Back in February 2011, Danny Boyle’s production of Nick Dear’s drama Frankenstein at the National Theatre was one of the hottest tickets on the London stage. While there’s no doubt that the involvement of the 28 Days Later and Slumdog ...
Read More »Science and the Supernatural
Human beings generally tend to view science and the supernatural as oppositional forces: the bright light of rationalism forever struggling against the darkness of outmoded superstition. However, in the nineteenth century, as new technological developments and the accelerated pace of ...
Read More »Home Haunters: The Working Class Heroes of Halloween
Every neighborhood has one. That guy with the mismatched porch furniture and the occasional broken toilet adorning the weed garden, the overgrown foliage that probably isn’t even native to the area, and the stolen street signs leaning up against the ...
Read More »Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm?
At the very height of the carnage of world War Two, some lads were out illicitly searching for birds eggs to eek out their meagre wartime diet on a private estate in the English Midlands. What they found when investigating ...
Read More »Harlan Ellison Was Watching: A Tribute by Brad Gullickson
I never met Harlan Ellison, but I did fall victim to his wrath. Many times, the first of which occurred when he screamed at me through the television set. From 1993-1996, the Sci-Fi Channel’s Sci-Fi Buzz concluded its program with a ...
Read More »Moral Kombat: A Brief History of Controversial Horror Games
Horror is synonymous with controversy no matter which medium it’s operating in. Some people consider the violent and disturbing content harmful and problematic, as history has shown time and time again with incidents like the ‘video nasty’ craze and the ...
Read More »Blood on the Footlights: Horror and The Stage
I’ve never enjoyed fake haunted houses, the haunted attraction. You know the kind. The ones where you stand for hours to be guided through a corridor of hallways as ghastly puppets, actors, and props come flying at your face. As ...
Read More »Legacies of Sade: Man Ray’s Imaginary Portraits
“Sade is surrealist in sadism.” —André Breton The legacy of the Marquis de Sade can be felt strongly in the 20th century, largely because of the efforts of the French Surrealists in the ‘20s and ‘30s: writers and artists like ...
Read More »Jack Webb: The Lost Visionary and the Birth of the Television Police Drama with ‘Dragnet’
Jack Webb is as important to television drama as anyone who has ever lived. Working mostly in the period we might refer to as “classic television,” or the Golden Age, he should be held in as high regard as Rod ...
Read More »Victorian Penny Gaffs: Crime, Horror, and Murder
Sweeney Todd, the tale of a throat-slitting London barber who turned his murdered clients into human meat pies for public consumption, is now known as a famous musical with several film adaptations, but it is really the surviving relic of ...
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