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Showing posts with the label horror theory

Carrie Teaches Us Menstruation Horror Is No Laughing Matter

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CineNiche Graphic Design Purchase poster at Zazzle Brian De Palma's Carrie represents a first in menstruation horror.  This packed phrasing simply means Carrie shows the fears of adolescence through the eyes of a sheltered girl on the verge of womanhood.  The opening sequence features Carrie's first period and through extreme repression at home Carrie has no idea what is happening to her.  All the other girls laugh and throw tampons and pads at her.  In her state of frenzy Carrie has smeared her blood everywhere.  Miss Collins, her gym teacher, comforts her while secretly wanting to laugh as well.  In the principle's office she describes the situation to him and when he sees the blood on Miss Collins he recoils.  Carrie's anger and frustration manifests itself through telekinesis. One could argue that her ability develops out of repression. Without a healthy outlet for her feelings or knowledge of her body, everything bottle...

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: A Godless Universe & A Chainsaw Ballet

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“Exploitation films are no different from any other kind of movie.  All appeal to some desire or fear that the audience may have.  Only because they do it more directly, with perhaps a bit less finesse, than a Hollywood product, they are branded as exploitation.” Mike Quarles, Down and Dirty: exploitation filmmakers and their movies   (xiii) Around the same year that The Last House on the Left was released another young documentary filmmaker was contemplating his own horror film.  He got the idea for his film while he was Christmas shopping.  He was in the middle of a large crowd of consumers all rushing to get their last minute gifts.  He couldn’t make his way down the main isles, so he went down a side isle and found himself in the power tools section.  He stared at a display of tools and thought about how easy it would be to clear the people out of his way if he only had a chainsaw.  Tobe Hooper’s 1974 film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ...