“Women and children in Western history could and did find in witchcraft relief from the violence they endured in their own families.”
Tag: Horror
Speaking the Monster: Ecofeminism in “Alien” and “Aliens”
“The Alien movies model how patriarchal culture distracts people from capitalism’s parasitism by designating women as the real threat.”
“If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It”: Ander Monson on “Predator” and the Monster of American Masculinity
“I see actual male friendship, in a way that I don't in almost any other action movie from the 80s.”
Guy Horror: “Rosemary’s Baby” and Coercive Control
Fifty-five years after its release, “Rosemary's Baby” is still a masterful depiction of abuse we are only now beginning to officially recognize as “coercive control.”
They’re Not Metaphorical Demons: Mariana Enríquez and Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra
“As a horror trope, the child is always scary. It turns our notions of purity, innocence, violence, upside down.”
“The Meat and Bones of Life”: Erika T. Wurth and Leif Sorensen
“I’m not a political scientist. I didn’t major in Native American studies. I’m a doctor of metaphors.”
“Beowulf”: A Horror Show
Maria Dahvana Headley’s translation of “Beowulf” forces us to think about what we need to be true about the past, and our access to it.
Would that the Earth Could Stop Us
“Ecohorror” films depict nature avenging itself on humans, revealing a common but wrong-headed hope: that nature can win, even if we do nothing.
Motherhood and Other Monsters
In The Babadook and The Need, the introduction of a monster amplifies preexisting anxieties, rather than generating fresh ones.
TV’s Golden Age of Female Serial Killers
Female killers are all the rage in literature and television. My Sister, the Serial Killer, for example, has caused a stir in the literary world. Killing Eve boasts a large ...
Saboteurs in the Modern Academy
What hope remains for the masses of disillusioned graduate students, unemployed PhDs, and embittered faculty who still, despite everything, believe in ...
Virtual Roundtable on “Get Out”
In the weeks immediately following its release, Jordan Peele’s Get Out quickly established itself as the crossover film ...
Police Brutality, a Horror Story
Victor LaValle’s new novella bridges the weird and the ordinary, and reveals the ordinary to be all the more terrifying. LaValle employs the paranormal not to reject reality, but to open a portal ...
Trouble in Lovecraft Country
Matt Ruff’s novel Lovecraft Country drops into the world of science-fiction and horror publishing at an interesting time. The fandom around this culture is arcane and probably irremediably nerdy to ...