Horror Film

Archive

October 15, 2021 by Simon Sweetman

In Praise of The “Final Girl” Trope

The “Final Girl” is a trope in horror films – the term was coined by academic, Carol Jeanne Clover in her 1992 book, Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. A brilliant examination of the slasher boom across the mid-70s and 1980s. The “Final Girl” trope is something I’ve been aware of […]

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August 5, 2021 by Simon Sweetman

Movies of My Life # 23: Misery

I first saw Misery when it came out on VHS tape. I remember it vividly. If it wasn’t the first Stephen King adaptation I saw, it was the first to have real impact. I was in Gisborne, summer holidays. A small bunch of us staying at a friend’s house, watching Return of the Living Dead […]

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June 28, 2021 by Simon Sweetman

Poem: Nightmares On Mainstream

The finger knives were the thing that hooked us, if you’ll pardon that obvious pun. We were so into Freddy – a horror ghoul with no heart and soul of his own, but he’d rip open that garish red and green jersey to show you the swirling souls he stole. Quite how they made Elm […]

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March 9, 2018 by Simon Sweetman

Elvis Perkins: The Blackcoat’s Daughter

Elvis Perkins The Blackcoats’s Daughter [OST] Death Waltz Recording Company In the mid/late 2000s Elvis Perkins made a couple of terrific singer/songwriter albums – he was part Paul Simon, part Van Morrison – but most importantly the biggest part of him was something other; was Elvis Perkins. He arrived on the scene back-loaded with back-story, […]