Unmasking Horror Movies

Dive deep into the shadows of cinema with us as we explore the captivating world of horror films. Originating from the haunting tales of the late 1800s, the horror genre has not only stood the test of time but has flourished, spawning billion-dollar franchises and passionate fan conventions. But beyond the spine-tingling suspense and heart-pounding scares, what deeper truths do these films unveil about our society?

Discover:

• The hidden allure: Why do audiences keep coming back for more?
• The mirror effect: How do horror movies reflect and respond to societal changes
• Cultural evolution: In what intriguing ways have these films influenced and even redefined societal norms?

With:

• Leo Braudy, University Professor; professor of English, USC Dornsife
• Rebekah McKendry, producer, director, writer; adjunct assistant professor, USC School of Cinematic Arts 
• Anna Zlokovic '14, writer, director "Appendage"

Moderated by:
Karen Tongson, professor, gender & sexuality studies, English, and American studies & ethnicity, USC Dornsife

Learn more about the Dornsife Dialogues and sign up for the next live event here.

Transcript

00:00:00:04 - 00:00:26:13

Amber Miller 

Welcome to our Halloween edition of Dornsife Dialogs. My undergraduate folklore course taught me that paying attention to the themes in movies, campfire stories and other legends helps us to understand that the cultural anxieties of the moment and horror films in particular bring some of our deepest fears to the surface. Being an eighties kid, the movie that scared me the most was A Nightmare on Elm Street, with that iconic villain, Freddy Krueger, who attacked teenagers in their dreams.

00:00:27:02 - 00:00:54:07

Amber Miller 

I've since learned that the film's director, Wes Craven, was inspired in part by dramatic folklore and drew on the archetype of the boogeyman. Freddy first appears in the early 1980s, a time when conspiracy theories about satanic cults and infamous serial killers grabbed the headlines. But I suspect that the underlying theme of the powerlessness that kids and adults too often feel of seeing the danger in the world but not being able to do anything about it is what really got to me.

00:00:55:06 - 00:01:20:23

Amber Miller 

While anxieties change with the times, the popularity of horror movies remains. I'm looking forward to hearing what today's panelists have to say about it all, including why it is that we're so drawn to a genre designed to scare us out of our seats. Today's panel will be moderated by Karen Tongson. Professor Tongson chairs the Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies and holds appointments in English and American Studies and Ethnicity at USC Dornsife.

00:01:21:11 - 00:01:46:26

Amber Miller 

She is the author of three books, coeditor of an award winning book series, host, Millennial, Pop and co-hosts. Several podcasts. So I'll pass it off to Professor Tongsons’ capable hands, and she will introduce today's panelists. Thank you all for coming and enjoy the panel. 

 Karen Tongson

Thanks so much, Dean Miller. And we're delighted to all be here today to share in the spooky thrills of Halloween. As always it's my pleasure to introduce our panelists who have so many things to say about horror from so many different angles. First is Professor Leo Brody, my dear colleague, professor of English at USC Dornsife and university professor, as well as the Leo Bing Chair in English and American Literature. He teaches 17th and 18th century English literature, film, history and criticism, as well as courses on American culture.

00:02:15:22 - 00:02:50:11

Karen Tongson 

And he's published a range of books. But most relevant today, of course, is Haunted on Ghosts, which is about vampires, zombies and other monsters of the natural and supernatural worlds. Another panelist here in the top, I guess that's the right left hand corner is Professor Rebecca McKendry, who's an adjunct assistant professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where she teaches directing, horror, film, history and genre film production, which is very exciting, and her doctorate.

00:02:50:11 - 00:03:25:25

Karen Tongson 

So she spent her entire time cultivating her degree in horror media and so we're really excited to see what she brings to the discussion. She's also a writer and director for feature Horror films, and she previously worked on the business side of horror as an executive for production companies like Fangoria and Blumhouse. And last, but certainly, certainly not least, is Ana's Locavore, who is an award winning writer and director whose work has screened internationally at numerous festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival and South by Southwest.

00:03:26:04 - 00:03:51:08

Karen Tongson 

In fact, some of you who are here may have even seen her debut feature film Appendage, which was just released on Hulu this month. She was named one of Indiewire's 28 Rising Female filmmakers to watch in 2023. And of course, we're delighted to welcome her back here to USC, where she's an alumna of the School of Cinematic Arts, where she also holds a bachelor's degree in cinematic arts, film and television production.

00:03:51:22 - 00:04:15:22

Karen Tongson 

So welcome, panel. Welcome, everyone. And just sort of following up on where Dean Miller left off and sharing the films that most scared her as an eighties kid. I have to say that the film that I think scared me most, in part because of my family's Catholicism and anything having to do with the intersection of religion and horror was The Exorcist.

00:04:15:22 - 00:04:24:28

Karen Tongson 

And I'm wondering for each of you what that film was as well and why. Let's start. Yeah, go ahead, Rebecca.

00:04:25:09 - 00:04:44:00

Rebekah McKendry

I'll jump in. So I do think that a lot of what scares us is based on our own personal backgrounds, because I was, I don't want to say, devoid of religion, but it definitely wasn't a thing since my parents were ex hippies. Like, we just didn't have a religious background in my house.

00:04:44:07 - 00:04:58:04

Rebekah McKendry

It was very much a kind of, you know, believe what you want to believe type growing up. So I remember seeing The Exorcist and it not having much of an effect on me. It was very much like, What's up with the girl tied up in the bed? Like she's tied up in a bed. It's not that she's not doing anything.

00:04:58:24 - 00:05:24:01

Rebekah McKendry

But like the cerebral cosmic horrors there's something bigger in the universe that you don't understand were the ones that always hit me the hardest. Like the first one that I remember having kind of a lingering, lasting effect on me was Jacob's Ladder in the nineties, being one that, like I was thinking I was probably in like fifth or sixth grade and thinking about it for days afterwards and deconstructing it.

00:05:24:01 - 00:05:27:02

Rebekah McKendry

And yeah, it's one that I still find has a big impact on me.

00:05:28:13 - 00:05:39:27

Karen Tongson 

Leo I think you're muted. That is the greatest horror of Zoom, of course, everyone.

00:05:39:27 - 00:06:01:20

Leo Braudy

Is exactly being muted all the time. I'm not exactly sure. You know, I mean, I've watched hundreds, who knows, thousands even of horror films and TV shows and things like that. And I don't know what really scares me about them. It's just going into these other worlds, you know, where the normal way in which we see things.

00:06:01:20 - 00:06:26:17

Leo Braudy

The normal reality is just these are turned upside down or nonexistent. And that, in fact, they're very discrete. These kinds of spirits exist. I mean, actually the kinds that in a certain way, that movement, let's say, rather than scare me something like the Nicole Kidman movie, The Others. Which is a wonderful movie. And I also like and in terms of more schlocky movies, I like Troll Hunter.

00:06:27:07 - 00:06:46:25

Leo Braudy

You know about these kids in the you know, in Scandinavia somehow going around looking for trolls that still exist somewhere. So there's this mixture of a kind of reality and a kind of reality that really is what attracts me to horror.

00:06:46:25 - 00:06:55:07

Karen Tongson 

And Ana, as a creator of horror, I mean, I'm sure that you have many influences, but let's start with something that really scared the pants off of you when you were, you.

00:06:55:28 - 00:07:18:10

Anna Zlocovic

No, totally. I mean, I don't know what this says about me and my history, but I would say in college I started getting exposed to horror films. And the first one that kind of deeply spiritually disturbed me was Eraserhead. I consider that a horror film. I was just like, What is happening? What is going on? Why is this little creature so scary?

00:07:18:20 - 00:07:34:15

Anna Zlocovic

And, you know, I think it speaks to parenthood and so many things, but it opened up what movies could be and what horror movies could be for me. And I think it has stuck with me even today. I rewatched it now and I see a bit of humor in there, and I, I kind of I'm like, Oh, this is a little more playful than I remember it.

00:07:34:15 - 00:07:47:21

Anna Zlocovic

And maybe I've changed as a person, which is kind of cool. When you watch horror, you also grow with it. But when I was like 18 and watching that, I was like, I couldn't move for like a week. I think.

00:07:47:21 - 00:08:13:17

Karen Tongson 

Well, you know, it's great that we all have so many cinematic touchstones across the ages, But, you know, sort of, as Dean Miller alluded to in her intro, obviously horror as a genre, as a form of expression, has existed for a very long time. And of course, through not only folk cultures but literature. And Leo is someone who studies horror at the intersection of literature and cinema.

00:08:14:07 - 00:08:39:10

Karen Tongson 

I'm wondering, you know, sort of what some of the origin points you would you would bring out for us or I mean, for me, I know, of course, the famous story of the creation of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley when she and Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley and a bunch of other writers were kind of gathered together trying to tell the scariest ghost story, which resulted in Frankenstein in 1818.

00:08:39:10 - 00:08:48:03

Karen Tongson 

But, you know, what are some of the other kinds of key touch touch points that really made this genre rise in popularity?

00:08:48:22 - 00:09:15:26

Leo Braudy

Well, you know, horror horror literature certainly just basically, in a sense wakes up in the late 18th century and it's part of a whole kind of the literature of that period that wants to excite emotion of one sort or another. There's pornography in this period, you know, exciting sexual feelings. There's horror, exciting feelings of fear. There's sentimental fiction which wants to make you cry there.

00:09:16:01 - 00:09:40:18

Leo Braudy

So it's a revolt against the kind of more rational, more narrative, straight forward literature and trying to put it in its place. I, you know, in part we call it romanticism or pre romanticism as part of the period. But once to put in its place a literature that evokes emotion in the reader, that engages the reader in that way, rather than the reader just kind of sitting back and absorbing words there.

00:09:40:20 - 00:09:44:28

Leo Braudy

But these words have power and power to create feelings.

00:09:46:19 - 00:10:10:23

Karen Tongson 

And even in the sort of cinematic history of horror, I think so many of us like to think about or point to, you know, everything from the 1970s onward, really. But in its very origins, cinema itself, like comes from a place of horror that elicits emotions, right? Rebecca Like, you have all sorts of examples, I think from the inception of cinema that bring this to us.

00:10:10:24 - 00:10:31:03

Rebekah McKendry

Yeah, and Leo definitely touched on this, that the kind of old saying is that as soon as man invented the process, as soon as a person invented the video camera, that the very first thing that we did with it was make a horror film and shoot a porn. And I'll also say that the Lumiere brothers were like doing fun little videos, including cat videos.

00:10:31:03 - 00:10:48:21

Rebekah McKendry

So we made cat videos as well as you should. And yeah, like, even if we're looking at like some of the earliest stuff that was ever made, that was kind of the very first kind of fictionalized film. Short though they be, we were looking at a lot of the speculative fiction that was coming out of the late 1800s.

00:10:49:06 - 00:11:07:24

Rebekah McKendry

One of the very first examples of what I'll call a horror film, or at least what I teach in my classes. A horror film was Edison, and he decided to recreate the beheading of Mary Queen of Scots, and he's using, like a locked offshore shot. And then you see the blade fall and then you see a fake head fall into a basket.

00:11:07:24 - 00:11:34:04

Rebekah McKendry

So we're like getting Gore films straight out. We see a lot of kind of Abraham married and other speculative fictions kind of coming out right in those early years. There's an early version of Frankenstein that gets made, and a lot of this stuff is lost. We only have kind of record of it or bad footage of it, but it's all kind of we're seeing that the heavy horror trends of the late 1800s become the early film trends of the early 1900s.

00:11:35:15 - 00:12:00:14

Karen Tongson 

That's incredible that, you know, again, just sort of the very first opportunity people are given to shoot video, to shoot moving images that we have, those that pull right. I guess as a creator of film and of horror, I want to ask you, when did you first turn to the genre as a place where you wanted to create, where you wanted to be a cinematic artist?

00:12:01:06 - 00:12:23:27

Anna Zlocovic 

Wow, that's a great question. I mean, I kind of piggy back off of what everyone is saying. You know, I guess my personal origin story with the history of cinema and where I kind of grab on to it emotionally was with monster movies and monster stories and this sort of idea of, I guess, feeling othered and like feeling like a monster yourself, but having humanity.

00:12:23:27 - 00:12:43:17

Anna Zlocovic

And so I was really attracted to, you know, the universal monster movies that first started coming out like we have, you know, The Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein, Dracula, all these sort of early movies and Boris Karloff playing Frankenstein and adding so much humanity to, you know, a monster that everyone is kind of like, get away from me.

00:12:43:17 - 00:13:04:18

Anna Zlocovic

And you're like, No. So I think that's sort of where I, as a creator, kind of fall into that sort of pocket. And that interests me, you know, continuing into making more monster movies or even stories like The Exorcist where, you know, you see a young girl turn into a monster and suddenly it's like all your worst fears about what a child could be are in front of you.

00:13:05:10 - 00:13:09:00

Anna Zlocovic

And I find that to be really fascinating and emotionally intense.

00:13:10:13 - 00:13:36:02

Karen Tongson 

It's true. I mean, you mentioned Phantom of the Opera, which I've consumed in every possible form from the guest on the through novel to like the early films to of course, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, which as a member of the LGBTQ community, I've always said that like Phantom of the Opera was actually the musical was one of the things that most sort of resonated with me, even as I was coming to terms with my own identity.

00:13:36:02 - 00:14:07:19

Karen Tongson 

And each of you have brought out the fact that, you know, the horror genre is so often a social means of coping with anxiety, about strangeness, about otherness. And I just sort of wanted to invite each of you, and maybe I'll go back to Leo here for a moment to just sort of talk about, you know, an example where we're wrestling with, you know, a major sort of social anxiety or historical or political anxiety through horror live.

00:14:07:28 - 00:14:47:28

Leo Braudy

You know, that really is a fascinating question. And it's also a question of, you know, to what extent the relationship occurs in the outside world. What is that relationship in the outside world to horror films or horror literature or something that is horror literature? Horror films are kind of purgative in some way, you know, can does it allow, you know, in the midst of, let's say, all sorts of, you know, worldly tumult, wars, violence and things like that, to be able to see a film is to see something with a beginning, middle and end, something that is packaged about, something that, you know, you might be scared of jumps out.

00:14:48:00 - 00:15:17:12

Leo Braudy

But somehow it has a story. It has a narrative to it that is satisfying in that way. So you're scared, but at the same time you're relieved. Also, I think in one another way. So I mean, again, there's you're you you've all we've all been talking about it, Karen, you mentioned it, too. It's like the way in which horror or certainly horror in its beginnings is always about the other, about otherness, about Frankenstein or Dracula or Mr. Hyde or whoever it is.

00:15:17:22 - 00:15:37:17

Leo Braudy

And to what extent that otherness is part of us or to what extent it's out there somewhere. So, I mean, there are kinds of if you look at, say, 19th, the 19th century, you know, and that kind of beginnings of a mass economic civilization in England and the United States and in Europe, particularly there, where does the individual fit into that?

00:15:37:17 - 00:15:50:13

Leo Braudy

Is the individual always going to be separate from that? So, I mean, all these kinds of horror stories explore that. And I think it's something that's still with us to the extent that, in fact, figures like Frankenstein or Dracula, you know, are still appealing to audiences.

00:15:51:20 - 00:15:52:00

Rebekah McKendry

Yeah.

00:15:52:24 - 00:15:54:16

Karen Tongson 

Yeah. Rebecca: You want to follow up with that?

00:15:54:23 - 00:16:19:02

Rebekah McKendry

Yeah. So completely going along with that. So you can actually track horror trends across all of film history in relation to what was happening in society. And there's usually a couple year gap, but you will always see horror films get incredibly violent after we've had some type of national trauma right after the Vietnam War, we get some of the most violent horror films ever made.

00:16:19:02 - 00:16:47:25

Rebekah McKendry

They also get postmodern where they don't have an ending where, you know, the characters have survived, but at what cost? Where everybody's just left insane at the end. And then we see it again right after 911, where that's where we have what we call our torture porn cycle comes a couple of years after that. And so when you look at it, horror films functioned somewhat as a catharsis for people where after we have been through something dramatic, we'll see this kind of echo chamber happen within the horror world.

00:16:47:25 - 00:17:05:28

Rebekah McKendry

And even now what we're seeing, the big question was what are we going to see after the pandemic? Because everybody knew that this was something traumatic that was happening. Nobody really knew how to take it. And when I was consulting on where we would go, everybody kept saying, So are people just going to want comedies because everything is so serious?

00:17:05:28 - 00:17:37:26

Rebekah McKendry

Like, are people still going to want to watch Horror Movies because our lives became a horror movie? And what we've actually seen come out is a trend that is being termed liminal horror and so which I can talk about later, but it's this kind of these trends that happen. And then even on a personal level, I think that a lot of the times when you're looking at somebody's favorite horror film, it's because there is something in it that hit them at a very particular time that something that spoke to them at a very particular time in their life.

00:17:37:26 - 00:17:54:04

Rebekah McKendry

A lot of it's going to be during our formative years of, you know, I found this horror film as I was going through teen time and felt like the other, or even just recently for me right as we were realizing that we needed to have my son tested for autism, I watched The Babadook and it was just one of these.

00:17:54:04 - 00:18:18:12

Rebekah McKendry

I've seen this mom battle. What is considered to be normal with a child and realizing that her child is something else and that he's not communicating the way that she is. And it was so effective for me that it has. I mean, like I sobbed after watching it because it was just like staring at my life as told through coming to terms with the monster and kind of embracing it.

00:18:18:12 - 00:18:27:15

Rebekah McKendry

And so, yeah, like that is where I think a lot of our personal horror predilections come in is something that scares us, but it allows us to come to terms with it on screen.

00:18:28:18 - 00:18:56:08

Karen Tongson 

And I'm going to bring you in just a second honor, because I wanted to at least flag the fact that both Leo and Rebecca talk about, you know, horror itself as a kind of encounter with what's normal or in relation to the normal and or desiring may be some way of returning to normal after, you know, these different eruptions and and other kinds of, I guess, you know, like really kind of difficult and wrenching realizations.

00:18:56:17 - 00:19:24:09

Karen Tongson 

But I obviously want you to answer this question, but I also wanted you to sort of revisit something that you said about empathy a little bit earlier. Right. And that how, you know, even as horror exposes us to the encounter with the other or somebody who doesn't fit in right, or someone who kind of upsets the order of things that one of the things that drew you to it was your own empathy or like how it elicited that empathy.

00:19:24:19 - 00:19:28:15

Karen Tongson 

So I just sort of wanted to invite you and your answer to bring that back in as well.

00:19:28:15 - 00:19:56:26

Anna Zlocovic

Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, it kind of all sort of reminds me of the importance of horror as, I don't know, a form or a space to grieve or to process things emotionally on an individual and a societal level. And I think empathy is a big part of that. You know, you see things that scare you and maybe about yourself in a horror film and you're like, Oh, well, I can't be the only one that's feeling this because this movie exists and look how many fans it has.

00:19:56:26 - 00:20:17:02

Anna Zlocovic

And look at all of us in this theater enjoying the film. And I think that that is very, very important and I think helped me throughout my life as well. You know, I watch a movie like Roar, which is, you know, a movie about a cannibal, a college student. And I'm like, yes, I relate. You know, we all have to cope.

00:20:17:03 - 00:20:42:17

Anna Zlocovic

Discovering ourselves. You know, we're 18, 19. Like, you feel like, is this normal, what I'm doing, eating this person, you know, But like, am I normal? Am I not normal? Like, okay, well, you know, she's eating a person. Like, I kind of relate to that on a freak level, but like, after the movie's over, you're like, okay, like, I feel like I've experienced something, I've put myself through something and I've come out on the other side feeling a little more whole.

00:20:42:17 - 00:20:44:14

Anna Zlocovic

And I think that's really cool.

00:20:45:20 - 00:21:15:04

Leo Braudy

You know, I would do something connecting to it, or Rebecca was talking about it as well. And this whole question of the relationship of the horror film to what's happening outside the horror film and the rest of the world that you know, that creators of horror films, writers, directors, people like that are sort of like antennae. You know, they're the early warning system for things as well, because, you know, when the film comes out, it's because it's been in production for, what, two or three years before that.

00:21:15:04 - 00:21:28:25

Leo Braudy

In any case. So, you know, they're the ones who see it somehow through their own sensibilities, their own creativity, you know, what is going to bother people or in two or three more years or as a trend.

00:21:29:12 - 00:21:35:28

Anna Zlocovic

Right. I was remembering Rebecca, you mentioned something also that's happening, a trend right now of like grief porn.

00:21:36:12 - 00:21:48:15

Rebekah McKendry

Trauma porn. Yeah. That we saw that come I mean, I feel like hereditary and midsommar kind of were our first out of the gate, but then we saw a huge onslaught of trauma porn.

00:21:49:03 - 00:22:02:19

Anna Zlocovic

Yeah. And it's interesting. I feel like there's so much grief in the world right now. You're talking about, you know, post-pandemic and there's so much pain and grief and yeah, there was like an antenna situation going on there as well, which is kind of interesting.

00:22:02:19 - 00:22:33:25

Karen Tongson

Well, I'm wondering then, you know, I mean, we've been speaking kind of broadly about some of the things horror films do in general, but are there any specific films that you think have effected some kind of shift in our sense of, you know, either in empathy and our empathy for others, or that that brought our attention to a cultural condition or ill or context that, you know, that that kind of maybe changed the conversation in different ways.

00:22:33:25 - 00:22:52:04

Karen Tongson

You know, sometimes it's not always, you know, in the most highfalutin forms that we come to a shift in our understanding of really consequential issues around our world. Do each of you have an example of a film that maybe does that or that did that for you?

00:22:52:04 - 00:23:17:20

Rebekah McKendry

Yeah, I can give a positive and a negative version of that. The negative of how powerful a film can be in response to kind of our own psyche and fear. The biggest ones, Jaws, I mean, where that impacted and is still impacting entire generations of people to the point where there was a massive drop in beats attendance those summers after Jaws, you know, there were shark calls.

00:23:17:20 - 00:23:41:15

Rebekah McKendry

Suddenly everybody was scared to death of this thing that we had been swimming next to for millennia. And so that's kind of the negative effect of how much, you know, if the film is well-done, it can truly ingrain a fear, whether it's just fear or not. It's a great film, absolutely great film. But even, you know, the filmmaker and the screenwriter and the novelist came out and were like, whoa, there.

00:23:41:15 - 00:24:25:04

Rebekah McKendry

This wasn't quite the intended effect that we were expecting. But then looking at it on a positive level, I'll cite a movie like Jennifer's Body. Now, when Jennifer's body came out, it was really critically panned. It didn't hit with fans, but a lot of people like me who had seen it when we were teens and into our twenties, suddenly, like a decade later, we're realizing just how important it was to us at the time that it did have a lot to say about self-image, self-worth, about sexuality, about trying to figure out who you are and that even if it did not hit right at the moment that it came out, that it had this kind

00:24:25:04 - 00:24:31:23

Rebekah McKendry

of resonating effect within our psyche. And I just saw Anna Nicole. So I.

00:24:32:02 - 00:24:34:04

Karen Tongson

Was like Jennifer.

00:24:35:05 - 00:24:39:23

Anna Zlocovic

Karyn Kusama is a legend, in my opinion, a totally underrated, amazing director and writer.

00:24:41:00 - 00:25:03:20

Leo Braudy

Leigh And I would mention a film that no one would ever call a horror film, but it's sort of like a horror film in certain ways. And that's war games, you know, And the fear of I you know, there's 40, 40 plus years ago almost, the film comes out that in fact, is so prescient about what kind of fears we have now.

00:25:04:08 - 00:25:29:23

Leo Braudy

And that and I itself, you know, we were talking before and there's always whenever a new technology appears, it's being used for horror effects. For horror reasons. You know, you have spirit photography, you know, you have TV as in a film like Poltergeist, you know, you have videotape in the morning, things like that. And the idea and these why are these why are these things why?

00:25:29:23 - 00:25:56:09

Leo Braudy

And in a way, for horror or horror type effects, Because they're we don't know what they are as members of the audience. You know, we don't know how they work here. And they could be turned against us. And the Terminator films like that, same way, same kind of a new technology that we fear. I suppose it all goes back to Frankenstein, essentially the idea that science is something to be feared in that way.

00:25:56:09 - 00:26:06:26

Leo Braudy

And of course, now with so much anti-science in the world and you know, people who don't believe in science, you know, it becomes a real national issue.

00:26:07:26 - 00:26:30:05

Anna Zlocovic

Yeah, Yeah. It's interesting in this conversation, it made me think like Jaws was such an event sized thing, you know, like people were lining up around the corner to see that movie. And I feel like times have changed so much now. It's hard to get a movie into theaters. People are experiencing movies more individually on streamers, and I'm kind of curious to see how that affects shaping conversations.

00:26:30:05 - 00:26:46:17

Anna Zlocovic

I mean, I guess things maybe moved to the Internet, but that sort of communal experience I feel like is so important in that I feel like the last time I had that with a very influential movie or a film like that was Get Out. I remember people being like, like screaming in the theater, freaking out, like packed to the brim.

00:26:47:14 - 00:26:53:08

Anna Zlocovic

And so it's interesting to consider in the future how that might shift or change or just interesting to think about.

00:26:54:12 - 00:27:14:17

Leo Braudy

Yeah, you know, get get out. I mean, you know, one of the basic movements in the history of horror is from horror. The monster, whoever it is, is out there, you know, in another country. And as Dracula has to come from Eastern Europe to England and things like that, and gradually it gets closer and closer to home and more.

00:27:14:20 - 00:27:18:15

Leo Braudy

I mean, something like get out, you know, it's a domestic horror in a certain way.

00:27:19:03 - 00:27:21:19

Karen Tongson

The call is coming from inside the house.

00:27:21:19 - 00:27:44:23

Leo Braudy

Exactly. But yeah, and it's and you're sitting there on your couch watching a streaming show. I mean, there you are in the same way. The only time I ever had an experience like that was actually to see Dawn of the Dead. And I never, you know, had no idea what it was about. But I saw it in a shopping mall, like the shopping mall and Dawn of the Dead.

00:27:44:29 - 00:27:59:12

Leo Braudy

And we came out of the movies and were, you know, and all the stores were closed and it was totally empty. The same way. So that kind of, you know, my own experience and the experience of the film somehow melded together.

00:27:59:12 - 00:28:25:19

Rebekah McKendry 

I'm a huge fan of streaming, like I love attending theatrical movies, but I pick and choose which ones I go to, and I actually find streaming films for myself to be a lot more terrifying, honestly, a lot of the time, because it is me alone on my couch. Often after my kids have gone to bed watching something and I feel so much more alone watching stuff like that than I ever would in a theater.

00:28:25:19 - 00:28:47:23

Rebekah McKendry 

And so if it's something like a five nights at Freddy's where it's a bigger spectacle film, I'll always try to make it to the theater. But a lot of the smaller stuff that I find terrifies the crap out of me. I've even films that I've watched both ways. There's a new one, Argentinian film that just came to Shudder called When Evil Lurks, by far one of the most gruesome, brutal horror films I've seen in a long time.

00:28:47:23 - 00:29:16:12

Rebekah McKendry 

It's amazing. I saw it both on my TV by myself and then again in the theater, and I swear it was scarier by myself. And so, yeah, I'm a big fan of streaming films. I think that it also kind of levels the playing field of horror, like going to see a horror film. It's much like VHS did, where, you know, going to see a horror film in a theater is a bit more of a commitment than clicking a button on Netflix, just as you might not have gone to see.

00:29:16:12 - 00:29:26:04

Rebekah McKendry 

You know, I remember seeing Mama in a theater, but if you just rented the VHS tape, it becomes lower stakes and we get an increase in horror. Fans.

00:29:26:04 - 00:30:00:11

Karen Tongson

We're just about to address some audience questions in a moment, but I wanted to give you a chance to also just kind of chime in here a little bit. As someone who has just had a film come out on a streaming streaming platform, but just I just want a little insight into your process because, you know, we've been talking about all of these things that go into how horror is received, but what goes into how it's made or what, you know, were you kind of thinking about when you were making this film and the effect you wanted it to have?

00:30:00:11 - 00:30:07:01

Karen Tongson

And maybe even in thinking about the audience response you would want for it as it's streaming to all of us?

00:30:07:23 - 00:30:24:08

Anna Zlocovic

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's like it's so crazy to try to make a movie. It's so hard. It's hard to get something greenlit. You know, you work on things for years and they don't get greenlit. And you know, this experience that I had with Hulu, I was working on another movie, you know, I was like, We're hitting year five, and I'm like, It's not getting made.

00:30:24:08 - 00:30:41:06

Anna Zlocovic

And then this movie kind of came in totally out of left field and they were like, Do you want to make a short film for Hulu? You want to pitch? And I was like, Yeah, sure. And I pitched like five ideas, and they picked Appendage as a short film to make, you know, which is something that I guess you normally wouldn't get to do.

00:30:41:06 - 00:30:58:09

Anna Zlocovic

And that's a streaming specific opportunity. And so I did that and they were like, We really like it. Do you want to make a feature? And I was like, Now you're lying. Like, not possible because I've been on this other project for five years and I don't see how this is going to happen. And they were like, Man, I don't know, like, can you pitch it to us in like three weeks from now?

00:30:58:28 - 00:31:16:11

Anna Zlocovic

We're on a really tight timeline. And I was like, Yeah, So I pulled something together really quickly and then it went into production, you know, five months later is, I mean, it's the fastest timeline I've ever been a part of. And, you know, you have to try to stay in your artistic zone when you're doing stuff like that.

00:31:16:11 - 00:31:35:11

Anna Zlocovic

And for me, it was always about mental health. And the movie was about, you know, dealing with anxiety and depression and so many things and trying to both make that disturbing, but also a little bit funny and capture the sincerity of that experience so that, you know, I don't know if that would have been possible outside of streaming.

00:31:35:24 - 00:31:57:07

Anna Zlocovic

You know, the movie doesn't hit like, okay, like, what's the hook? What's the you know, it's like a weird freaking movie. And that was the purpose of it was to be bizarre and weird. And it was very, very cool to see how many people it's reached on Hulu and just the fan base that's grown and sort of like a cult type of way.

00:31:57:14 - 00:32:23:11

Anna Zlocovic

And I don't know if that would have been possible theatrically. We have had a few screenings in theaters and it's very cool to see people laughing and screaming and gasping, but it's also very cool to see how people digest it on their own, on the Internet. And so, you know, I agree with you, Rebecca. It's like there's a lot of positives to streaming as well, where you can kind of really process something on your own and privately and maybe not be influenced by the people around you.

00:32:23:11 - 00:32:27:13

Anna Zlocovic

But it's kind of a party when you go out. So there's, you know, pluses and minuses.

00:32:28:06 - 00:32:52:08

Karen Tongson 

As someone who is actually a total scaredy cat and, you know, it's my and my spouse who loves horror and is always trying to get us to watch horror films. You know, I think that I'm much likelier to relate to watching something that's scary at home so that I can have my outsized response or what have you.

00:32:53:07 - 00:33:22:05

Karen Tongson 

Because also, like I paid many times to see films like, you know, the Others or The Woman in Black or what have you, and just basically spent my entire time in a movie theater covering my eyes. So that's sort of like, I think that's really worth the investment in the movie. But we do have some audience questions that have come in and, you know, it's sort of a slight shift from horror movies to Halloween and how they're intertwined together like it is Halloween today.

00:33:22:05 - 00:33:54:04

Karen Tongson 

Right. And Cami asks that more and more schools around the nation are halting Halloween celebrations for various concerns, including, you know, putting people and families through unintentional financial or social pressure. There's some concern also about, you know, potentially offensive outfits. There's also, you know, kind of almost a kind of resurgence of different religious Puritan isms or what have you or just because it's too scary.

00:33:54:04 - 00:34:12:05

Karen Tongson 

And some cities have even banned teens from trick or treating. So Cami asks if you think that Halloween is on the decline and she says, what do you think? Or they say, What do you think of the future of my favorite communal creative holiday? Will it be around in 50 years?

00:34:13:21 - 00:34:43:13

Rebekah McKendry

100%. It will be around because a lot around. Yeah, this is and I mean, this is like the further bifurcation of America here is kind of what it's boiling down to because while part of the country is getting worried and I mean, this is it's all within book banning as well. Another part of the country, Halloween is big business, like the amount of money that people are spending just kind of economically on costumes, on décor, on decorations.

00:34:43:13 - 00:35:09:10

Rebekah McKendry

You know, there's a reason that we within the last ten years have seen the Halloween section at Lowe's, at Target expand and get huge. Like there's a reason people buy $300, you know, 12 foot skeletons and things like that. Now, I want one of those, by the way. But Halloween is a big business. And the reason is because there are so many people now who have made it an adult holiday as well.

00:35:09:14 - 00:35:34:09

Rebekah McKendry

When I was a kid in the eighties and early nineties, it was still very much like a kids holiday. There were not a lot of adult decorations. You know, people weren't decking their houses out. That's completely changed. Now. I live in the middle of Burbank and every other house is like fully done out. So Halloween has financially become a huge thing because people are willing to pay for it, even if another part of the country is not.

00:35:34:09 - 00:35:49:28

Rebekah McKendry

So, yeah, it's going to lead to, you know, being more, you know, kind of divided in that sense. But I don't see it as going anywhere. If anything, it has increased within the last decade and become a much more kind of general celebration, not just reserved for kids.

00:35:50:12 - 00:35:50:20

Karen Tongson

Rick.

00:35:50:29 - 00:35:55:22

Leo Braudy

I think this is interesting with what you said.

00:35:55:22 - 00:35:56:09

Karen Tongson 

Want to go ahead.

00:35:57:05 - 00:36:36:16

Leo Braudy

I think the comparison with book banning is very apt in that way. And, you know, because it's part of, again, a kind of cultural moment that we're in, that in the most general way is about, you know, wanting the excessive coddling of kids, you know the idea that kids have to be defended against everything and that, you know, it's something that's going to bother them, according to the parents who think it will bother them, you know, has to be banned or has to be made illegal or whatever it is, you know, And of course, you know, part of growing up back then know, we're talking about, you know, when you were in the eighties and

00:36:36:16 - 00:36:55:07

Leo Braudy

nineties when it was a kid thing, I mean, it was it was part of it, you know, it was part of the experience. Being scared was part of the experience. Just like watching our movie, being scared was part of the experience and being able to overcome that or somehow bring that into your sense of self and not run away from it.

00:36:55:07 - 00:37:19:05

Karen Tongson

Ana, I actually have a question for you from well, I mean, sort of related to something you said when you said you wanted to make something that was also funny when you made an appendage, that had a kind of strange sense of humor. And David asks, Do you have any thoughts about the comedy horror mashup? It seems like more and more horror films have a sort of tongue in cheek quality.

00:37:19:05 - 00:37:33:05

Karen Tongson

And so, yeah, I mean, obviously you're into it, but say a little bit more about that. And many of you, of course, are invited to chime in with particularly good examples of this.

00:37:33:05 - 00:37:59:01

Anna Zlocovic

You know, I think horror and comedy are the only two genres where you have to really craft something to get an audible response from an audience. And so to me, they're like sister genres, and they go together very, very nicely. And I think, you know, when you are dealing with heavy material, dark themes, it is really nice to have a bit of comedic relief.

00:37:59:01 - 00:38:22:13

Anna Zlocovic

And whether that's like in a couple of moments, you know, even talk to me like I just watched it this morning and there's like a ringtone is like really like the Minions thing. And I was like, That is so funny. It's like a little piece of something that alleviates a very, very heavy film. But I also think it's great when horror comedies are straight horror comedies and, you know, they make you laugh all the way through and then they kind of come out of left field and scare you.

00:38:22:13 - 00:38:41:21

Anna Zlocovic

And, you know, it's a genre that I'm just now kind of, you know, learning to love even more. And I think Jennifer's body was the first one that I saw where I was like, This is freaking awesome. Like they're tapping into something really real and very scary. But then I get to laugh and kind of have fun while we're doing it.

00:38:41:21 - 00:39:01:28

Anna Zlocovic

And I also think, you know, because of that, maybe it's judged a little more harshly because I think adding comedy can kind of make it less pretentious and sometimes people are like, that is not you know, they're not into that. And I think it kind of makes it more commercial in a weird way. I mean, to me, at least to my palate.

00:39:01:28 - 00:39:29:03

Rebekah McKendry

Yeah, I'll continue with that and say versus horror comedies are my fave. That's like my fave subgenre across the board. But for studios, they are really hard sell. It is really hard to get something that is kind of an obvious horror comedy off the ground right now because you think about it like scares or something that transcends cultures, like, you know, a spider jumps out at you.

00:39:29:03 - 00:39:51:13

Rebekah McKendry

It's scary. In America, scary in the Middle East, It's scary in South America, it's scary all over. Humor is not. And so if you're looking at a big film that you want to take on a global market, the idea of mixing humor into the scares becomes a really difficult thing. And so studios are really hesitant to move forward with them.

00:39:51:13 - 00:40:16:16

Rebekah McKendry

A lot of the time, like humor and horror in general, is just a tough sell. We are seeing it happen on the streamers, though, and as long as things are being successful on Hulu or Amazon, I'm hoping that the studios will kind of, you know, follow along with it. But what you do as a filmmaker, if you are shopping around something that is a horror comedy, you don't put the comedy word in because that will freak out the studios, but instead you offer tonal cuts.

00:40:16:16 - 00:40:35:25

Rebekah McKendry

You say it's like, ready or not, which you know is I look at that and I'm like, it's a horror comedy. It's got great dark humor in it. But, you know, from a studio standpoint, it was still scary enough that they could sell it. And so that's kind of it's a weird, hard thing to describe. Humor mixed with scares on a studio level.

00:40:36:13 - 00:40:57:12

Leo Braudy

Right? Of course. Of course. You have films like Young Frankenstein say, you know, which managed to do this in a very brilliant way. And I would say, you know, you're like the Rocky Horror Picture Show, too, which is, again, you know, it's scary, but it's a scary situation. And both of them are playing with horror motifs. And, you know, part of the humor comes with that.

00:40:57:12 - 00:41:16:19

Leo Braudy

Playing with it, that is both serious and it is a horror motif. It is something scary. I mean, even the Scream movies are doing very similar things with it. So it's you know, it's this self-consciousness about what it means to have a horror film. You know, what are the you know, what are the beats in a horror film that everybody knows?

00:41:16:19 - 00:41:30:07

Leo Braudy

And then to play around with them in that way, I think that that's often very appealing. And Rocky Horror always finds it fascinating just because it's such a communal experience where you, you know, connect to the audience so markedly.

00:41:30:26 - 00:41:43:10

Anna Zlocovic

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like, you know, Happy Death Day was another great, you know, franchise of all horror comedy. I think Chris Landon does such a great job with those. And freaky I mean, you know, they do own They do Well yeah.

00:41:44:09 - 00:42:29:23

Karen Tongson 

No, I just follow the House of Usher, which is a Mike Flanagan series on Netflix currently, I mean, for various reasons, obviously also as a literature professor. Right. So but there's definitely a lot of humor, dark humor in in that along with the kind of thrill of the intertextual references gravity, which a lot of horror has as well seen as a question about something that we discussed a little bit earlier about navigating the line between inviting viewers to identify with transgressive portrayals of otherness or to, you know, kind of perpetuate the social othering by villainizing or re victimizing certain marginalized characters.

00:42:30:20 - 00:42:38:15

Karen Tongson 

In which ways have you seen that in either direction? Maybe bring in an example of one or the other, if not both?

00:42:39:29 - 00:43:02:13

Rebekah McKendry 

I'll kick off by saying some of my favorite horror films are the ones where it blends them. If you think about it, I feel like Pearl's a really good example from a couple of years ago where we are following her around as our protagonist. We are on her side. She is the main person that we are following. We are meant to side with Pearl emotionally and connect with her, but at the same time she's also the monster.

00:43:02:13 - 00:43:22:08

Rebekah McKendry 

She's also the evil, the villain in the story and so I always find it really fascinating when they get combined. I feel like American Psycho does that. Yeah, it's a hard thing to do properly, but when you do it, it really kind of leads to this amazing conflict within the viewer.

00:43:22:08 - 00:43:46:07

Leo Braudy

Well, and of course, Hitchcock's Psycho, again, is the kind of progenitor at once as well, you know, to follow what seems to be the protagonist who then gets killed, you know, partway through the movie. And then the person who seems to be, you know, a totally nebbish person turns out to be the killer. So, I mean those kinds of Jekyll and Hyde reversals, I think, are part of that genre.

00:43:47:21 - 00:44:04:07

Anna Zlocovic

Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. And, you know, as a creator who's interested in characters like that, this is like a really great question. And I think about it a lot. And I do agree that mixing the two is, you know, the best way to go in a lot of ways. So I think you honor the strangeness by also showing some of the pain.

00:44:04:13 - 00:44:23:05

Anna Zlocovic

But then you're always in that character's POV and always, you know, this is who we are. This is the side that we're on. And I think it's really important as a filmmaker to remember that with each scene, you know, this is our hero. They're going through pain, but this is our hero and we have to stay on board with them and just balancing those elements is just something that has to always be on your mind.

00:44:23:05 - 00:44:26:00

Anna Zlocovic

I think.

00:44:26:00 - 00:44:56:18

Karen Tongson 

Well, we've talked a lot about different moments where I think that we've seen the originality of horror emerge in various ways. But we did get an audience question, though, about repetition and, you know, the kind of reiteration that we get that's not attributed to a specific ask or of the question, but they they ask, why is there a draw for not just remakes, but iterating similar themes with the same monsters, threats, etc.?

00:44:56:29 - 00:45:19:10

Karen Tongson 

How do franchises or sequels fit in with the idea of horror as purgative or cathartic? So, you know, in our we, it's not just in horror, of course. We do kind of live in an intellectual property world where like the reboot reigns. KING But you know, horror in and of itself. I don't even know how many Friday the 13th we have or Halloween's we have at this point.

00:45:19:10 - 00:45:28:28

Karen Tongson 

Right? But yeah, like, what is it about wanting to revisit the same monster, that same figure over and over again?

00:45:30:14 - 00:45:33:20

Rebekah McKendry

It's not like, oh, go ahead, I'll jump in in a sec.

00:45:34:05 - 00:46:01:08

Speaker 3

Okay. I, you know, I think it's it's not so much about it is revisiting and in sort of something that we mentioned I think a while ago that is in terms of the fears that horror raises there once once the monster is killed or the horror is over with, that doesn't mean it's over with. You know, you win the battle with you, always winning the battle, but you never win the war.

00:46:02:00 - 00:46:29:09

Leo Braudy

And so the whole idea I mean, and horror, I think particularly of all genres and of course all genres do this romcoms do it, comedies do it. I mean, again, they're always playing on past versions of themselves, but horror, perhaps even more than the rest of because in fact, it wants to raise the kind of fears that are innate in human nature and deal with them in one way or another and finally come to an end at the end of the year on the screen.

00:46:29:09 - 00:46:55:08

Leo Braudy

But the end does not appear inside this out. You know, you have to do it again and again. And I think, you know, people who are attracted to different, you know, different kinds of franchises, different kinds of horror movies, you know, again, want to go through that process again and again. You know, it's sort of like, you know, being tough, taking a risk, you know, going to the edge how many times I'm going to go to the edge and still be saved.

00:46:56:21 - 00:47:00:27

Leo Braudy

I'm going to watch another horror movie.

00:47:00:27 - 00:47:26:24

Rebekah McKendry

Yeah. Viewers in general, we tend to find something that we like and kind of just keep watching different versions of it. It's the model behind Lifetime. It's the model behind Hallmark. Like all of those movies, you know, it's the model behind murder documentaries. Like they all kind of have the same formula and function the same. So it's not just limited to horror, it's if you like romantic comedies, you know, they all follow that same pattern with horror.

00:47:27:11 - 00:47:47:08

Rebekah McKendry

We even go deeper and divide it into subgenres of, you know, I tend to like slashers or I tend to like body horrors. And then again, they are haunted house movies. They follow that same pattern and so we do tend to kind of say like, this is the type of pattern that I like to follow, but then it's all about what the filmmaker does to kind of mix it up or make it more interesting.

00:47:47:20 - 00:48:12:05

Rebekah McKendry

Franchises and reboots, they'll run in kind of a cyclical nature of whether Hollywood is gravitating towards them or whether they're looking for new IP right now, specifically this year has been all about IP reboots and franchises. Like if we look at the major films that were theatrical, like Five Nights at Freddy's Evil, Dead Saw, Scream, The Exorcist, Insidious, these are all based on prior IP.

00:48:12:15 - 00:48:32:15

Rebekah McKendry

And a lot of that is because they're relatively low risk for studios. If you're going to put a huge amount of money into something and it screams, well, the marketing is kind of already done for it because you don't have to sell a whole new concept, an audience. You just have to smack Ghost based on the poster and we'll all turn up in droves.

00:48:32:15 - 00:48:52:25

Rebekah McKendry

Anybody who's ever liked a scream film before. So the IP reboots are always going to be lower risk and those become kind of the studio tentpole movies because they know it's going to make money just because Ghostface is in it every single time. So they're such a huge part of the horror landscape and always will be in some degree.

00:48:52:25 - 00:49:02:20

Anna Zlocovic

But yeah, it's super interesting, you know, from an artist perspective, I have a lot of pitches and a lot of meetings and they're always like, okay, but like if you have any IP you like, let us know.

00:49:03:21 - 00:49:05:13

Rebekah McKendry

Okay? Every pitch meeting right now.

00:49:05:21 - 00:49:26:11

Anna Zlocovic

Yeah. And it's so interesting because I get it that, you know, it's lower risk. And aside from even tentpole films, I think that's happening even with like 5 million in and under movies, they're like, well, is it based on a short story? Is it a book, or an article? And I think it just makes studios feel safer and, you know, producers feel safer to have a built in fan base.

00:49:26:11 - 00:49:38:14

Anna Zlocovic

And I'm kind of excited about some original ideas and, you know, original IP. And I hope that some of that stuff starts getting made and maybe streamers are the place, you know, to do it.

00:49:38:14 - 00:50:05:12

Karen Tongson

So James asks us a question about our favorite go-to horror movies, specifically on Halloween. But before I ask each of you this, I'm going to tell you all a story of something that happened to me on Halloween once when my wife and I decided to watch Halloween on Halloween at home. And, you know, creepy Mike Myers, sort of like the figure in the window.

00:50:06:05 - 00:50:31:07

Karen Tongson

I wake up to the sound of my partner jostling me in bed saying, Oh, look, oh my God. And there was a figure backlit in the window. And I screamed. The very first thing I screamed was, What are you doing here? Are you real? Because it just sort of is like in that liminal space between waking life and what have you.

00:50:31:16 - 00:51:00:21

Karen Tongson

So I do have to say that the original Halloween remains the scariest film for me because that happened and it turned out that this person, I think, just wandered off from the Halloween party on Sunset Boulevard into our neighborhood and ended up in our backyard somehow and really creeped us out. But he also came to the front door and poked his head in like this little kind of Spanish door inlet and said, Let me in.

00:51:00:29 - 00:51:27:06

Karen Tongson

I come here all the time. Which also I think that's only something a ghost says, right? I sort of felt like I was living in the realm of the supernatural, in the liminal. In any case, that's why Halloween, for me, remains the scariest film in work because of what happened there. But do you all have any examples of your go-to Halloween films as we close out or a scary thing happened in relation to watching a horror film?

00:51:27:06 - 00:51:47:23

Leo Braudy

I would say that, you know, I love Halloween in that way too, and I love it particularly, you know, just because it puts you in the position of the killer so much. You know, they hear that breathing on the soundtrack. I mean, that is almost scarier than any of this, the slaughter that goes on. But somehow that breathing that person you're breathing, that killer is breathing.

00:51:47:23 - 00:51:55:29

Leo Braudy

And you know that itself, that identification, I think it just drags you right into the film. And it's really hard to forget.

00:51:55:29 - 00:51:56:13

Anna Zlocovic

Yeah.

00:51:57:06 - 00:52:21:13

Rebekah McKendry

Yeah. Halloween watches are for me so that when I'm thinking about, like, what I want to watch on Halloween, I always want something that's fun, something that feels like it's moving. And I always want it set on Halloween and to kind of create the idyllic Halloween atmosphere for me. So from my childhood, Monster Squad is one where it is this kind of just celebration of monster loving kids, of being the other.

00:52:21:13 - 00:52:45:04

Rebekah McKendry

It's set on Halloween night. So you feel that kind of infused in. And then again, these are kind of personal taste, but trick or treat and trick or treat two vastly different films. Trick or treat being this like bonkers 81, that's like a killer heavy metal slasher ghost. It's really fun. And then Trick or Treat being a more recent one anthology film that is just a celebration of the genre in general.

00:52:45:04 - 00:53:08:16

Rebekah McKendry

And I'll give one deep cut Lady and White is a 1980s ghost film set on Halloween. It's kind of in this bucolic little, you know, it feels like Maine town. Then it's just as good, tight little ghost story that I always think of as like a tight little Halloween, genuinely scary movie.

00:53:08:16 - 00:53:40:25

Anna Zlocovic

I think I'm going to be watching The Conjuring tonight because that movie actually genuinely scares me. And no matter how many times I watch it, I'm always scared. So I'm just going to go into a genuinely scary zone tonight and do that. I also have a scary story to share in college. My freshman year at USC, I was watching The Exorcist with my roommate and we had just made smoothies and like the common area and we're like, Yeah, and I wanted to exercise and it was like Halloween around Halloween.

00:53:41:04 - 00:53:59:05

Anna Zlocovic

And we left the blender on the common room table and you know, you're living in a dorm, you leave the door open, you know, it's chill. And so we go into her room and we're watching The Exorcist and we're eating popcorn and drinking our smoothies and having a great time. And like, 10 minutes go by. And I'm like, you know what?

00:53:59:05 - 00:54:19:15

Anna Zlocovic

I need to go to the bathroom. And so I go to the bathroom and the blender has moved off the table onto the floor, and it's just on the floor. Why? We don't know. No one else was there. And we went around asking the entire dorm if anybody had been in and moved our blender. I'm sure somebody came in and moved our blender.

00:54:19:15 - 00:54:28:05

Anna Zlocovic

But to this day, we're definitely like an evil spirit that was conjured by watching The Exorcist. So that's my story there.

00:54:29:17 - 00:54:34:15

Karen Tongson 

You don't want to share which dorm is four four seaters.

00:54:34:22 - 00:54:40:14

Anna Zlocovic

Going to Humanity's Dorm Park Summit. So Parkside people are weary.

00:54:40:29 - 00:55:03:08

Karen Tongson 

Watch out tonight Parkside people. Well, we have a couple of minutes left and I just want to make sure that each of you get your parting scary thoughts out to our audience before we go. If there was one thing that you want to convey to people all about the experience of horror as a genre or in thinking about it and what, what, what, what's your big takeaway for folks today?

00:55:03:11 - 00:55:15:04

Karen Tongson 

What do you want them to remember about this, about horror when they decide to either try to re encounter it or look at it? After our discussion today. We'll start with you.

00:55:16:10 - 00:55:46:13

Leo Braudy

Well, I think part of this discussion is an interesting because we're talking about these horror films and horror literature and horror situations, horror paintings, whatever, in, you know, in the way as academics as we do, which allows us to stand back a little bit from the feelings that, in fact, these these works evoke in us, too. And I think, you know, just being able to understand how essential horror is, in fact, to, you know, to our views of the world.

00:55:46:13 - 00:56:07:18

Leo Braudy

I mean, horror, I think, was mentioned early on when we're talking about, you know, horror and religion. I think you mentioned Karen, who is very closely connected in that way. And depending on what your religious background is, it's you know, it modifies your view of horror. And you know, these are really a central feelings that you have that, you know, part of your character there are, too.

00:56:08:04 - 00:56:35:09

Leo Braudy

And, you know, by the same token, you in a more general way, I mean, what horror is about is that odd and peculiar and ambiguous line between what's alive and what's dead, what's here and what's absent there. So it's, you know, it requires a way to it as a religion. And, you know, they're almost like twins. It's a way of trying to understand the mysteries of the world and the mysteries of character.

00:56:35:17 - 00:56:43:10

Leo Braudy

So, you know, that's really new for me. And, you know, I think it continues to be fascinating. We really.

00:56:44:16 - 00:56:44:27

Karen Tongson 

Honor.

00:56:45:16 - 00:57:15:15

Anna Zlocovic

Yes. Yeah. Kind of along the same lines. You know, I think that we spend a lot of time as humans trying to avoid feeling bad or scared or just uncomfortable. And I think, Leo, you mentioned this earlier. It's kind of essential to feel those things and to learn how to process them and incorporate them into your life. And I think horror can be spiritual in that way where you're like, Oh, I'm allowed in this hour and a half to feel insane and scared and bad and good and all the things.

00:57:15:15 - 00:57:31:08

Anna Zlocovic

And, you know, I think if you're a person who's going to reopen the door to horror, that might be a nice way to look at it, where it's like, Oh, I can kind of put some of my bad feelings in here and then feel good after and use that as like a processing tool.

00:57:31:08 - 00:57:54:10

Rebekah McKendry

Yeah, continuing with that, there are now studies, books, you know, entire documentaries that link horror films to mental health that for a lot of people that it does have this incredibly positive effect that, you know, when you're looking for a way to deal with stress, to deal with, to deal with personal trauma, that there is you know, you can go punch something.

00:57:54:10 - 00:58:25:13

Rebekah McKendry

You know, some people are going to go, you know, do another hobby. And for some people, they can exercise mental demons through horror films, that are a way to kind of come to terms with things or at least lose yourself for a little bit and process what's going on. And I'd also like to say that it doesn't need to be something that you do one day a year, that it is perfectly acceptable and okay to decide that, you know, you're in the mood for a horror film in April and that it is still there for you and that there is something for everybody.

00:58:25:27 - 00:58:57:25

Karen Tongson 

Well, you all have convinced me to reevaluate my own very perverse relationship to horror as a genre and to appreciate and create anew for all of the work that it accomplishes in our culture, in our lives, with our mental health, and with the way we relate to others. So I want to wish everyone here at USC, USC Dornsife a happy Halloween once more and to thank our panelists, Leo Brody, Rebecca McKendry and Anna Slocombe.

00:58:58:14 - 00:59:08:18

Karen Tongson 

Have a wonderful day and thank you all. Thanks.