All The Horror

A blog about horror novels, games, shows, and movies.

Horror movie history – “Wasteland: The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror” (Counterpoint, 2018) – W. Scott Poole interview

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Scott Poole is a professor of history in American pop and folk culture with a heavy emphasis on horror studies. We talked about his latest book that examines the effect World War One had on horror movies.

0:56 – Scot talks about how he got into studying horror.

2:58 – Scott talks about the book and how World War One changed horror literature and stories.

9:58 – Scott talks about directors and creators who delved into horror.

12:45 – Scott talks about how Franz Kafka is associated with horror.

16:03 – Scott talks about the occult, horror and the Great War.

22:57 – Scott talks about French author Celine’s affect on horror.

25:33 – Scott talks about the death of animals affected horror.

28:34 – Scott talks about how he found old horror films and war footage.

35:30 – Scott talks about comedy in early horror.

38:39 – Scott talks about the great emotional difficulty he had in writing this book.

43:11 – Scott talks about an interesting discovery he made about Bela Lugosi.

53:04 – Scott tweets @monstersamerica.

For more of “The Art and Design of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Mystery and Horror” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

Guests: Scott Poole

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: horror, movies, literature, Kafka, Lovecraft, Peter Lorre, Bela Lugosi, World War One, The Great War, Celine, movie directors, Nazis, occult

Frankenstein art – “It’s Alive!” (GILES, 2018) – Elizabeth Denlinger interview

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Liz Denlinger co-curates the Shelley collection of the New York Public Library system. She has helped develop a new exhibition on Frankenstein and has put together a visual history of Frankenstein for it. We discuss the book and the exhibit.

[Note: About 38:25, I mentioned that lobby cards did not get copyright protection in the past. Of course this is for a specific date range and that rule likely has changed.]

1:13 – Liz talks about how she started studying the Shelley’s and Frankenstein.

3:14 – Liz talks about the book and how she collected the art for the book. She considered how Frankenstein looks in the book versus how he was shown on stage or screen.

8:41 – Liz talks about Mary Shelley’s exposure to the Gothic prior to writing Frankenstein.

10:52 – Liz talks about some of the images she finds the most noteworthy.

13:26 – Liz talks about elements you often find in both Gothic art and depictions of Frankenstein.

20:05 – Liz talks about how they found their images for the exhibit and book.

23:19 – Liz about the collections that were the most fun to look through for this research.

25:00 – People during Mary Shelley’s time liked spooky stuff as much as they do now.

27:10 – The American and French Revolutions inspired gothic fears among the British.

36:00 – Liz talks about what the exhibit will have.

40:10 – The exhibiton information can be found by googling “It’s Alive Morgan.”

 

For more of “The Art and Design of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Mystery and Horror” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

 

Guests: Elizabeth Denlinger

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: science fiction, art, gothic, frankenstein, shelley, new york public library, monsters

Argentine Horror Films – “Blood Circuits” (SUNY Press, 2018) – Jonathan Risner interview

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Jonathan Risner is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Indiana University Bloomington. He discovered Argentine horror and wondered how much of the country’s brutal dictatorship impacted that country’s horror films. We discuss his book on the topic.

1:27 – Jonathan talks about how he got into studying and writing about Argentinian horror cinema. He wondered if an Argentinian horror film could be made without referencing the brutality of the dictatorship in that country.

4:43 – Jonathan then talks about how he turned his dissertation into the book. He included new Argentinian films that have come out since 2012.   There’s not a tradition of Argentine horror cinema. Horror most often associated with other countries. Lots of people have started making great low budget horror films in Argentina.

14:00 – Since independence, Argentinian films have sort of shown a tension between city and country.

15:45 – He also looks at films that are done with English dialogue. These films are often designed to break into the US B-movie market.

19:08 – Another book chapter is on punk horror cinema that is supposed to be purposefully offensive.

21:45 – The dictatorship was dealt with on screen with melodramas and documentaries. A new generation of film makers are using horror to deal with it.

23:45 – The book has a filmography with associated US distributors and youtube links.

30:00 – Argentine horror film is not coherent. There is no stylistic thread through them.

33:00 – Jonathan interviewed a psychoanalyst who had been a college student during the dictatorship and he began crying. That was a moving moment for Jonathon.

41:45 – Jonathan joked about how hard it was to get good punk horror film stills because the film quality is poor, not corporate punk, he joked.

42:45 – He had to mix comedies with the horror films because it got tough to watch so much brutal horror.

45:56 – People can find the book and read the first chapter on the SUNY Press website.

Links of interest

SUNY Press Blood Circuits page

For more of “The Art and Design of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Mystery and Horror” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

Guests: Jonathan Risner

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: horror, films, Argentina, big-budget, interview, punk horror, dictatorship, memory, psychoanalysis