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Tea Parties with Michael Myers: An Unlikely Friendship

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It is nearly impossible to find a person who doesn’t love Halloween (1978). The film is a scary introduction to one of the most beloved boogeymen in the business. It is arguably the best film of John Carpenter and Debra Hill’s careers, not for lack of trying. While even the casual observer knows this movie reshaped slashers and wax poetic about the ripples it had throughout pop culture, not everyone can say Micheal Myers was one of their imaginary friends as a kid like I can. 

“I realized that what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply… evil.” – Dr. Loomis

I started watching horror movies when I was about 4 or 5. As a chronically unhappy kid, they quickly became my escape from the real world. The monsters and murderers who chased final girls and always made sure to stab their annoying boyfriends felt like friends. They showed me that the villain of any good story is the person you’ll want to spend more time with. Because I was severely sheltered, I had no way of knowing that my adventures with Michael Myers were unusual. I probably just appreciated that he was a good listener and was one of the few people I knew wouldn’t yell at me. I would take any Halloween movie I could get my hands on, but even as a child with no understanding of film or the industry, I knew the first one was special.

I, and the trusty TV guide, would hunt Halloween down like I was training to work for the FBI whenever we had cable or satellite. I would catch it as many times, on as many channels, as possible as if my mother hadn’t recorded it on a VHS that I wore out when we couldn’t afford to have more than the standard broadcast channels. As any obsessive horror kid from the 90s can tell you, AMC was the channel to live on during October. Not only were they serving classic horror cinema, but they were also bursting with trivia. They gave me a whole arsenal of cool facts about the scary movies that got me through my childhood. However, the only ones I retained, and remain me with to this day, were about how John Carpenter and company brought this piece of cinema to life.

“Death has come to your little town, Sheriff.” – Dr. Loomis

AMC is where I learned that Micheal’s mask was William Shatner’s face. This is where I learned John Carpenter added the score after a test screening told him the movie wasn’t scary. As a kid, I took that personally even though I was never so much scared as fascinated by this movie. It’s when I found out they filmed in California during the spring, which resulted in them having to bag up their leaves to reuse for other scenes. I felt jealousy as I listened to the stories of Jamie Lee Curtis and the crew bagging up leaves they were rationing while dressed way too warmly for the West Coast. It made me wish I had been alive and in the film industry when it was made so that I could have cool stories too. I wanted to be one of the people who would go on to have these memories and see my name listed in the credits of what I still think is a masterpiece. I sincerely believe Halloween is one of the reasons I can never truly give up on wanting to make a movie. I saw it at an impressionable age, and it instilled in me that an independent movie could change lives.

I know part of my childhood obsession with Micheal was the mask and the way Nick Castle played this silent killer. Unlike my other favorite baddies, this boogeyman seemed curious when he killed people. His walk was steady, and he never seemed in a hurry, even as Laurie Strode was running away from him. He didn’t have any quips or comebacks to lighten the mood. He was about business, and he was damn good at his job. Whatever motivated him to continue chasing his prey was one of the many mysteries that made him even cooler. After all, fear of the unknown is the most unsettling kind of scary. There is no way of rationalizing that it could never happen to you if you don’t know why it is happening. You just have this calm white face with eyes as black as night doing quietly violent things to the town of Haddonfield, Illinois, while being underscored by an anxiety-inducing melody on a keyboard. To this day, no one has ever made a Casio as stressful as John Carpenter. 

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“It was the Boogeyman.” – Laurie Strode

“As a matter of fact it was.” – Dr. Loomis

While very few movies ever actually scared me as a child, I did make Michael Myers sit with me for tea parties after all, Halloween did manage to give me this unexplainable thrill. There was a magic tingle in my spine whenever I watched the boogeyman go to work. I think the movie is probably why I like to unwind with a nice slasher when the world feels a little too hopeless. Very few entries into the subgenre will ever reach the heights of the original, including all the films in its franchise that came after. However, much like Mikey, I refuse to give up the chase.

So, as you have probably figured out by now, I’m one of the people who will show up to any Halloween movie. I may never understand why, or how, he claimed a piece of my heart during my misspent youth. I used to joke that because I’m one of eight kids, I understand having a few siblings you’d like to get rid of. However, because this bond has lasted for almost my whole life, and through two reboots and a remake, there is clearly something else afoot. 

Much like Laurie Strode, I am forever tethered to this boogeyman. However, I choose to be here and should unpack that…after this year’s marathon of the original movies, of course.

Sharai is a writer, horror podcaster, freelancer, and recovering theatre kid. She is one-half of the podcast of Nightmare On Fierce Street, one-third of Blerdy Massacre, and co-hosts various other horror podcasts. She has bylines at Dread Central, Fangoria, and Horror Movie Blog. She spends way too much time with her TV while failing to escape the Midwest. You can find her most days on Instagram and Twitter. However, if you do find her, she will try to make you watch some scary stuff.

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Finding Gender Freedom in ‘The Curse of the Cat People’ (1944)

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“I’m going to make a deer hunter out of you,” my father told me right after I was born. This was by way of my mother, of course. I had just popped into the world, and already, I was slapped with gender stereotypes of what it means to be a “man.” My father would become woefully disappointed when he later learned I hate hunting. Instead, I played with Barbie dolls, choreographed dances to Britney Spears, and generally did everything a boy or man wasn’t supposed to do. Although I don’t mind fishing and love camping/hiking, the point still stands: I didn’t turn out the way my father (or society) wanted me to. That’s perhaps why I gravitate so much to 1942’s Cat People and its genre-swerving sequel, The Curse of the Cat People (1944).

Exploring Gender Roles in The Curse of the Cat People

Far more drama than horror, The Curse of the Cat People picks up a few short years after its predecessor. Where Cat People explored queerness, the follow-up dove deeper into gender roles and how one little girl learned to embrace herself despite her father’s demands that she be more like the other kids. Irena’s (Simone Simon) tragic death behind them, Oliver (Kent Smith) and Alice (Jane Randolph) move into a posh suburb of Tarrytown, New York, with their adoring daughter Amy (Ann Carter).

Amy is an outsider, ostracized by the other girls, and turns to animals and insects for companionship. Her peculiar behavior not only draws attention from the teacher but her father, who, as we’ve learned already, adheres to strict societal expectations. A young girl should be happy, skipping down the street–gleeful and popular–not detached and “strange.”

One afternoon, Amy wanders down the street and stumbles upon a looming three-story house. Inside are aging socialite Julia Farren (Julia Dean), whom the local kids claim is a witch, and her daughter Barbara (Elizabeth Russell). Julia is just so different, much like Amy. That’s why Amy accepts Julia’s gift of a handkerchief and a wishing ring, on which Amy wishes simply for a friend. Her wish comes true through the manifestation of Irena as a cloaked woman who appears in Amy’s backyard garden. No one else can see her, and Amy finally has the human connection she’s so desperately needed. Through their relationship, Amy comes to understand that self-acceptance is her gateway to personal freedom. She breaks those shackles that have long tied her to Oliver and society’s archaic gender roles.

Growing Up Different: My Own Gender Identity Journey

It took time for me to come to such a realization. I grew up in your typical country town where machismo and camo were rewarded, while femininity was frowned upon. My friends were predominantly girls, and our play-pretend frequently saw me taking on roles of female characters, including Kelly from Saved by the Bell and T-Boz from TLC. I no longer have shame in that. But I also played with trucks, cars, and Power Rangers. There’s a duality that’s always been integral to who I’ve been. Much like Amy, I didn’t fit what society expected of me. My father never had a sit-down with me about how I was acting–except one summer, he forced me to play baseball, where I was bullied by a kid named Chance. The godawful experience taught me who I wasn’t and that there were shades to my identity.

The two decades that followed proved to be tricky. In 2006, when I first came out as a gay man, we didn’t have terms like non-binary. I accepted what society told me about identity; I’ve always landed somewhere in between male and female. I’ve felt a strong sense that my slider scale, so to speak, pushed tightly on the side of womanhood. It wasn’t until 2015 that I began questioning my transness, after seeing the controversial film, The Danish Girl, starring Eddie Redmayne. The way he caressed fabric, an electricity rocketed through my body. “That’s me!” I said to myself. It wasn’t exactly accurate, but I felt a certain type of way.

I was living in New York City at the time, and I can recall every single detail about that night – the way the street smelled on the walk home, the crispness in the winter hair, and the suffocating inner tension that nearly snapped in half. My body, once broken, felt renewal wash over my bones and flesh. The blurriness of my self-portrait became crisper, more detailed, and less fuzzy. 

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Finding My Truth: The Power of Queer Representation

But my journey was far from over. In 2017, I was doomscrolling on Twitter when I stumbled upon a piece actor/producer Natalie Morales had written for Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, in which Morales came out as queer. “I don’t like labeling myself, or anyone else, but if it’s easier for you to understand me, what I’m saying is that I’m queer,” she wrote. “What queer means to me is just simply that I’m not straight. That’s all. It’s not scary, even though that word used to be really, really scary to me.”

Queerness comes in fractured neons. Each ray scatters a million particles, and all you can do is collect up the pieces that fit and move on. Much like Morales, “I thought I was sick. I know I thought something was really wrong with me,” she continued. “I was ashamed, and I thought I was dirty. I knew that the church said it was wrong and that God said it was wrong (even though I couldn’t exactly figure out why, if it wasn’t hurting anyone).”

I was practically in tears after reading such brutal, self-exposing honesty. It shattered me. Society’s skin-cutting chains rusted through and fell to the ground in that moment. Morales’ queer confession then sent me down a long, winding rabbit hole until I came across the term, genderqueer, or non-binary as it’s also called. There it is, I thought. That’s what I am. I’m both genders at once, existing in a once-non-existent space between the two that has now opened up like a gushing waterfall. All of it, my entire life, came crashing down upon my head, and everything I had ever felt made sense.

Lessons from Amy: Self-Love and Breaking Gender Norms

I suppose that’s the journey Amy took, too. In defying her father, who described her as having “too many fancies and too few friends” and how that wasn’t “normal,” worried that she’d turn out just like Irena, Amy forged a new path forward. With ghost Irena’s help, she learned that not only was she normal, but it was the new frontier. Self-love and acceptance are beautiful things. I’d like to think Amy lived the life Irena wasn’t able to, one step closer to completely decimating society’s backward belief system that’s killed more people than not.

Every time I watch The Curse of the Cat People, I’m always reminded that my identity journey is never really over. I’m just happier now than I was yesterday. Baby steps. Like Amy, I’ve stepped into the sunlight for the first time. My face grows warm by the soft, golden radiance, and I can finally discard everything society has ever had to say about gender. I no longer need those misguided, harmful words filling up my heart and mind. In their place, I’ve fit new puzzle pieces together – gratitude, hope, compassion, love, and freedom – and each day offers exciting possibilities. Dear Amy, I hope you’ve lived a life you had only dreamed of, and that you’re happy. We all deserve to be.

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The Evolution of Female Cannibals in Horror Films and TV

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[This article contains spoilers]

Prior to the disestablishment of the Hays’ Code, filmmakers had to make depictions of cannibalism more palatable, diluting the depravity of the act with humor by concealing body parts in pies. Cannibal horror didn’t truly emerge as a subgenre until 1972’s Man From The Deep River drew controversy and intrigue alike. This film jumpstarted the trend of cannibal films centering on your so-called “civilized man” venturing into desolate, often foreign landscapes, only to be cannibalized by the natives. Modern cannibal media has pushed beyond this cliché narrative, depicting sophisticated cannibals that cook their food like fine dining or turn the horror of the act into something frighteningly sexy. But the kinds of cannibalism we see in film differs significantly depending on the cannibal’s sex.

Evolution of Cannibalism in Horror Media

From Grotesque to Sophisticated Cannibals

Cannibalism media used to be a genre divided into extremes. Your cannibal either had a grotesque, animalistic habit like Leatherface or a deviously delicious and sophisticated palate like Hannibal Lecter; however, as we’ve entered the 21st century, this binary has become more of a spectrum. Audiences don’t want to watch the same reveals of flesh furniture or dinner parties that serve human flesh to unknowing guests. They want cannibalism as metaphors, cannibalism as erotic fixation, and even cannibalism as a connection to the supernatural.

Male Cannibals: Power and Brutality

Be it Hannibal Lecter, Alfred Packer, or a member of the Sawyer family, the first cannibal you think of is likely a man. While most cannibal media has departed from stereotypical portrayals of cannibalism as indicative of some non-Christian barbarity, sterilized, almost surgical cannibalism has become more common but not the norm. Wes Cravens The Hills Have Eyes (1977) present cannibals as inbred savages, trapping and tearing apart whoever comes across their path, yet films like Antonia Bird’s Ravenous (1999) and Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991) portray cannibals as calculated, intelligent, and capable of seizing power despite their brutal actions. The sheer number of cannibal films centering male cannibals has allowed more opportunity to test the boundaries of the genre, but that doesn’t mean we should discount the more recent wave of female-centered cannibal movies.

Rise of Female Cannibals in Modern Media

Female Cannibals in Yellowjackets

Female cannibalism is just now hitting the mainstream as Yellowjackets (2021-present) captivates its audience as it tells the story of what happened to a girls’ soccer team lost in the wilderness. However, while Yellowjackets lets its female protagonists be ravenous and brutal, female cannibals in film are often portrayed as sympathetic and less monstrous than their male counterparts.

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Sympathetic Portrayals in The Hills Have Eyes

In Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (1977), a family of desert-dwelling cannibals feed off stranded tourists with the male family members brutally attacking, assaulting, and defiling the bodies of their victims; however, Ruby (Janus Blythe), the young daughter of the clan, is characterized as kind and having an aversion to her family’s violent ways, even going as far as opposing her family’s attack and sacrificing herself to protect the tourists’ baby.  Female cannibals like Ruby are often portrayed as self-loathing and disgusted by their actions, unlike their unsympathetic male peers.

Cannibalism as Metaphor in 21st-Century Film

Raw: Cannibalism and Sexual Awakening

As we enter the 21st century, cannibalism in literature and film has evolved, often being a stand-in for sex as a character consumes the flesh of another to satisfy a deep, carnal appetite. Julia Ducournau’s Raw (2016) tells the story of a first-year veterinary student and long-time vegetarian Justine (Garance Marillier), who finds herself with an insatiable hunger for meat after a hazing incident gone wrong.

As she navigates the sexual and ritualistic traditions of the program, Justine often finds her new cravings for flesh, coinciding with sexual pleasure as she attempts to consume her sexual partners. The version of cannibalism created by Raw is sympathetic, humanizing Justine by creating parallels between an obscene act and one that is normalized and commonplace in our society.

Jennifer’s Body: Cannibalism as Revenge

Karyn Kusama’s Jennifer’s Body (2009) takes a supernatural approach, recounting the tragic story of Jennifer (Megan Fox), a teen girl who is sacrificed to a demonic entity only to be resurrected as a man-hungry succubus. When Jennifer rises from the dead, her acts of cannibalism invert the power dynamic imposed on her human body earlier in the film when a band drugs and sacrifices her body to gain a deal with a demonic entity.

Jennifer then seeks revenge on the male sex, consuming them in ways that are just as destructive as the way they imposed themselves upon her. Her cannibalism is an inversion of the violence she suffered as the band overpowered, bound, and sacrificed her to reach musical fame.

Exploring Cannibalism in Yellowjackets

Season 1: Power Dynamics and Survival

As Yellowjackets has completed its third season, the show has attempted to explore cannibalism in relation to queerness, psychology, and pack dynamics. In the show’s first season, we see the formation and shifting of power dynamics within the social structure of the girls’ soccer team, as captain Jackie (Ella Purnell) finds herself ousted from the group’s cabin by Shauna (Sophie Nélisse), resulting in her death. As the Yellowjackets begin to starve, cannibalism is thrust upon them as Jackie’s corpse becomes engulfed in flames, breaking the animal part of the teams’ brains and causing them to feast on their teammates’ flesh. After this shocking finale, the group finds themselves at a crossroads, having to choose their humanity or their survival, with most choosing the latter.

However, Assistant Coach Ben (Steven Krueger) refuses the ritual consumption of Jackie’s flesh, putting him at odds against Shauna and the other Yellowjackets. In this case, cannibalism becomes a rite of passage, drawing a line between those who are willing to survive by any means necessary and those who would rather die than commit such an act.

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Seasons 2 and 3: Guilt and Pack Dynamics

Yellowjackets’ second and third seasons lean further into the sort of Lord of the Flies-esque nature of the show’s premise, exploring the relationship each of the adult characters and their teen equivalents have to the cannibalistic events of the first season. Shauna internalizes and hardens around the guilt surrounding Jackie’s death, displaying a clear crack in her composure as she finds herself tormented by illusions of Jackie.

In some ways, the consumption of Jackie serves as a means of keeping her at the forefront of Shauna’s attention, her guilt corrupting and turning her into a more cruel, violent version of herself to align with how she is portrayed in the show’s adult timeline. In some ways, this psychological effect of cannibalism mirrors that seen by more sophisticated cannibals such as Hannibal Lecter in the TV series Hannibal.

While Shauna isolates, the group finds themselves battling with the nature of their survival, with the other girls conspiring to create a method for fairly determining who they’ll have to cannibalize next. The group settles on a game of cards, where one unlikely drawer will be hunted for sport by the group, either ending up the groups’ next meal or successfully escaping into the freezing wilderness.

This kind of organized game displays a unique example in the context of female cannibalism, marrying the more cerebral decision-making seen in other female cannibals with the pack dynamics seen in movies like Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Queerness and Cannibalism in Season 3

The show’s third season dives deeper into the inherent queerness of cannibalism in the Yellowjackets universe, as Taissa (Tawny Cypress), an ousted politician who struggles to hold her family together as the events of the wilderness impact her behavior, re-explores her relationship with fellow lover and Yellowjacket Van (Lauren Ambrose).

As Van struggles with a cancer battle, Taissa finds her mind drawn back to the wilderness, wondering if a sacrifice of blood is what is needed to prevent the nebulous entity known as the Wilderness from claiming Van’s life; however, while this theory proves at least somewhat correct, Van dies by another Yellowjackets’ hand, but the grief-stricken Taissa performs one last sickening act, consuming one of Van’s raw organs in almost a means to remain ever close with her now lost love. 

Redefining Female Cannibals in Horror

Justified Violence and Human Complexity

Female cannibals in film are often justified in their violence, slicked in gore, but excused of the filth of the act. They don’t often get to keep heads on plates in their freezers or wear a necklace of their victims’ ears. The brutality of their acts can’t be reduced to shock value, because these films acknowledge that there is a human component to their violence. They aren’t animals reduced to eating human flesh for the sake of it. They make the decision to do so.

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While there aren’t many female cannibals that lean into the filth of the act, maybe it is better that way. This archetype of a disgusting, subhuman cannibal who savors the act and displays heads on sticks is one based in historical assumptions of what it meant to be a cannibal. There is a racial component to attributing cannibalism to a foreign savagery, contradictory to the fact that many classic cannibal movies like The Hills Have Eyes are based on American or European accounts of cannibalism. Reducing cannibals to caricatures turns them trope-y and repetitive.

Modern cannibal stories, especially those centering on female characters, push the boundaries of the genre. Cannibalism can also be a trauma response, a devastating outcome to an unfortunate circumstance, or something that empowers and flips power structures. While the cannibal subgenre may be looked down upon due to its history, modern filmmakers continue proving that cannibalism isn’t as simple as eating human flesh. 

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