Natural Born Killers follow the infamous serial killing lovers, Mickey and Mallory, as they go down Route 666, claiming new victims every week. The film is really another Bonnie and Clyde story but with way more gore critique the media’s romanticization and glorification of serial killers. During the sitcom scene, the audience is introduced to…

Oh to be in Darren Aronofsky’s sick and twisted, little mind. The purpose of Aronofsky “hip-hop” style of editing in Requiem for a Dream is to consume and forcibly invite the audience into addictive personalities of the four central protagonists. The editing in the beginning is equally paced and distributes shots nicely, but by the…

A24’s and Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight follows the three stage of Chiron’s life, growing up as a young black man struggling with his sexual identity as well as his home life in Miami. Chiron, unfortunately, has a harsh home life, absent of love for the majority of his life. In this scene, Chiron is coming home…

Heathers is satirical, black comedy that critiques the social hierarchies in high school and the insecurities and horrors that are a product of cliques and niche “friend” groups. When dealing with insecurities, it’s best to start with the examination of Heather Duke and her color scheme/transformation. Each Heather (and Veronica) is assigned a color that…

Reading Analysis: Benshoff starts his thesis by recognizing the otherness of homosexuality under the rule of a patriarchal society; therefore, homosexuality is often viewed as a threat to the natural, straight order or as a barrier/sin to straight “purity.” It is all subjective depending on the perspective of the person interpreting, but through a queer…

Reading Analysis: Coleman not only describes the role of blacks in horror films, but she also acknowledges the role that race, specifically African Americans, in film as a whole. She dives into the horror genre specifically, saying that horror is meant to disrupt the natural order of a hegemonic rational, evoke fear, upset the validity…

Reading Analysis: Tony Williams in his article argues with Carol Clover and Robin Wood that horror movies are not just horror movies but also have an underlying message or meaning that they try to promote through its subtext. Williams acknowledges the horrors that Clover depicts in her analysis of the “final girl” and the punishment…

Reading Analysis: With the decline of institutional and religious practices being mainstream introduced the sense of living during the “last of days” or the apocalypse. Movies such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were intended to exemplify a particular apocalyptic vision moving from disclosing family contradictions toward self-indulgent nihilism. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a postmodern…

Reading Analysis: In both of Sarah Arnold’s articles, “Introduction” and “The Bad Mother,” she describes the tropes of the “bad” or abject mother in horror films. In the “Introduction,” Arnold talks about the Freudian psychoanalysis of the mother and child relationship. Freud depicts that the way a child behaves is dependent on how the mother…

Reading Analysis: In Shelly Stamp’s “Horror, Femininity, and Carrie’s Monstrous Puberty,” she describes the depiction of the abomination of womanhood and the wickedness that tags along with it. Stamp recognizes the way that femininity and womanhood have been maliciously depicted in cinema, specifically in horror films, like Carrie. She critiques Carrie that while all be…