Among the most appealing elements of the horror genre is its diversity. I grow skeptical when people say they don’t like horror. I think there’s something in horror for everyone, an assertion that I hope my blog will prove, one day when I’ve been at this for a very long time. (Two weeks is hardly enough time to capture the intricacies and variety of the genre). You can, for instance, watch a mildly eerie old black and white film – maybe a Tod Browning – or watch someone’s limbs get torn off, shred by last sickening shred, in an Eli Roth film. You can read something as dark as Poe, or you can take a lighter, simpler helping of horror, say with the story “August Heat” by William Fryer Harvey. I read “August Heat,” last night, and thought it was a refreshing dose of abnormality. As a side-note, I’ve avoided major spoilers in this review. Continue reading “Warming Up to Horror? Try “August Heat””
space and place theory
A Room for Dying: Space and Place in “The Masque of the Red Death”
Because it’s Halloween, a little Poe seemed apropos. To be honest, I was looking for a short number that I could read and write about quickly before enjoying the public viewing of Psycho accompanied by the Erie Orchestra’s rendition of the original score. And, my boyfriend, Michael, and I want to go out to dinner before the movie. So here’s something quick to chew on for Halloween: Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” heightens the terrifyingly unknown nature of death by sticking death in what we can essentially call a “non-place” and inverting biblical references. Continue reading “A Room for Dying: Space and Place in “The Masque of the Red Death””
justdreadfull.com 