty amazing Richie was allowed to survive at all. Not only was he the one to summon the Madman in the first place, but he spends the entirety of the film wandering around the woods until coming across the house where Marz killed his family. Richie even makes an accidental trip into Marz’ body dump/torture basement, and lives to tell the tale. He makes it back to the main road, encounter’s Max, and declares in a hilarious close up shot of his eyes, “Madman Marz...he’s real!” I really couldn’t tell you whether this was actually a subversive plot point, or simply lazy film-making.

Aside from a pretty unbearably cringy hot tub scene and extremely questionable decisions made by practically every character, I was pleasantly surprised how well this film held up in 2019. It was fun, funny, and had a number of creative kills. Of course, it was greatly improved by Joe Bob’s frequent intermissions and the truly staggering number of fun facts he delivers. But I’m going to have to agree with Joe Bob on this one...Grace says, check it out!

The Wendigo in Pet Sematary (2019) (4/8/19)

I having a sneaking suspicion that after watching Pet Sematary, the question on a lot of peoples’ minds was “what is a Wendigo??”, along with “why was it so briefly referenced in the movie, with no clear relevance??”. Well… let's find out. First, before we can understand what importance a symbol like the Wendigo could have in PET SEMATARY, we must first understand exactly what a Wendigo is. In Native American Algonquian folklore, the Wendigo is a mythical beast with an insatiable taste for human flesh. The Wendigo often appears as a lanky, gaunt being with massive antlers, and is traditionally associated with greed, starvation, cannibalism, and murder. Conceptually, however, the Wendigo can be seen as a monstrocized version of a human consumed by selfish greed, especially one who lacks the foresight to see that devastating consequences of their self-serving actions. That greed is symbolically represented in the Wendigo’s constant hunger to consume the flesh of men.

In the context of PET SEMATARY,  it is the mythical power of the forest-dwelling Wendigo that imbues the burial ground with its powers of resurrections. The Wendigo itself is only physically shown twice, initially in Jud’s book and again for a moment in the forest, but the concepts it represents heavily permeate the film. Not only does the burial ground itself quite literally want to consume the flesh of the beings that are buried there, but when those beings are resurrected, they become possessed with the desires of the Wendigo, to kill and to claim the bodies of those around them for their own. When Ellie returns from the grave, she appears to have lost her humanity, her soul if you will. She is driven purely by a brutal, animalistic desire to slaughter her family, and have them join her in living death. The Wendigo pulls the string throughout the entirety of the film, leuring Louis into the woods, and recalling Rachel’s repressed memories of her sister Zelda’s death.

However, more so than the ways in which the Wendigo is represented in the “monsters” of PET SEMATARY, I am fascinated by the ways  Louis’ character embodies some of these concepts. One of the ideas that the Wendigo is most closely associated with in folklore is selfishness. Similarly to the Freudian concept of the Id, the Wendigo can bring out the most base and self-serving desires in its victims, namely Louis. While the bond between a parent and a child is commonly thought to be the most selfless human relationship, by bringing Ellie back from the grave, Louis is in no way acting in her best interest. Just as in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Louis ultimately holds responsibility for the life and actions of the being he creates. And yet, while we know Louis is wrong to resurrect Ellie, it is hard to imaging making any other choice after the death of one’s own child. I realize I am getting off the topic of the Wendigo to a certain degree, but at the same time, it is humanity’s inherent selfishness that the Wendigo can be seen to represent. PET SEMATARY is so especially crushing because the audience must watch Louis bring doom upon his family, while knowing we would probably make the exact same choice.

**This analysis is meant to be applied to the 2019 film adaption, independent of the King novel.

Jordan Peele’s Us, The Twilight Zone, and the Doppelganger (4/26/19)

As much as I enjoyed watching Us, the first thing I said after the film ended was, “well what am I supposed to do with that!”. Beautiful cinematography and endlessly creative concept aside, I must say that I was (and still am), a bit confused as to what Us was trying to tell me, particularly with the plot twist at the very end of the film. I saw the film with my family, and in reference to the twist, my father described the movie as a episode of The Twilight Zone, which I found slightly ironic, given that Peele is heading its upcoming reimagining.

However, a comparison to The Twilight Zone seems especially fitting. At least in my experience, The Twilight Zone tends to target human fears that are more internal than external, contrary to the majority of horror. Mainstream horror as a genre tends to play on fears of outside forces, such as serial killers, monsters, supernatural entities, violence, pain, etc. However, in shows like The Twilight Zone, the horror is often much more psychological, twisting the viewers expectations, commenting on human nature and behavior, as well as playing largely on our fear of reality defying reason. As a kid, The Twilight Zone used to freak me out like nothing else could, that eerie theme song triggering a kind of Pavlovian unease in my 10 year-old self.

To return to Us, the most obvious interpretation of it is, of course, our fear of ourselves. Fear of the ‘shadow self’, the ‘dark side’. A fairly common trope, the double or doppelganger is a innate creepy concept. Historically in literature, doppelgangers often represent the ‘evil twin’ of the character they double, and are often used symbolically harbingers of bad luck. Directly translating from German as “double walker”, in a number of Scandinavian mythologies, they serve as physical manifestations of fate. In Norse mythology the double performs a person’s actions in advance, referred to as a ‘firstcomer’, or is alternatively a personification of death. Applying this historical significance of the doppelganger to Us provides some interesting insight.

The connection between the tethered humans on earth and in the compound closely reflects this concept of the ‘firstcomer’. Adelaide’s double explains how the tethered were created as a way to control the people up above, perhaps by performing their actions before they do, removing their free will. However, the experiment failed, leaving the shadows to carry out the actions of their earthly double, often in twisted and obscene ways. Therefore, the doubles in Us can be interpreted in a number of ways. We can see the shadow as a representation of the dark side taking over, as a commentary on our lack of true free will, or simply as a harbinger of some inevitable doom to befall the human race.

I Know What You Did Last Summer: The Southern Gothic Slasher (3/11/19)

As an avid fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it was my love of Sarah Michelle Gellar that lead me to watch I Know What You Did Last Summer this past weekend, but it was my total enjoyment of 90s Teen Horror that kept me watching. However, before I even registered the North Carolina license plates, I was noticing the ways in which this film fits into the ever-fascinating genre of Southern Gothic horror. Born and raised in North Carolina myself, I have always had a personal interest in the Southern Gothic, and will take any opportunity to analyze film through that lense. So hear me out. How is IKWYDLS Southern Gothic?

One of the hallmarks of the Southern Gothic, is themes of the past coming back to haunt you. From the title alone, it is clear that this theme is heavily referenced throughout the film. Before the slasher-ing begins, the movie focuses on the ways in which their high school hit-and-run ruined the potential for the lives of Julie, Helen, Ray, and Barry. Julie is flunking out of college, Helen failed to find fame in New York, Barry is directionless, and aspiring writer Ray has become a fisherman, like most of the inhabitants of their coastal town of Southport, North Carolina. It is suggested that characters attribute their misfortune to the karma they accrued by (supposedly) killing a man, and covering up the crime. And then of course, their victim comes back to literally terrorize them.

This film also explores the way that violent histories repeat themselves. The date on which the kids strike Ben Willis with their car, is exactly a year after David Egan accidentally killed his girlfriend, Ben Willis’s daughter Susie, on that very road—as well as the night David Egan (maybe) took his own life. The Southern Gothic genre is chock full of narratives which address the cyclical nature of violence as well, often placed in the context of magical realism. And while slasher films such as this may seem to be set in reality, they tend to employ traits of magical realism. The never-dying antagonist, who always seems to be omnipresent in the lives of his victims, leaving threats in improbable places, and able to kill unseen by anyone other than the teens he terrorizes, would probably never be able to exist in reality. Yet we as viewers are so eager to suspend our belief to watch the gorey story play out.

This film also captures the aesthetic elements of the Southern Gothic. Obviously, IKWYDLS is set in the South, but the working class finishing town, the decaying Egan house (complete with creepy butchering shed out back), and the rural town traditions of the parade and beauty pagent, all possess a distinctly Southern aura, as well as an implicit ominousness. The final set-piece itself, with the concluding confrontation between The Fisherman and Final Girl Julie on a fishing boat, drives home that this story is fundamentally Southern. In my opinion, the Southern Gothic is one of the most rich sub-genres of Gothic horror, of which IKWYDLS is a wonderful example, and I greatly look forward to it being explored in popular media in the future!

David Cronenberg’s The Fly: Feminist Horror? (3/4/19)

In the 1980s, complex female characters were not something the horror genre was known for. Ever present was the one-dimensional blonde slasher victim, whose promiscuity would lead to her inevitable demise. The message in these kind of films was clear: have sex, and you will suffer the consequences. And yet, the same year as the Friday the 13th franchise’s sixth instalment was released, David Cronenberg released his sci-fi body horror spectacular, The Fly. And while scientist Seth Brundle’s experiment may be the central focus on the film, it is the journey of Geena Davis’s character, Veronica Quaife, who really captures my attention.

           Veronica, most often referred to as Roni, remains to this day one of the most interesting female characters in classic horror. As the audience surrogate in this film, it is Roni whom the audience is meant to identify with most while watching The Fly, and the messages sent to us through her character are impossible to ignore. From the very start of the film, it is Roni’s determination to be successful professionally which drive her to approach Seth, and begin documenting his work. Despite her complicated relationship with her possessive ex-boyfriend/boss Stathis Borans, Roni asserts herself with agency in all her relationships with The Fly’s male characters.

          The way Roni’s sexuality is presented in this film is an interesting point to explore. While she does serve as a catalyst for the discovery which allows Seth to succeed in transporting living beings, she is more than just his sexual awakening. Up until the point where Seth Brundle becomes Brundlefly, Roni is the initiator of all their sexual interactions; she holds the power in their relationship. Roni also asserts her sexual independence in the public confrontation at the clothing store with Stathis. Despite his attempts to degrade her for only having professional interest in Seth because they are sexually and romantically involved, Roni refuses to be put down, insisting that she will sleep with whoever she pleases. It is notable to point out that a declaration of sex-positivity this strong in an 80s movie was relatively unheard of.

           However, the most radical message sent in The Fly was one of pro-choice. After Roni discovers she is pregnant with a fetus containing Seth’s fused fly/human DNA, she insists on having an abortion. Normally when abortion is brought up in a film from this era, or even from today, it is demonized. And yet, Roni is not shamed for her choice by a single character in the film, save Seth, who is relatively out of his mind at this point. While Roni does not actually receive the abortion in the film, outside of a nightmare she has about the offspring, it is strongly implied that she intends to get one. I find the representation of abortion to be revolutionary in this film. Roni’s character comes to represent having control over one’s own body through the entirety of the movie, and the control over her reproductive rights is a logical extension of that.

          At the end of the day, Roni is a fundamentally feminist character. She refuses to have her life be ruled by the patriarchal power dynamics she contends with, and demonstrates a clear desire for control over her own sexuality and reproductive rights. While some have made the claim that her character revolves around her romantic relationship with Seth, I don’t see that as a nuanced interpretation of her character. It in spite of her love for Seth that Roni prioritizes her own safety. By shooting the Brundlefly/telepod fusion at the end, putting the man she loves out of his misery, it is with Roni that The Fly ends. She is the one who possesses the power to terminate his disastrous experiment.