Thursday 21 January 2010

Horror Studies, Issue 1 for free!


Image from The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)

' There are [...] two significant [subliminal cuts] in The Exorcist [...] --- firstly during [Father Damien] Karras' [(Jason Miller))] dream of his mother, the screen is filled for two frames with a white-painted image of Jason Miller's leering face, appearing as a death mask; and during the exorcism itself, Linda Blair's tossing head is replaced momentarily with Miller's similarly deathly visage.'  Mark Kermode, 'Devilish Deceptions' (From Fear Magazine, Issue 24 December 1990)
'Only Father Karras, in a final, desperate act of self-sacrifice – of somatic and spiritual simpatico with the demon – comes to reconcile and transcend these extremes, thus restoring Regan to her former state of being.' Larrie Dudenhoeffer , ‘"Evil against Evil": The Parabolic Structure and Thematics of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist', Horror Studies, 1.1, 2010, p. 11 (pdf)

Film Studies For Free is trembling with delicious terror at the news of yet another freely accessible issue of a new journal from Intellect Press - there's just too much to read already... Aaaarrggghhhh...

But seriously, Horror Studies is a peer-reviewed, biannual, academic journal devoted to the study of the aesthetics of horror in all of its cultural and historical forms, from film and literature, music and dance, to fine art, photography and beyond: "With a strong commitment to interdisciplinarity, Horror Studies seeks to foster fruitful dialogue on horror between a wide range of different critical and scholarly traditions."

The first issue contains a good number of excellent film-related articles: on The Exorcist; abjection and masculinity in Todd Solondz’s Happiness; Werewolf of London (Walker, 1935); Dracula in early cinema; the submarine myth and its relation to the shark myth, as it has been propagated in film since Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975); and a Deleuzian study of Michael Almereyda's horror films.


As usual, here at FSFF, links to all contents are given below.


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