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"slasher"
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Queer Slashers
From Norman Bates dressed as \"Mother\" in
Psycho to the rouged cheeks of Leatherface in
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre , many slasher icons have
borne traces of queer and gender nonconforming behavior since
the subgenre's very beginning.
Queer Slashers presents the first book-length study of
how and why the slasher subgenre of horror films appeals to
queer audiences. In it, Peter Marra constructs a reparative
history of the slasher that affirms its queer lineage extending
back as early as the 1920s. It also articulates the queer
aspects of the slasher formula that forge an unlikely kinship
between queer audiences and these retrograde depictions of
queer killers. Marra establishes a queer history and function
for the slasher, analyzing several key contemporary \"queer
slashers\"–that is, slashers that are made by queer
filmmakers–to better understand how queer artists take up
the slasher iconography and put it toward modern queer
aims.
Featuring analysis of films such as John Waters's
Serial Mom , Peaches Christ's
All About Evil , and Alain Guiraudie's
Stranger by the Lake ,
Queer Slashers illuminates the queer meanings of
slashers, their foundations, and their future
possibilities.
eBook
The metamodern slasher film
Since the mid-2000s, the slasher subgenre has been dominated by unoriginal remakes of 'classics'. Consequently, most original slasher films have been ignored by academics (and critics), leaving the field with a limited understanding of this highly popular subgenre. This book corrects that mischaracterisation by analysing contemporary slasher films that sincerely attempt to innovate within the subgenre.
BOOK
Blood Money
Scholars have consistently applied psychoanalytic models to representations of gender in early teen slasher films such as Black Christmas (1974), Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980) in order to claim that these were formulaic, excessively violent exploitation films, fashioned to satisfy the misogynist fantasies of teenage boys and grind house patrons. However, by examining the commercial logic, strategies and objectives of the American and Canadian independents that produced the films and the companies that distributed them in the US, Blood Money demonstrates that filmmakers and marketers actually went to extraordinary lengths to make early teen slashers attractive to female youth, to minimize displays of violence, gore and suffering and to invite comparisons to a wide range of post-classical Hollywood’s biggest hits; including Love Story (1970), The Exorcist (1973), Saturday Night Fever (1977), Grease and Animal House (both 1978). Blood Money is a remarkable piece of scholarship that highlights the many forces that helped establish the teen slasher as a key component of the North American film industry’s repertoire of youth-market product.
eBook
The Psycho records
\"The Psycho Records follows the influence of the primal shower scene within subsequent slasher and splatter films. American soldiers returning from World War II were called \"psychos\" if they exhibited mental illness. Robert Bloch and Alfred Hitchcock turned the term into a catch-all phrase for a range of psychotic and psychopathic symptoms or dispositions. They transferred a war disorder to the American heartland. Drawing on his experience with German film, Hitchcock packed inside his shower stall the essence of schauer, the German cognate meaning \"horror.\" Later serial horror film production has post-traumatically flashed back to Hitchcock's shower scene. In the end, though, this book argues the effect is therapeutically finite. This extensive case study summons the genealogical readings of philosopher and psychoanalyst Laurence Rickels. The book opens not with another reading of Hitchcock's 1960 film but with an evaluation of various updates to vampirism over the years. It concludes with a close look at the rise of demonic and infernal tendencies in horror movies since the 1990s and the problem of the psycho as our most uncanny double in close quarters.\"--Publisher's website.
Book
Body, Telephone, Voice: Black Christmas (1974) and Monstrous Cinema
This article investigates the role of the telephone as both an engine of suspense and a metaphorical double of cinema in Black Christmas directed by Bob Clark (1974). Employing Michel Chion’s concept of acousmatic voice, the article first explores the role of the telephone in creating both narrative suspense and diegetic cohesion. It then investigates how the film implicitly establishes a pattern of resemblance between the telephonic and cinematic mediums centred on their capacities for diffusion and disembodiment. Finally, the article explores the meta-cinematic implications of its preceding findings, arguing that the fears and anxieties associated with the telephone in Black Christmas ultimately concern cinema itself and its possible cultural impact. Although it attempts to enforce certain categories of knowledge and identity, Black Christmas ultimately engages with cinema’s capacity for subverting rather than enforcing ideology.
Journal Article
Halloween : youth cinema and the horrors of growing up
\"John Carpenter's 1978 horror hit Halloween was once considered the be-all, end-all of teen slasher cinema and was regarded as the first, the best, and the most influential American slasher film. Recent revisions in film history, however, have challenged Halloween's comfortable place in the canon of youth horror cinema. This study argues that Halloween need not be the first nor the most influential youth slasher film for it to hold a special place in the history of youth cinema. In a manner like no other film, Halloween draws from the themes, imagery, and obsessions that fuelled youth horror cinema since the 1950s - Gothic atmosphere, atomic dread, twisted psychology, and alienated teenage monsters - and ties them together in the deceptively simple story of a masked killer stalking babysitters on Halloween night. Along the way, the film delivers a savage critique of social institutions and their failure to protect young people. Halloween also depicts a cadre of compelling and complicated youth characters: teenage babysitters watching over preadolescents as a killer, who is viciously avoiding the responsibilities of young adulthood, stalks them through the shadows. This book explores all these aspects of Halloween, including the franchise it spawned\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Effects of herbicides and mulch on the soil carbon, nitrogen, and microbial composition of two revegetated riparian zones over 3 years
PurposeRevegetation of riparian zones is important to improve their soil nitrogen (N) dynamics and to preserve their microbial compositions. However, the success of revegetation projects currently depends on weed control to reduce non-target vegetation competing over nutrients and to ensure the target plant species growth and survival. Different weed control methods affect soil microbial composition and N cycling. However, the long-term effects of herbicides on soil nitrogen (N) pools and microbial community composition remain uncertain even after cessation of the herbicide application.Materials and methodsThis study compared the impacts of different herbicides (Roundup®, BioWeed™, Slasher®, and acetic acid) with mulch on soil N dynamics and microbial community structure 3 years after vegetation establishment (herbicides applied repeatedly in the first 2 years after which no herbicides were applied in the third final year).Results and discussionSoil microbial biomass carbon (MBC) was significantly higher in mulch compared with Roundup®, BioWeed™, Slasher®, and acetic acid at month 26 at the Kandanga site and month 10 at the Pinbarren site. Soil MBC remained significantly higher in mulch compared with Roundup® and BioWeed™, 12 months after the cessation of herbicide application at the Pinbarren site. Soil MBC in the Roundup® and BioWeed™ groups was also lower than the acceptable threshold (160 mg kg−1) at month 34 at the Pinbarren site. Soil NO3−-N was significantly higher in the mulch than the Roundup® at months 22 and 34 after revegetation at the Pinbarren site which could be partly explained by the decreased abundance of the denitrifying bacteria (Candidatus solibacter and C. koribacter). Additionally, both soil bacterial and fungal communities at the Pinbarren site and only fungal community at the Kandanga site were different in the mulch group compared with all other herbicides. The differences persisted 12 months after the cessation of herbicide application at the Pinbarren site.ConclusionOur study suggested that the application of mulch to assist with riparian revegetation would be beneficial for soil microbial functionality. The use of herbicides may have long-lasting effects on soil microbial biomass and diversity and therefore herbicides should be used with caution as part of an integrated land management plan.
Journal Article
Labors of Fear
American ideals position work as a source of pride, opportunity, and meaning. Yet the ravages of labor are constant grist for horror films. Going back decades to the mad scientists of classic cinema, the menial motel job that prepares Norman Bates for his crimes in Psycho, and the unemployed slaughterhouse workers of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, horror movies have made the case that work is not so much a point of pride as a source of monstrosity.Editors Aviva Briefel and Jason Middleton assemble the first study of horror's critique of labor. In the 1970s and 1980s, films such as The Shining and Dawn of the Dead responded to deindustrialization, automation, globalization, and rising numbers of women in the workforce. Labors of Fear explores these critical issues and extends them in discussions of recent works such as The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Midsommar, Survival of the Dead, It Follows, Get Out, and Us. Covering films ranging from the 1970s onward, these essays address novel and newly recognized modes and conditions of labor: reproductive labor, emotion work and emotional labor, social media and self-branding, intellectual labor, service work, precarity, and underemployment. In its singular way, horror continues to make spine-tingling sense of what is most destructive in the wider sociopolitical context of US capitalism.
eBook
The spaces of genre and power in Audition and Midsommar
Farragher-Hanks presents an essay exploring the relationship between space, genre, and power dynamics in the horror films \"Audition\" and \"Midsommar.\" It argues that the spaces in which these films take place serve as visual signifiers for their respective genres and help establish the power dynamics within them. The essay examines how the transition from realistic spaces to stylized and menacing spaces signifies a shift in genre and power. In both films, the male character initially holds power in realistic spaces, but as the films enter the horror genre, the female character becomes empowered in the nightmarish spaces. The climax of both films involves the punishment of the male character by the female, solidifying the transfer of power. The essay concludes by highlighting the subversive potential of horror as a genre that disrupts and overturns established power dynamics in cinematic spaces.
Journal Article