Postmodern horror

Postmodern horror is a horror film related to the art and philosophy of postmodernism. Examples of this type of film includes George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead, Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and John Carpenter's slasher film Halloween.

Night of the Living Dead (1968), one of the earliest examples of postmodern horror cinema

Background

Characteristics of this genre (starting in the 1960s onwards) includes constituting a violent disruption of the everyday world, transgressions and violated boundaries, questioning the validity of rationality, repudiation of narrative and producing a bounded experience of fear (between the audience and the film).^[1]

Notable postmodern horror films

• Psycho (1960)^[1]
• Spider Baby (1967)^[2]
• Night of the Living Dead (1968)^[3][1][4][5]
• Targets (1968)^[1]
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)^[1][5]
• House (1977)^[6]
• Halloween (1978)^[1]
• Dawn of the Dead (1978)^[7]
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)^[8]
• The Brood (1979)^[1]
• The Shining (1980)^[9]
• The Evil Dead (1981)^[10]
• The Howling (1981)^[11][1]
• The Entity (1982)^[1]
• The Thing (1982)^[1]
• Videodrome (1983)^[1]
• The Toxic Avenger (1984)^[12]
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)^[1][5]
• Re-Animator (1985)^[1]
• Fright Night (1985)^[13]
• Chopping Mall (1986)^[1]
• Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)^[1]
• Evil Dead II (1987)^[14][10]
• Beetlejuice (1988)^[15]
• Lady in White (1988)^[1]
• Candyman (1992)^[4]
• Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)^[13][16]
• From Dusk till Dawn (1996)^[17]
• Scream (1996)^{[18][19][20][21][13][17]}
• I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)^[22]
• Bride of Chucky (1998)^[23]
• The Blair Witch Project (1999)^[17]
• American Psycho (2000)^[17]
• Final Destination (2000)^[17]
• Scary Movie (2000)^[22]
• Party Monster (2003)^[24]
• Shaun of the Dead (2004)^[17]
• Drag Me to Hell (2009)^[17]
• The Cabin in the Woods (2012)^[13][17]
• ParaNorman (2012)^[25]
• Hotel Transylvania (2012)^[26]
• The Final Girls (2015)^[27]
• Get Out (2017)^[28]
• Us (2019)^[29]
• Midsommar (2019)^[30]
• Last Night in Soho (2021)^[31]
• Nope (2022)^[32]

Directors associated with postmodern horror

• Jordan Peele
• Robert Rodriguez
• Ari Aster
• Sam Raimi
• Lloyd Kaufman
• John Carpenter
• Wes Craven
• David Cronenberg
• George A. Romero
• Stuart Gordon
• Tobe Hooper
• Joe Dante
• Edgar Wright
• Stanley Kubrick
• Tim Burton

See also

• Postmodernist film
• Postmodern television
• Social thriller
• Extreme cinema
• Vulgar auteurism
• Art horror
• Folk horror
• American New Wave
• Indiewood
• Analog horror

References

1. Prince, Stephen (February 2, 2004). The Horror Film. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 9780813533636. Retrieved February 2, 2023 – via Google Books.
2. "Spider Baby, or the Maddest Story Ever Told (1967)". January 15, 2018. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
3. ""The Walking Dead" Recalls a 60s Horror Classic". November 22, 2010. Retrieved February 2, 2023 – via www.reuters.com.
4. Kee, J. (February 2, 2015). "Black Masculinities and Postmodern Horror: Race, Gender, and Abjection". S2CID 194218977.
5. Recreational Terror - Google Books
6. "Heart of Weirdness: The Story Behind HAUSU". Austin Film Society. October 22, 2018. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
7. "Filmmuseum - Program SD". www.filmmuseum.at.
8. Cusson, Katie (April 11, 2022). "Every Invasion of the Body Snatchers Movie and How Each is an Allegory For Their Time". MovieWeb. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
9. Anastasova, Maria (October 12, 2018). The Suspense of Horror and the Horror of Suspense. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781527519046. Retrieved February 2, 2023 – via Google Books.
10. The Monstrous-feminine - Google Books (pg.73)
11. Staff, Slant (October 28, 2022). "The 100 Best Horror Movies of All Time". Slant Magazine. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
12. "What Will The Citizens Of New Jersey Mutate Into?". Gizmodo. May 9, 2010. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
13. "The Most Important Postmodern Horror Movies". uk.yahoo.com. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
14. Arnzen, Michael A. (February 2, 1994). "Who's Laughing now? The Postmodern Splatter Film". Journal of Popular Film and Television. 21 (4): 176–184. doi:10.1080/01956051.1994.9943985. Retrieved February 2, 2023 – via www.academia.edu.
15. "30 years later and Beetlejuice is still the ghost with the most". March 30, 2018. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
16. Trinos, Angelo Delos (June 24, 2022). "10 Times Horror Movies Broke Their Own Rules". CBR. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
17. "10 Savvy Postmodern Horror Films That Helped Reinvent The Genre | Decider". October 24, 2015. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
18. "Horror in fancy clothes: the 1990s cycle of prestige monster movies". BFI. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
19. "The top 10 greatest horror films of the 1980s". faroutmagazine.co.uk. October 14, 2021. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
20. "Scream and Scream Again: The Postmodern Musings of "Scream"". MUBI. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
21. Hollman, Raquel (August 30, 2022). "Wes Craven's 'Last House on the Left' Is Not Just About Depravity and Violence". Collider. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
22. Black, A. J. (July 7, 2020). "SCARY MOVIE: a post-modern horror spoof without any post-modern wit (2000 in Film #26)". We Made This. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
23. Staff, The Playlist (April 15, 2011). "The Playlist's Guide To Horror Sequels Worth Screaming About". Retrieved February 2, 2023.
24. Russell, Saralyn (June 10, 2014). "Queerly Monstrous: Reading Party Monster as a Postmodern Horror Film". Kino: The Western Undergraduate Film Studies Journal. 5 (1). Retrieved February 2, 2023 – via ojs.lib.uwo.ca.
25. "'ParaNorman' Is a Hilarious, Heartfelt Horror Homage, PopMatters". August 13, 2012. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
26. Thill, Scott. "Exclusive Video: Crafting Hotel Transylvania's CGI Monster Party". Retrieved February 2, 2023 – via www.wired.com.
27. Smith, Nathan (August 5, 2022). "Summer-Camp Horror Movies to Stream From Your Bunk". Vulture. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
28. "'Get Out' Is The Type Of Movie The Oscars Should Pay Attention To". HuffPost. March 5, 2017. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
29. "Jordan Peele's 'Us' Postmodernism and Free-Floating Racism". March 29, 2019. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
30. Wolfe, Monica (October 2, 2021). "Mapping Imperialist Movement in Postmodern Horror Film Midsommar". Journal of Popular Film and Television. 49 (4): 210–222. doi:10.1080/01956051.2021.1881036. S2CID 246241427. Retrieved February 2, 2023 – via Taylor and Francis+NEJM.
31. Walsh, Katie (October 28, 2021). "Review: A visual and aural feast, Edgar Wright's 'Last Night in Soho' has a few wobbles". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
32. Gittell, Noah (July 20, 2022). "Jordan Peele's Nope Fails to Dazzle When the Aliens Are Revealed - WCP". Washington City Paper. Retrieved February 2, 2023.

Further reading

• Prince, Stephen The Horror Film, Rutgers University Press 2012