The Horror Pod Class: Season 3 Episode 13: Black Christmas and Subtext
Welcome to the Junior Year Episode 13 of the Horror Pod Class. Today we will start off by discussing what we are excited about, highlight some free horror content on the internet, and conclude with an in-depth look at the old and new Black Christmas. What have you been reading or watching Orrin
Orrin: I just started reading Junji Ito’s adaptation of No Longer Human, a novel by Osamu Dazai. So far I’m only about halfway through, but it’s a really interesting fusion of Ito’s signature style with a more naturalistic or “literary” type of novel. Also, on the subject of manga, Gou Tanabe’s adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness is just fantastic and cinematic in all the best ways.
Tyler: Knives and Skin (def not my thing) The Outsider Premiers January 12th.
Dark Corners of the Web:
Pseudopod Gwendolyn Kiste’s The Women Out of the Attic
Housekeeping: Deep Cuts Horror Trivia Stephen King edition on December 27th @ 7 PM at The Big Rip and Dark City at Screenland Tapcade on Saturday the 28th. If you want to email us feel free to email tyler@signalhorizon.com or join our Facebook group The Horror Pod Class
Essential Question: What role does Subtext play in the original Black Christmas and what kind of subtext exists in the new one.
Rotten Tomatoes Summaries of Each
1974-Black Christmas is an effective, frightening above average slasher movie with a good cast and a frightening, surprise ending. Barb (Margot Kidder) and Jess (Olivia Hussey) are lonely sorority sisters who are having a Christmas party in their sorority house during the Christmas break. Peter (Keir Dullea) is a mad-killer who terrorizes the women by making threatening telephone calls. As the body count mounts, the women realize that the killer may be in the house. Black Christmas, one of the first of the slasher pictures, is still frightening despite some plot devices which have now become standard and predictable.
We aren’t going to talk much about the 2006 movie as its 14% on RT and I haven’t seen it. LOL
2019-Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. But as Riley Stone (Imogen Poots, Green Room) and her Mu Kappa Epsilon sisters–athlete Marty (Lily Donoghue, The CW’s Jane the Virgin), rebel Kris (Aleyse Shannon, The CW’s Charmed), and foodie Jesse (Brittany O’Grady, Fox’s Star)–prepare to deck the halls with a series of seasonal parties, a black-masked stalker begins killing sorority women one by one. As the body count rises, Riley and her squad start to question whether they can trust any man, including Marty’s beta-male boyfriend, Nate (Simon Mead, Same But Different: A True New Zealand Love Story), Riley’s new crush Landon (Caleb Eberhardt, Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle) or even esteemed classics instructor Professor Gelson (Cary Elwes). Whoever the killer is, he’s about to discover that this generation’s young women aren’t about to be anybody’s victims.
Where is the Beef
What I love about directors from the 70s and 80s is that they had no political ax to grind, no message, no social justification for horror. It was just “get a load of this great story.” I don’t wanna be told how to watch a movie. @Shudder@kinky_horrorhttps://t.co/cSaGAgTJuI
— Joe Bob Briggs (@therealjoebob) November 27, 2019
A new segment where Orrin and I try to explain exactly what happened on twitter – please tell me we don’t always have to explain what happened on Twitter!
What is Subtext: The subtext is the unspoken or less obvious meaning or message in a literary composition, drama, speech, or conversation. The subtext comes to be known by the reader or audience over time, as it is not immediately or purposefully revealed by the story itself.
4 Types of Subtext
- Privilege Subtext: Audience knows something characters don’t
- Revelation Subtext (This is more horror based) The answers are revealed over time.
- Subtext through promise: Audience Expects the movie to do certain things.
- Subtext through questions: Presenting questions about characters and answering them.
Subtext vs. Implicit Text any connection to “Elevated Horror”
Toxic Masculinity- Sexual Conquest as Masculine
Anonymous Amazon User Leaves a One Star Review: The movie begins with the camera focusing on the five-pointed stars on the building and on the building number which is 6. Put the 2 stars and the number together and what do you get? The movie also gave screen time to drunkenness, sexual graphics and expressions. The sicko in the film speaks in different nerve-racking voices; so, you also have possession in this freak flick.
Where can they find more of your stuff Orrin: @Orringrey on twitter.
You can find more of my work on Signal Horizon dot com or follow me on twitter @tyunsell. We would love to thank Caleb Fankhauser who produced our intro and outro music and Grave Roberts who continues to design for us. Including some really cool art for our Journal of Black Ivy original fiction. You can find him over at Grave Roberts on Facebook or Toxotica.com
Next episode of HPC we are talking the evolution of the haunted book and the Carpenter classic In the Mouth of Madness
Tyler has been the editor in chief of Signal Horizon since its conception. He is also the Director of Monsters 101 at Truman State University a class that pairs horror movie criticism with survival skills to help middle and high school students learn critical thinking. When he is not watching, teaching or thinking about horror he is the Director of Debate and Forensics at a high school in Kansas City, Missouri.
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