“A Peculiar State of Poise”: Ursula K. Le Guin’s ‘The Lathe of Heaven’
Le Guin was always ambivalent about revolution, and especially about revolutionary violence…
“It Ain’t No Man”: The Colonial Iconography of ‘Predator’
By Alex Adams
For as well as being a tremendously enjoyable sci-fi horror romp, Predator is also a novel engagement with the iconography, aesthetics, and politics associated with Cold War-era military interventions in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere…
Eaten Alive: James Herbert’s ‘Rats’ Trilogy
By M.L. Schepps
When 30-year-old ad-man James Herbert set out to write a novel, he had a simple goal in mind: “to show you what it was really like to have your leg chewed by a mutant creature.”
American Fetish Meets Pop Art: Russ Meyer’s ‘Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!’
By Sam Moore
It’s easy to spot an exploitation film by the cover of the poster or DVD. Maybe more so than any other type of art, you can judge it by its cover: a woman, often barely dressed, holding some kind of weapon. Think Pam Grier on the cover of Coffy or Foxy Brown…
The Thrill Is Worth the Pain: Hell and Survival in Dio’s ‘The Last in Line’
The first music videos to air on MTV and broadcast television were chaotic blurts of arty nonsense defined by pastel colors, cheesy dance party theatrics, and avant-garde visual effects…
Hell Is for Children: The Revolutionary Politics of ‘The Omen’
The Omen is generally considered a bleak film because the devil wins. But it’s even bleaker as a picture of who the devil is supposed to be, and what kind of measures are needed to defeat him…
Tubular Terrors: ‘Invitation to Hell’
Invitation to Hell definitely follows on well-trod thematic ground, examining the American nuclear family’s impulse to conform and keep up with the Joneses in suburbia. But it’s on the execution, in the casting, and in a few of the left-field plot developments that the film really shines…
Tubular Terrors: ‘Cruise Into Terror’
By K.E. Roberts
World-weary Captain Andrews (Hugh O’Brian) never smiles, but he is especially not smiling today. The company’s luxury liner was overbooked, you see, and he’s been ordered to take eight passengers 800 miles to Mexico on a busted up “battle wagon” (in fact a midsized pleasure boat decorated with ferns)…
Tubular Terrors: ‘The House That Bled to Death’ and ‘Snowbeast’
Apologies in advance to any fellow child of the UK who might be reading this, because for a Brit of my generation, choosing The House That Bled to Death as exemplar of British TV horror is a bit like announcing that your favorite novel is Moby Dick or your favorite food is pizza…
Dead Shells and Black Plaques: ‘The English Heretic Collection’
Using as its inspiration English Heritage, who preserve the very bones and sinews of English feudal hierarchy in the form of the nation’s stately homes and historical sites, Sharp’s English Heretic project seeks to détourne these edifices of authority…
We Are the Mutants 