This is a blog about books and reading
In its examination of the roots of American horror cinema, this single-volume survey is valuable, though it lacks follow-through in its second half.
A noir sensibility finds its origins in German expressionism and creates a neurotic environment in which the borderline between good and evil is nonexistent.
A volume of cultural criticism about Vampira and a new memoir by the creator of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark show how much, and how little, the two have in common.
The pop culture phenomenon resulted in board games and a central character’s appearance alongside Bozo the Clown.
Nia DaCosta’s re-imagining of the 1992 film Candyman proves more effective because it does not traffic in white voyeurism in its examination of Black trauma.
During the first few months of lockdown in 2020, I did something many found counterintuitive. At the height of uncertainty as the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the globe, I sat down for a double feature in
“Horror movies really, really distracted me from the most painful time of my life. Alone in the theatre for a couple of hours, being manipulated into screaming, swearing, and tossing my popcorn, I was transported.”
“If you just look at your own nightmares, you know that there are no rules.”
“The very things that nurture you in the horror genre are also the things that can suppress an understanding of what you’re trying to do.”
We can thank Wood for taking the horror film seriously, and for giving us a framework to understand many of our current cultural impasses.