Horror Report

Tag: pop culturebreaking news

  • Horror movies during the Trump years

    Horror movies during the Trump years

    W MAGAZINE has a very good article running: Why horror movies will be the best art during the Trump Administration..

    Author Max Lackin writes in part,

    Get Out subverts the home invasion genre’s classics like Friday the 13th and Scream—here, the menace is what’s already residing inside the white suburban house—while going further. Its first scene, of a young black man out at night alone walking through suburbia, goes from a feeling of unease to something deeply sinister with the appearance of a car that stalks him. “When this man anxiously looks for a way out, the scene grows discordantly disturbing because you may, as I did, flash on Trayvon Martin,” wrote Manhola Dargis in the New York Times.

    And more..

    “Social thriller” is Peele’s nomenclature, but it’s a good descriptor of the swell of recent films that wear horror’s cowl loosely, masking their progressive messaging just beneath genre makeup. The class commentary of The Purge franchise is more emphatic, but heavy-handedness doesn’t make its point any less true. Set in a near future in which a national holiday of state-sanctioned anarchy has yielded record-low crime and a one-percent unemployment rate, it’s a dystopia masquerading as utopia, thanks to a few hours of cathartic bloodletting—and a warning about where a few missteps could land us. The first installment came out in 2013, when the heft of the monthly unemployment rate carried weight.

    IT FOLLOWS was also a societal commentary.. the overriding sense of dread came less from the invisible sexual monster but more the poverty and desolation in Detroit..

    While I’d agree that GET OUT was social commentary, I am not sure it is truly about Trump.. same with PURGE ELECTION YEAR, this was released before Trump’s win. That said, the movies seem relevant ..

    One point that seems to be missed–and one I stress all of the time, hence my study of horror movies–horror has always been social commentary. FRIDAY THE 13th was not just about teenage dreams being slashed, but actually the religious right that rose during the Reagan years.. Other films, like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, were all about race relations..  and even the SAW films were a response to the torture and warfare of the post 9/11 years..

    Movies have gone there before..and they will again. To be truly effective they need to have somewhat concealed.. somewhat overt. A mixture of both succeeds on all audience levels.

  • Trump: Twitter helped me win but I’ll be ‘restrained’ now

    Trump: Twitter helped me win but I’ll be ‘restrained’ now

    Trump: Twitter helped me win but I’ll be ‘restrained’ now :

    While covering and linking up several political stories over the past 15 months, I have primarily been silent as to the candidate of my choice. I will continue to do so, so nothing within this opinion relates to who I actually voted for this year.. Some time honored private matters, to me, are still cherished.

    That said, I do not think the election of Donald Trump should be considered a surprise to anyone watching. Social media, the way we chat and chatter online, created this. We created this. WE made Donald Trump …

    It also reminds me of using a spirit board.. or conjuring up something from another existence. If you really, really REALLY want to talk to a spirit, one may just talk back. Then you got your wish.
    In our world, social media use and the quit hits of Twitter and Facebook have allowed us to dumb down political talk .. we have gone from large 10,000 word articles on the events of the day or week down to 100 character or so tweets. We decide on things after only glancing at headlines.. we do not check sources, but instead eat up anything we see on Facebook. So as long as we agree with it.

    And that is another problem with modern social media. We do not find things to challenge our thoughts or opinions… we don’t want to be challenged. Instead we are given the ability to follow the places we are fans of on the newsfeed……and you miss valuable contrary information by doing so.

    And the news? The news has become a victim, too. There is no ‘news’ anymore.. Today as Itype this there was a 7.8 quake off New Zealand and a tsunami warning. That is news. But it doesn’t sell in America. Instead the airwaves will be filled with indigestable political stories 24/7.

    The protests against Trump are being made worse by a media that glorifies them. But when violence occurs, the media shutters back and quickly showcases brief and not-so-serious calls for calm.

    Today on Twitter a friend asked me why I think Saturday Night Live was a fan of Hillary. She pointed out that Trump guest hosted the program. My answer was twofold. 1) Ratings. Trump equals ratings. 2) It was pre-extreme and pre-Muslim ban and pre-wall.

    Trump used his social media influence in the 2016 election like no other candidate. Elections will not be fought on airwaves anymore.. radio ads don’t matter. TV ads just annoy. YouTube ads? They work… Social media platforms? They work. And sadly, fake clickbait websites work as well as the solid and reliable ones.

    The 2008 election was the first time a candidate was able to harnass social media and Facebook to elicit donations and support among the young. In 2016, eight lightspeed fast years later, a candidate did not even bother raising money but instead used the platforms to gain a mass of people who, many of which never voted before, to vote for him.

    It was the perfect storm in 2016..
    You may not be happy with results. You may be one of those college students in certified ‘weep rooms’ or being told by university staff to form PlayDoh to express emotions (very silly in my thought)… or you are a member of the red state victors now hoping and praying that the president you so hoped for does not become a president you are not proud of.

    We just don’t know.
    We don’t have a clue.
    A social media candidate is the modern day version of Mr Smith goes to Washington. But even Mr. Smith was forced to give more detailed thoughts on plans. And Mr. Smith was fiction!!!

    Fiction is now alive and real in modern day 21st century politics.

    A Congress, a Court, and a populace will now have to work and watch a President Donald Trump.

    We got to know him (*kinda!*) through social media. And now as president, he says, he will tone it down. Backtrack… keep it less brash and unabashed.

    …..perhaps that is the most interesting thing of all. Sure, social media changed everything. It changed how we read politics.. it changed how we vote.
    But as Donald Trump is now realizing, it does NOT change how to govern….
    We will now collectively watch how President Trump governs.

    (Through it all, I still cannot stop to think about the Simpsons in 2000 predicting that a president Trump would happen……… wise beyond years)

  • Some of the stranger ways people are dealing with the election results

    Some of the stranger ways people are dealing with the election results

    Some of the stranger ways people are dealing with the election results:

    The University of Michigan offered its traumatized students coloring books and Play-Doh to calm them.

     The University of Kansas reminded its stressed-out kids that therapy dogs, a regular campus feature, were available.

     Cornell University, an Ivy League school, held a campus-wide “cry-in,” with officials handing out tissues and hot chocolate.

     Tufts University offered its devastated students arts and crafts sessions.

     At campuses from elite Yale to Connecticut to Iowa and beyond, professors canceled classes and/or exams — either because students asked or because instructors were too distraught to teach..

  • A big massive oops. No, Mark Zuckerberg is not dead, and neither…

    A big massive oops. No, Mark Zuckerberg is not dead, and neither…

    A big massive oops. No, Mark Zuckerberg is not dead, and neither are you …

    Despite apparent widespread glitches that changed a number of Facebook users pages to ‘remembering’ pages–the kind that happens when someone assumes room temperature..

    I would hope that the company tries stopping the glitch from occurring again. Though many users of Facebook probably feel dead inside anyway, it becomes a false profile on social networks…. and when the founder is presumed fatally wounded, stocks could suffer.

    So here’s to you, Facebook user! Hope you had a good social.

  • Famed liberal novelist visited porn sets: what he saw left him in disbelief

    Famed liberal novelist visited porn sets: what he saw left him in disbelief

    Famed liberal novelist visited porn sets: what he saw left him in disbelief :

    This is not the typical story you would see on here.. But it is true horror..

    Not to sound old and prudish–porn has been pushed heavily on society since the inception of media–but modern pornography is ruining marriages, lives.. And the women who are used and abused during the making of the films and videos..

    Sure there may be pushback.. But read the important article and tell me if it’s not awful how women can be used up in about four months–tops–and pushed to the side in favor of the next fresh face..

    As one person describes during her short lifespan in porn:

    “I got the S*** kicked out of me,” she said. “I was told before the video—and they said this very proudly, mind you—that in this line of work most of the girls start crying because they’re hurting so bad…I couldn’t breathe. I was being hit and choked. I was really upset, and they didn’t stop. They kept filming. You can hear me say, “Turn the…camera off,” and they kept going.”’