Category: Analysis
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ANALYSIS: Fairytale Gateway Horror with Jim Henson’s THE STORYTELLER
As part of our series on Kid’s Horror, Kim Morrison looks back at one of Jim Henson’s lesser known creations… As a child, there was no denying I was a massive fan of Jim Henson and the magical worlds he created. Films like The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) and Muppet Treasure Island (1996) were very […]
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ANALYSIS: How DOG SOLDIERS Made Me Care About These White Men
To celebrate the 4K reissue of Dog Soldiers (2002) by Second Sight Films – and the film’s 20th Anniversary screening at FrightFest – Mae Murray offers a personal reflection on Neil Marshall’s squaddies-vs-claws horror classic… Full disclosure: I’d never seen Dog Soldiers until recently. But with the release of Janine Pipe’s making-of book “Sausages” I […]
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ANALYSIS: Eagle Orm – The Irish for Fear
To coincide with our recent J-Horror episode of the pod we conclude our examination of horror traditions of nearby nations as Ygraine Hackett-Cantabrana discusses her home country of Ireland… Japan. South Korea. Britain. The United States of America. All nations from where rich horror traditions were born. With the cultural impact of J-Horror, K-Horror, British Folk […]
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ANALYSIS: Phantom Felines – The Revenge of the Oppressed in KURONEKO (1968)
Trigger warning: this article discusses the film’s portrayal of rape. As part of our examination of J-Horror, Johnny Restall looks back on an iconic landmark in Japanese folk cinema. Japanese cinema has long been influenced by the country’s rich, distinctive folklore. Arguably the figures best-known to Western audiences are the ghostly yurei, particularly onryo – wronged souls, often female, […]
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ANALYSIS: Shifting Space in THE SHINING (1980) and DOCTOR SLEEP (2019)
Released almost 40 years apart, there nevertheless is a fascinating correlation in the use of space between the two cinematic visits to The Overlook Hotel. Dr Vincent M. Gaine books a stay… With Doctor Sleep, Mike Flanagan faced an unenviable task: a sequel to The Shining – one of the most iconic and beloved horror properties of […]
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ANALYSIS: Dysfunctional communities in the work of Stephen King
Melissa Cox unpacks the dark heart of many of King’s communities… One of the most notable aspects of Stephen King’s writing is his impressively detailed world-building. The towns of Derry and Castle Rock are horror icons in themselves, providing the settings for interweaving stories spanning decades. As well as helping to convince generations of readers […]
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ANALYSIS: Keeping Secrets in King’s STORM OF THE CENTURY (1999)
Kim Morrison celebrates of one of King’s most under-seen 90s miniseries… Due to the sheer number of pages in a lot of his books, many of Stephen King’s works have been given the mini-series treatment rather than risk losing important details just to conform to a standard film’s runtime. However, in 1999, King decided to […]
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ANALYSIS: ROSE RED, 20 Years On
Ariel Powers-Schaub turns back the clock to examine a Stephen King mini-series that remixed Hill House with varying results… “A good house cuddles and comforts. A bad one fills us with instinctive unease. Bad houses hate our warmth, our humanness. That blind hate is what we mean when we use the word haunted.” Sound familiar? […]
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ANALYSIS: The Power of the Losers in IT (1990)
Spoilers Much like Pennywise’s cyclical slumber, there was a 27 year gap between the original TV adaptation of IT in 1990 and Andy Muschietti’s big screen iteration. But what did the mini-series have to say about its central septych of characters, the Losers Club? Kim Morrison heads back to Derry to find out… The mini-series […]
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ANALYSIS: Green is the Future – examining relationships in CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954) and THE SHAPE OF WATER (2017)
Kim Morrison dives into two creature features to explore how sub-aquatic relationships might offer a way of decoding real-world romances… Monsters falling in love with human women is something that pops up in the horror genre quite often. From King Kong climbing the Empire State Building with Ann clasped in his hand or Dracula romancing […]