Cult Conversations: Interview with Robin Means Coleman (Pt.II)

You also state that the horror genre has at times been “marred by its ‘B-Movie,’ low budget and/ or exploitation reputation.” Are you arguing that it is this reputation that has marred the genre by way of critical disparagement; or that B-Movie, low budget, exploitation cinema is disreputable or lacking in quality?

I want to emphasize the word “reputation” in your question and, earlier, I talked about horror’s B-movie “stereotype.” My point is that I do not want people to think that horror is fixed in some low quality purgatory. Certainly, there are horror films that are dreadful, or are a mixed bag in terms of quality of script and production. More, once the direct-to-video age hit, the format afforded an influx of movies that would never be ready for big screen primetime. I get that. However, the genre does seem to be excommunicated in ways that other genres are completely taken down. Honestly, we live in a world where Adam Sandler’s Billy Madison (1995), Will Ferrell’s Bewitched (2005), and just about anything with Marlon Wayans in it is not tanking the entire comedy genre.

Look, what I believe is that we are retroactively repudiating an entire genre when we did not always believe horror was wholesale objectionable. Are we really prepared to write off Universal Pictures’ horror films—The Mummy (1932), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Frankenstein (1931), The Invisible Man (1933)… of course not. So perhaps, just perhaps, a snobbery around horror is more recent. Maybe it was the 1970s splatter and 1980s torture films that we are thinking of when we reject horror. This is a snobbery that is marked by who is making the movie and what kind of stories are being told. That is why knowing a more complete history of the genre is so important.

In your book on Horror Noire you state, “there are a great many horror films that contribute to the conversation of Blackness,” while at the same time, Steven Torriano Berry explains in his foreword that, like Hollywood fare in general terms, Black characters were often the first to die—if they were included at all. Can you explain the way in which the horror genre has historically contributed to “the conversation of Blackness”?

In the book, my particular interest is in horror films that focus on Blackness—Black horror films like Def by Temptation or The Blood of Jesus. And, I talk about horror films that have Black people in it, but whose focus is not especially on Black lives and histories, films like Angel Heart or The Serpent and the Rainbow. I write that these two approaches offer up “an extraordinary opportunity for an examination into how race, racial identities, and race relationships are constructed and depicted.” More, I assert, “certainly horror has always been attentive to social problems in rather provocative ways.” (p. 8). On the whole, I argue that horror is the ideal genre for digging into narratives of American social politics, identity formation, understandings of race, and ideology-making. The book is Du Boisian in that it is informed by his interest in the “strange meaning of being Black” in America.

One way to think about the “strange meaning of being Black” is to understand that Black characters do not always die first in horror movies, and why they don’t. In ‘Blacks in horror films’ (not to be confused with ‘Black horror films’), Black people often serve a particular purpose. They are brought in to reinforce stereotypes of menace, monstrosity, uninhibited violence, and abject deviance. So, if, say, a White anti/hero shows up and vanquishes the Big Black Boogeyman, then what does that say about Blackness and Whiteness? Now, when a real monster hits the scene—an alien, a mutated animal, a zombie—how do we feel about the odds of Whiteness and its superiority? That—setting up Blackness as fearsome, but then destroyed—is truly the strange meaning of being Black in horror films.

The phenomenal critical and commercial success of Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017) seems to represent a significant shift in the politics of Hollywood cinema, a film that operates as “a searing, satirical critique of systemic racism,” as Ricardo Lopez of Variety put it. At the same time, however, “systemic racism” clearly remains an enormous issue in the United States—and elsewhere, of course—with the Black Lives Matter movement being an example of Civil Rights activism in the 21st Century. What do you think about the way in which films, such as Get Out, are critically celebrated and championed by entertainment critics (and audiences), while systemic racism seems to be growing in the real, non-fictional world. What do you think about the relationship between Get Out and the way that the radical right has swiftly grown into a political powerhouse? Do you think that the success of Get Out works ideologically to persuade audiences that systemic racism in the 21st century is not as serious as press discourses would have us believe? Or do you think the film promotes a more progressive, positive message?   

Get Out is far from the first horror film to address civil rights, race, and racism. To say that is to turn a blind eye to the 1970s-- an entire decade of Black movie-making that spoke directly to White supremacy, exploitation, classism, and discrimination. To say that is to erase the art of Bill Gunn, Melvin Van Peebles, Ivan Dixon, Ossie Davis, D’Urville Martin, Gordan Parks…

MARIO VAN PEEBLES

But, I understand how people today could think that only Get Out could have something to say about the issues that Black Lives Matters works to intervene on, or that systemic racism seems to be “growing.” These issues are 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st century issues, and Black popular culture has always had something to say about them. When Jordan Peele says that his primary inspiration for Get Out—a film about liberal racism-- is Rosemary’s Baby, I suspect Gordan Parks, Jr. is rolling over in his grave. Parks’ stories of Black genocide weren’t really any more fantastic than that which Get Out is premised on. More, if you know anything about film, you know that these stories about racism have been taken up for years in an attempt to talk back at an ever persistent systemic racism. Get Out stands on the shoulders of Sugar Hill, Three the Hard Way, and JD’s Revenge, whether it wants to admit it or not. But failing to acknowledge this history leaves people to think that Get Out is the most powerful anti-racism voice when, in fact, Black filmmakers have been shouting for more than a century (think: Oscar Micheaux). It is only now that the mainstream is really paying attention our voices.

Don’t get me wrong. Get Out is a brilliant film, and one of my favorites. But, I wonder what the trade-off is to, in some measure, erase Blackness for audiences to attend to Blackness. Take Peele’s movie Us (2019). Peele has been insistent that the movie is not about race. What?! There is no film ever made that is not about race. Rosemary’s Baby is about White people. The Exorcist is about White people. Silence of the Lambs is about White people. Christine is about a White kid and his evil car. Poltergeist is about a White family in their haunted White suburban enclave. Us is about a Black family. It sees Blackness, as revealed by the use of Luniz’s I Got 5 on It as the soundtrack to a lesson on keeping a beat and catching rhythm.

So, Us, like Get Out is likely going to work progressively. Our road there will be a bit more direct with a Peele offering a clearer message about the ideological work his films do.

 Writing for the BBC, Nicolas Barber asks if “horror is the most disrespected genre.” Do you agree that this is the case? 

I hate to be contrary but, honestly, I am growing weary of this line of inquiry around horror.  It comes up so often. Every single popular article starts with this narrative of horror-as-stigma. Every interview I participate in—except when interviewed for horror magazines, interestingly enough--starts here. Questions about ‘how did you become a horror fan?’ really seem to be asking, ‘just how did you get into this screwy genre? What the heck went wrong in your childhood?’ Good grief.

Maybe at this point, horror is a disrespected genre because we have not figured out how to write about it with more regard and in less pedantic ‘define the genre and account for its low budget and exploitation’ ways. Horror does not need mainstream approval, and in some ways benefits without it. Mainstream horror gives us dreck like The Mummy (2017) starring Tom Cruise. Outside of so-called “elevated” horror you get smart, interesting scares like It Follows (2014).

Get Out has been viewed as one of the films that are spearheading a “new Golden Age of Horror,” and that the genre is undergoing a “renaissance,” or “resurgence.” What do you think about these claims? Are we currently experiencing a ‘New Golden Age of Horror’? Is contemporary horror cinema underpinned by a radical shift in recent years?

So, are we in the middle of a horror renaissance? Has Get Out (2017), A Quiet Place (2018), and The Babadook (2014) marked a new golden age? This point from the BBC article what merits our attention, as it is right:

But, Anne Billson, a novelist and critic, summed up those fans’ feelings in a tweet: “Whenever a horror movie makes a splash... there is invariably an article calling it ‘smart’ or ‘elevated’ or ‘art house’ horror. They hate horror SO MUCH they have to frame its hits as something else.”

So sure, these horror films give us a reprieve from the Saw, Hostel, Human Centipede torture porn and grossness of the horror world. They are less gory, smarter, and more palatable. They also have better budgets, celebrity power, and distribution behind them. They succeed because care has been taken to invest in their success. Their mainstream popularity sets them apart. If that is the definition of “renaissance” then yes, we are in one. But, I watched over 3000 horror films to write Horror Noire, films that became cult classics, films that spawned sequel after sequel, and films that captured the pulse of social movements. While, I argue in the book, that the horror films’ foci shifted from decade to decade, they were always here.

They will always be here.

And finally, what are your five favourite horror films, and why?

This is one of my favorite questions!

Get Out (2017)

This is a horror film that is not as fantastical as one might imagine. When Chris meets Rose’s family for the first time, especially her father, Dean, the film perfectly captures the toxicity of White-savior liberalism. What I love most about the film is how it lays bare suburban horrors while revealing the love, beauty, and strong community of the urban.

Dog Soldiers (2002)

So, this is not  a Black horror film, but I could watch this movie-turned-cult classic all day, every day. It is about a squad of British soldiers who find themselves in trapped in the highlands of Scotland battling werewolves. This movie is about 100 minutes, and it accomplishes so much with back story, character development, tension, and humor. The cast is amazing: Sean Pertwee (Gotham, 2014-), Kevin McKidd (Trainspotting, 1996), and Darren Morfitt (Doctor Who, 2010). It first premiered on the Sci Fi channel, and I was not impressed. I did not know then that they had edited the life out of the film, stomping it into the ground until it was a dry, unimaginative mess. Later, I saw the original cut on DVD, and I was stunned. Neil Marshall had written and directed a masterpiece, a real imaginative take on the werewolf genre. The movie won a few film awards, and fans have been anxiously waiting for years for a promised follow-up movie (that might never materialize).

Def by Temptation (1990)

If you are studying Black horror, this is a must-see film. Its writer, director, and producer is Black—James Bond III. The all-star cast is Black—Samuel L. Jackson, Kadeem Hardison, Bill Nunn, and Bond. There are  cameos by jazz saxophonist Najee and singer/actress Melba Moore. Even Ernest Dickerson the famed (Dexter, Day of the Dead, The Wire, Malcolm X) cinematographer and director is doing his cinematography magic. And, the story is squarely centered on Black life (north versus south) and Black religious (sin and salvation). What I think is really cool is that one of the heros in the film is Bible-toting “Grandma.” These days teen stars are cast in films, and I love that an elderly Black woman is a scene stealer.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

I came for the glimpses of Pittsburgh and the zombies. I saw a brilliant, gorgeous, commanding, heroic Black man in Ben. Ben completely shattered representations of docility that had been previously assigned to Black men. This movie also shook me. I think Night marked the beginning of the end of my childhood— Ben is such a perfectly complex and human representation who is also an innocent. To have a Black man win, and then have that snatched away through a lynching. My God! It tears at my soul even today.

Chloe, Love is Calling You (1934)

I like this film so much that I have written about it. The film focuses on a Black character, Mandy, who gives this racist, White family hell for lynching her husband, Sam. It’s a 1934 film, and we are supposed to read Mandy as irredeemably evil. Mandy, even cross-dresses as Baron Samedi a loa of Haitian Vodou. And still she lives! She’s a totally unexpected Final Girl.

Professor Robin R. Means Coleman is Vice President and Associate Provost for Diversity and a Professor in the Department of Communication at Texas A&M University. A nationally prominent and award-winning professor of communication and African American studies, Prof. Coleman’s scholarship focuses on media studies and the cultural politics of Blackness. She is the author of Horror Noire:  Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present (2011, Routledge) and African-American Viewers and the Black Situation Comedy: Situating Racial Humor (2000, Routledge).  Prof. Coleman is co-author of Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life (2014, Wiley-Blackwell), the editor of Say It Loud! African American Audiences, Media, and Identity (2002, Routledge), and co-editor of Fight the Power!  The Spike Lee Reader (2008, Peter Lang). She is also the author of a number of other academic and popular publications. Her research and commentary has been featured in a variety of international and national media outlets. Prof. Coleman’s current research focuses on the NAACP’s participation in media activism.

Cult Conversations: Interview with Robin Means Coleman (Pt.I)

With the release and enormous success of Jordan Peele’s Get Out in 2017, the politics of race has become a hot topic—and rightly so! It is with this in mind that Professor Robin Means Coleman’s Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to the Present came highly recommended—by David Church, no less. I cannot urge interested scholars to seek out this monograph enough, be in in the field of horror studies, critical race theory, sociology, or film and media studies more generally. Professor Coleman has had quite the eclectic career, writing on Black comedy, Spike Lee, and African American audiences, among other subjects, for the best part of two decades at this point. In the following interview, Professor Coleman and I delve into her own aca-fandom and the politics of the horror genre. But firstly, make sure you head off to your digital shopping mall to pick up Horror Noire! I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Also, Robin has a new documentary film, also called Horror Noire, coming to Shudder worldwide on February 7th 2019. During the first week of February, there will be a Hollywood premiere event with the following guests: "Discussion following with Ashlee Blackwell (co-writer/producer), Xavier Burgin (director), Tananarive Due (executive producer), Tony Todd (actor, CANDYMAN), William Crain (director, BLACULA), Ken Foree (actor, DAWN OF THE DEAD), Keith David (actor, THE THING). Moderated by Lisa Bolekaja."

Check out the trailer here.

—-William Proctor

Would you identify as a fan of the horror genre in general terms?

In 1998, I published my first book, African American Views and the Black Situation Comedy: Situating Racial Humor, which did not just focus on situation comedies, but on Black situation comedies. In 2011, I published my fourth book, Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present, which did not just focus on horror films, but on Black horror films. Fandom certainly brings me to the genres that I study. However, I give these genres precious attention because I believe they are important—a move of scholarly activism—to recuperate these purported ‘bad’ objects that set its sights on Blackness, and do so in an entertaining way. I want to remind scholars that the Black sitcom Roc (1991-1994) is just as socio-politically insightful as All in the Family (1971-1979). I want to remind scholars that the Black horror film Def by Temptation (1990) is just as gleefully spooky, wrapped up in a ‘how are we living our lives’ message, as A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). In my work, I give prominence to Blackness because naming a thing need not be bad, and invisibility of history, culture, and experience gets us nowhere. It also helps a great deal that I am more than a fan; I am someone who truly respects (and can ably engage in critique of) genres like Black horror.

Did your journey into horror begin as a fan or as an academic?

Fandom came first. The academic focus followed.

I happily lay my interest in horror and science fiction at the feet of Bill ‘Chilly Billy” Cardille. William Robert Cardille (1928-2016) was born, raised, and worked as a TV and radio broadcaster in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I, too, was born and raised in Pittsburgh, and I grew up on a healthy diet of Bill Cardille’s programming—I remember him as our weather announcer and for three decades he was a host on the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association Labor Day Telethon. He started at WIIC-TV (Channel 11) in Pittsburgh in 1957, more than ten year before I was born. In 1964, he began hosting his most popular program Chiller Theater, and was dubbed “Chilly Billy.” Late on Saturday nights, around 11:30pm, Chilly Billy would come on and show a double or even a triple feature—something like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), followed by Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) or Bride of Frankenstein (1935), A Study in Terror (1965), and The Raven (1935). I would ask my mother to fry up a batch of chicken livers and bake a chocolate cake—hey, this is what I liked as kid!—and we would lay across her bed, eat cake and livers, and watch Chiller Theater until I could no longer keep my eyes open.

Today, reflecting back, I have come to understand two things about that experience. First, I really liked Chilly Billy’s style of hosting Chiller Theater. He was himself. He did not dress up in some vampire costume and make-up to host the show. He wore a suit and tie, just as he did when delivering the news or weather. He was himself, affable and informed. That brought a respectability to the genre that I know now deeply influenced me. Second, it informed my taste in the kind of horror that I like to watch and study. Chiller Theater goes off the air on New Year’s Eve in 1983 just as slasher and torture porn horror is really taking hold. The 1980s was the era of “video nasties,” as they were called in the UK. I could not imagine the homey Bill Cardille bringing these particular kinds of movies to audiences on broadcast television. Black horror movies, for the most part, are not wall-to-wall splatter. They are story-driven and sociopolitically-driven, like a Get Out (2017). They typically are not propelled by gore. I love studying those kinds of narratives; I guess that is the Chilly Billy in me.

I often tell people that writing about Black horror began as a sort of birth right. As I said, I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which was also home to George Night of the Living Dead Romero. That is pretty cool—Bill Cardille and George Romero! Romero filmed the seminal, now cult classic zombie horror film Night of the Living Dead (1968) around the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, and even featured local Pittsburgh personalities in the film. So, here is the connection: George Romero casts Bill Cardille to do a cameo as himself, a reporter, in Night of the Living Dead. Cardille shows up on set in his WIIC-TV station wagon. More, since Romero shot Night in real communities, using real locals, they came out to see Cardille; they recognize him. In the movie, Cardille does a real interview about a fiction. He very seriously interviews a Sheriff McClelland, played by an actor, about the rising zombies, “Chief, if I were surrounded by eight or ten of these things, would I stand a chance?”

Later in my life, when I would go shopping in the Pittsburgh-area shopping mall, Monroeville Mall (or ‘the Mall’ as we called it back in the day), I was keenly aware that I was quite literally walking in the footsteps of George Romero. The Mall was the mundane-turned-terrifying claustrophobic centrepiece of Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1979).

In Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from 1890s to the Present, you argue: “the boundary-pushing genre of the horror film has always been a site for provocative explorations of race in American popular culture.” Historically, the horror genre has often been critically excoriated for reactionary politics, while in recent years there has seemed to be a shift. Given the broad reach of your book in historical terms, what have you found out about these “provocative explorations”? How might you describe Horror Noire for readers unfamiliar with your work? 

Actually, I did not know that the horror genre has been excoriated for reactionary politics! In fact, I am not entirely sure what this means. Is the claim that horror throws us into some kind of horrid cycle where some good thing happens, but the genre reacts in a way that is so contrary that it impedes true progress of that good thing? And, this view is reserved for the horror genre? That’s a no for me dawg.

My view of the genre is absolutely the opposite: as one of the most innovative, unrestricted genres it is able to be brave and take the most perilous risks in exploring social, cultural, political, and identity topics. It challenges the status quo, exposes the limits of normativity, and makes us question our blind investment in concepts that we accept as common sense.

Let me be clear about horror being an “unrestricted genre.” Horror is not bound by some respectability expectations. Horror movies are not released during Oscar season in the hope they will garner the approval and acclaim of critics. They are not Oscar bait films like those period dramas put out by the Weinstein Company like The Kings Speech (2010), The Butler (2013), or The Imitation Game (2014). My point, horror is free. It is liberated from the confines of being an “epic.” Though, sometimes horror sheds its B-movie stereotype to capture the imagination of the industry—think The Silence of the Lambs (1991) or The Exorcist (1973).

The horror genre is daring pedagogy. It is like a syllabus of our social world. You want a complex study in racism and location (urban vs suburban), watch Get Out (2017). You want to interrogate police brutality, the carceral state, and a person’s breaking point, watch Soul Vengeance (1975). You want morality tales, check out The Blood of Jesus (1941). Dawn of the Dead (1978) provides critiques of conspicuous consumption. Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973) rejects the stereotypical portrayals of voo doo.

This does not mean that horror always gets things right. The tightly scripted morality tale Def by Temptation (1990) has so much going for it, but it is deeply problematic in its treatment of  queer identities. JD’s Revenge (1976) also presents a high quality script, but propagates domestic violence.

I do not see provocative explorations as a recent phenomenon; rather, I see this in horror’s very DNA. One simply has to see it. For example, when, in 1896, George Méliès conjures up demons, skeletons, ghosts, and witches before they are vanquished in the shadow of a crucifix in his short film “Le Manoir du Diable” (“The Haunted Castle”), Méliès is not simply entertaining us, he is challenging us to come to terms with the intersections of our imagination and Judeo-Christian belief systems.

Professor Robin R. Means Coleman is Vice President and Associate Provost for Diversity and a Professor in the Department of Communication at Texas A&M University. A nationally prominent and award-winning professor of communication and African American studies, Prof. Coleman’s scholarship focuses on media studies and the cultural politics of Blackness. She is the author of Horror Noire:  Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present (2011, Routledge) and African-American Viewers and the Black Situation Comedy: Situating Racial Humor (2000, Routledge).  Prof. Coleman is co-author of Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life (2014, Wiley-Blackwell), the editor of Say It Loud! African American Audiences, Media, and Identity (2002, Routledge), and co-editor of Fight the Power!  The Spike Lee Reader (2008, Peter Lang). She is also the author of a number of other academic and popular publications. Her research and commentary has been featured in a variety of international and national media outlets. Prof. Coleman’s current research focuses on the NAACP’s participation in media activism.

Cult Conversations: Interview with Steve Jones (Part II)

Can you expand on your point that “we also don’t really need political reality represented via horror right now”? Don’t you think that cinema could, and should, critique the current political landscape?

I was being facetious, implying that our current political reality is horrific enough without the need to exaggerate it via horror’s lens. Filmmakers can certainly critique the current political landscape (and here I'm talking about capital-P Politics). That said, there has to be a purpose. Typically, horror filmmakers don’t make films as forms of activism, but instead opt for critique, satire, and consciousness-raising from a broadly leftist political perspective. Those forms are much more pertinent at moments when there is a lack of such discourse. Horror can articulate and illuminate a minority viewpoint, for instance, or make strange that which has become commonplace. Making an anti-Brexit movie in the current climate seems ineffective insofar as that view is the leftist status quo. To illustrate – and my thanks to Victoria McCollum for pointing this out on Twitter – Nick Pinkerton’s review for The First Purge in (Sight and Sound) puts it this way: "The First Purge has things to say about contemporary America, but who doesn't? And who cares, if it only has another pathetic yowl to add to the din?".

What ‘hidden gems’ have you discovered on DTV or streaming services? And what indie horror films would you recommend to readers?

I was really impressed with Malady (2015), Circle (2015), and Coherence (2013), all of which are underpinned by smart ideas and make great use of limited locations. Eat (2014) and Excision (2012) have been criminally overlooked. Shudder released Dearest Sister (2016), which I'd been dying to see (I contributed to its Indiegogo campaign). This isn’t horror, but I buy anything that Third Window Films release. They have a fantastic eye for quirky drama.

One difficulty I have here is that I wouldn’t necessarily recommend some films. I found both Landmine Goes Click (2015) and Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015) effective, but I suspect that many readers would find them unappealing or even objectionable because they are (intentionally) uncomfortable to sit through. The same goes for Unearthed Films’ releases. They are highly reliable in their niche and I regularly buy from them, but I wouldn’t generally recommend a film like Flowers (2015) per se.

You mention the term ‘micro-budget,’ a concept that has been gaining traction in recent years, much of which is attributed to the phenomenal success of Blumhouse Production. Is there a difference between low-budget and micro-budget, do you think? Or is micro-budget a signifier of a different economic model? Press discourse seems to emphasize that Blumhouse are doing something ‘new,’ with producers, such as Platinum Dune’s Brad Fuller, making claims about Blum’s ‘five-million dollar model’ as relatively recent. With horror generally being ‘cheap’ to make, as you suggested earlier, what marks out micro-budget horror from other low-budget examples from the genre. After all, eighties ‘slasher’ franchises, such as Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th, were all low-budget films in comparison to the blockbuster tradition.

As you suggest, these distinctions are not well established and the lines are blurry. To give ballpark figures (and I'm pulling these out of the air), I'd consider anything between say $3-$10m low budget, anything under about $3m to be ultra-low budget, and anything $500k and below to be microbudget. Those are just rough brackets, but it gives you a sense of the kinds of films I'm referring to. The term ‘micro-budget’ has gained traction as so many more features can be made for so little thanks to affordable digital cameras and pretty decent low-cost editing software. Many of micro-budget horror features are funded by crowdfunding campaigns, typically made on budgets of $10k-$25k. Some are even lower than that: Amateur Porn Star Killer was reputedly made for $45 according to its director. Films like that tend to be passion projects (otherwise they wouldn’t get made), and I find that dedication infectious.

It is interesting that you equate micro-budget with $500K and below. The current popularity of Blumhouse films, and discourses surrounding Jason Blum’s economic model, unequivocally put the micro-budget finances in the £5million range. As you said, these commercial distinctions are blurry. Perhaps micro-budget is in a higher range than low budget, more akin to mid-budget? Or do you see the term as more of a discursive marketing instrument than a legitimate descriptor? How do you think scholars might address these economic concepts in more cohesive ways? 

 The issue may stem from a broader reluctance to engage with very cheaply made films. The press certainly might consider $5m a miniscule budget, but press critics almost exclusively focus on theatrical releases. A film made for $25k might screen at specialist festivals, but it is unlikely to make it into the multiplex. Academia fosters similar biases towards larger-scale releases. It is challenging writing about films with such small budgets because, without the broader marketing that larger budgets allow, such films remain relatively obscure. Demonstrating the significance of such films to peer reviewers is hard when they haven’t previously heard of a film or think that discussion of such films would not appeal to a broader readership. Consequently, it is difficult to publish on such films, and so they remain undocumented in the academy, and so the discourse regarding budgets remains unchallenged, and so it goes.

It seems vitally important to me to distinguish between a film made for less than $500k and a film made for $5m. Lumping them together as “microbudget” does disservice to how different the production, marketing and distribution processes are. One term I haven’t yet mentioned is “no budget” film. I dislike the term because I’m pedantic (i.e. no budget = $0), so I try to avoid it. I'm sure some would use the term “no budget” to refer to the very minimal budgets I'm taking about.

It would be really useful to have a set of economic standards that filmmakers, academics and critics could refer to so as to clarify the differences. Such stipulations might exist, but I haven’t yet encountered a universally accepted set of economic brackets (I’ve just seen the kinds of “plucked from the air” generalisations I offer here).

 What do you think of the state of cult and horror studies in the current moment? Is it led mostly by white men, or is there a general mixture of racial and gender diversity? Which scholars do you think readers should seek out?

The area is certainly growing. Doctoral students and early career researchers are helping to develop the field in interesting directions. That said, I spend most of my time reading outside of cult and horror studies by proxy of my gravitation towards ideas as the starting point. As a reasonably young subject area, horror studies still does not have a long history of theoretical approaches to draw on. Much of horror studies is also oriented around specific texts/examples. That seems to be the standard way we work in this area. However, that tendency either limits the author’s ability to make broader points about the ideas, or means the broader applicability is somewhat “hidden”. In comparison, philosophy articles put the ideas up-front, so my attention is drawn towards work in that discipline. I'm reluctant to recommend specific scholars because I'm likely to be nepotistic. My general recommendation is to stray way outside the field. Pick up a book on theoretical fluid mechanics or something and bring those ideas back to the table. I'd much rather read something leftfield than another Deleuzian or Freudian analysis.

So much is being published that I'd find it difficult to make any meaningful estimates about diversity. My feeling is that the field is fairly even in terms of gender, although my view may be skewed by the subject matter I engage with. Purely anecdotally (e.g. by thinking about conference attendance), I'd say that the field isn’t very diverse in racial terms. On that, a shout out to www.graveyardshiftsisters.com who are promoting horror-related scholarship by and about Black women. The site has some fantastic resources and is well worth checking out.

How would you respond to Alice Haylett Bryan’s argument about horror (quoted in The Guardian)?

“Certain subgenres of horror are undoubtedly getting more extreme, but this is the case across culture as a whole, with computer games and television programmes such as The Walking Dead. We are now living in an age where real acts of violence, and indeed death, have been screened on Facebook and YouTube. Could it not be argued that this desensitizes viewers on a more fundamental and concerning level?”

I concur that if we have a particular goal such as collectively aiming to make the world a safer place, then there are better things to direct our attention towards than subsets of horror fiction. There are plenty of real-world harms and injustices that one could prioritise instead.

I disagree with the generalisation that some subgenres of horror are becoming ‘more extreme’. I have written at length about the ways ‘extreme’ is employed so I won’t rehash the argument at length here. To give you an overview of my position (and this is not meant as a direct criticism of Bryan’s statement): ‘extreme’ is typically used as if its meanings are absolute and self-evident. In practice, it is a contingent term, by which I mean that it refers to context-dependent judgements (rather than absolute standards). The adjective ‘extreme’ is commonly employed as if it describes the object  being referred to (in this instance, horror films), while offering little (if any) descriptive content. The quotation above carries various sets of values that need unpacking before I could comment with any specificity on Bryan’s position, but the quotation certainly seems to make an implicit correlation between differing kinds of extremities in visual media and “worsening” (possibly cultural decline, certainly some harm to viewers in the form of desensitization). I would guess that Bryan’s comments may have been led by a specific question about desensitisation – it certainly looks that way from the article – so I suspect that these value-based correlations might be coming from the interviewer. My broader concern is that this kind of obscured value-positing is common in the discourse of “extremity”, particularly in the press.

This is an inelegant overview, but I have written about it in Porn Studies journal should any readers want a more detailed (and articulate) rendition of my position.      

 As you touched on earlier, horror cinema has often been disparaged and delegitimized in film culture. Have there been any shifts towards appreciation and legitimation in recent years? Or is horror cinema still viewed mainly in pejorative terms, in either the academy or in entertainment discourses?

Generally speaking, I’d say that horror is still broadly disparaged. There have been many positive shifts, including a notable increase in scholarship on horror (which has been growing since the late 1980s), and the formation of Horror Studies journal (which signifies that the discipline has generated sufficient critical mass to warrant a dedicated print publication). Nevertheless, horror is still seems to be an easy target for journalists. Get Out’s success at the Academy Awards feels like it was in spite of its alignment with horror (as was the case for Misery or The Silence of the Lambs in the early 90s). By proxy of its status as popular culture, horror doesn’t have the gravitas of drama or art film. That kind of distinction holds firm.

What are you working on for your next project and for the future?

I have several chapters in the pipeline, but my main ongoing project is a monograph on contemporary revenge films, which I’ve been working on for about four years now. My main stumbling block is that revenge has been conceptualised in so many ways that the scholarship (mainly from philosophy, anthropology and psychology) is a mess. To make matters worse, so many films have ‘revenge’ in the title, the tagline, or in the dialogue, and yet there is no hint of revenge (as motive or act) in the film itself. Consequently, I’ve seen well over 800 films for the project, and only around 250 of those are relevant. Frankly, if I'd have known what I was getting myself into, I'd have never started. I need to buckle down on it (and stop myself getting distracted) so that I can finish drafting. I have a pile of ideas for projects beyond that, but at this rate I’ll be retired or dead before I get to any of them.  

And finally, what five films would you recommend that you feel represents ‘the best’ that horror/ cult cinema can offer and why?

I need to narrow this down, so I'm going purely for horror here (no-one wants to hear me extolling the virtues of Cool as Ice or Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights …again).

A Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984)

I'll admit that it is flawed, but I love this movie so dearly. It was my gateway into “real” horror when I was a about 9 or 10, and I was instantly hooked. I have seen it at least once a year since then, and it offers something new to me every time I watch it. The film has such a strong core. The narrative is well-paced, punctuating a reasonably slow unravelling of the mystery with startling moments of horror. Some of the effects look a little hokey now, but others – especially those involving the revolving room – are remarkable. The story’s core good-evil dynamic is powerful. Freddy is a well-developed villain even though he is barely present. Nancy is one of my favourite characters in film; smart and courageous, but vulnerable enough to be relatable (i.e. she isn’t superhuman). The premise – the interplay of dreaming/internal/metaphysical and waking/external/physical – is philosophically interesting. The film’s moral dilemmas concerning the parent’s vigilantism and Freddy’s attack on the Elm Street children is richer than is typically acknowledged. Elm Street is my go-to example to illustrate how smart popular gory horror can be.

The Loved Ones (Sean Byrne, 2009)

I had to feature some “torture porn” somewhere on this list, and this film gets nowhere near as much love as it deserves. The Loved Ones is a tight compound or intricately balanced elements that feel like they could explode at any moment. Tonally, it is a strange mixture of romance, teen angst, perversity, dark humour, and hideous violence. I have no idea how Byrne manages to make the film feel like a cohesive whole, but it works. Aesthetically, the gruesome bloodshed is met with beautiful cinematography. The film’s pink/blue colour scheme is luscious, and that complementarity echoes the film’s marriage of differing thematic tones. The Loved Ones’ secret weapon, however, is Robin McLeavy, who plays the film’s antagonist. Her performance is incredible. She walks a tightrope between sweet and rabidly psychotic, but she somehow never fully tips into or abandons either mode. Consequently, it is never wholly clear what Lola is capable of and what she will do next. A great example of contemporary visceral horror.

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (Tom McLoughlin, 1986)

It may not be serious or thematically rich, but Jason Lives is the definition of entertainment. From the ludicrous opening sequence right though to Alice Cooper’s end credit theme, the film is a riot. Horror and comedy are difficult to balance. It is easy to do when going for over-the-top gross splatter a la Peter Jackson’s Braindead (which is also excellent), but Jason Lives manages to be genuinely funny while also being as scary as any other Friday the 13th film. It is also a great sequel; it builds on the established story, but Mcloughlin also recognises exactly what the series needs after Part IV’s promise of a “Final Chapter” and the stalled attempt to relaunch the series with Part V. The fact that the 80s fashion and music are now so dated only makes it more enjoyable, so it has aged well. More than anything, Jason Lives illustrates that horror can be fun. If I encounter anyone who doesn’t understand that aspect of the genre, I point them here.

August Underground’s Mordum: The Maggot Cut (Fred Vogel, Cristie Whiles, Michael Todd Schneider, Jerami Cruise, and Killjoy, 2003)

Given the themes arising out oi the interview, I feel obliged to represent “extreme” microbudget horror here. August Underground’s Mordum is a well-known example, but it is also indicative of this kind of horror. The content is gratuitously offensive. Much of the run-time is occupied by the antagonists screaming at each other, so it is arduous to sit though even when the antagonists are not killing or abusing their victims. I prefer Michael Todd Schneider’s version of the film as it has more in the way of plot than Vogel’s edit. The love triangle between the antagonists and the group’s decline are fleshed out in greater depth in the Maggot cut compared with the Toetag edit. The plot anchors the film, although it still feels raw and the action seems out of control. That frenzied feeling is facilitated by Whiles’ performance, which is indescribable. Mordum is equal parts found footage horror and unpretentious performance art. At times, it is redolent of Kurt Kren’s Viennese Actionist films. At others, it is closer to atrocity footage. It feels like the gates of hell have opened and someone was there to capture it on film.

Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995)

Horror doesn’t have to be loud and bloody, and it doesn’t have to feature ghosts and monsters in order to be terrifying. This is one of the most common misconceptions I encounter when talking to claim not to like horror movies. There are many horror films that deal in existential dread – Zulawski’s Possession and Bergman’s Persona are prominent examples – but few are as quiet at Safe. Haynes portrait of a character’s decline into self-delusion is wonderfully subtle. The film crawls along, so the atmosphere is muted. This restrained approach allows Julianne Moore to deliver a nuanced turn as Carol, the film’s hypochondriac protagonist. Carol crumbles under the invisible pressures of what we’d now term white middle-class privilege. Nothing happens to Carol, and that oppressive nothingness leads her to self-destruct. The film’s underlying logic is that her comfortable state leads her to feel like she does not matter, even to herself. Carol’s decline is symptomatic of her attempt to find meaning, and Moore ensures that the character remains relatable. Simultaneously, Carol’s hypochondria and a backdrop of pollution/impending environmental disaster provide sceptical distance from her. The film’s tone remains neutral, so the viewer has space to remain critical of Carol’s affluence. Safe illustrates how intelligent and understated horror can be.

Steve Jones is Head of Media in the department of Social Sciences at Northumbria University, England, as well as Adjunct Research Professor in Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa. His research principally focuses on sex, violence, ethics and selfhood within horror and pornography. He is the author of Torture Porn: Popular Horror after Saw (2013) and the co-editor of Zombies and Sexuality. His work has been published in Feminist Media Studies, Sexuality & Culture, Sexualities,  and Film-Philosophy. He is also on the editorial board of Porn Studies. For more information, please visit www.drstevejones.co.uk

Cult Conversations: Interview with Steve Jones (Part I)

This week’s cult conversation is with Steve Jones, author of the excellent Torture Porn: Popular Horror After Saw, which I cannot recommend highly enough. Steve’s scholarship is rigorous and bold, and to cap it all off, he is also a wonderful human being. In the following interview, we get into the torture porn fiasco, the state of contemporary indie horror, queries about the constitution of fandom, and other topics. I thoroughly enjoyed debating with Steve, and I hope you all enjoy this installment of Cult Conversations.

—William Proctor

Your debut monograph examines the so-called ‘torture porn’ cycle of the noughties. How would you describe the torture porn phenomenon to someone who would like to learn more? Is it a coherent genre, for example? Or more akin to what Jason Mittell describes as discursive or a “cultural category”?

‘Torture porn’ is a label coined and propagated by journalists, which is used to describe a body of mainstream (theatrically released) films, mainly horror films. The journalists who championed the term considered ‘torture porn’ films to contain “extreme” depictions of violence. The films referred to – including Saw, Hostel and The Human Centipede – typically focus on protagonists being held captive against their wills.

The label ‘torture porn’ carries various connotations. ‘Torture’ refers to the physical trials the characters undergo. Sometimes the characters are expressly tortured (as in Hostel). On other occasions, the characters suffer as they attempt to escape from the antagonists. The term ‘torture’ also implies that the films are arduous to watch. Press critics referred to feeling like they were being “tortured” because they were “forced” to endure these films as part of their jobs. The term ‘porn’ also carries multiple connotations. In one respect, it stems from a contemporaneous discursive trend of referring to any “gratuitous” depiction as ‘porn’; e.g. social media posts depicting close-ups of delicious meals are described as ‘food porn’. The implication here is that ‘torture porn’ films focus on violence or gore in such detail or in such a prolonged way as to be gratuitous or unnecessary. A second connotation is that these films are ‘porn’ because they focus on sexual violence (which, broadly speaking, is false). A third connotation is that the antagonists “get off” on torturing the protagonists. A fourth is that the audience for these films find the torture sexually gratifying, and/or that the filmmakers encourage audiences to take sexual pleasure in watching others suffer (again, the films provide scant evidence to support this stance). Thus, ‘porn’ suggests that these mainstream horror movies are morally bankrupt, perverse and corrupting. In sum, ‘torture porn’ was used to disparage these films.

‘Torture porn’ isn’t a subgenre per se. The diverse films referred to as ‘torture porn’ were artificially brought together under that banner by critics. In trying to make sense of the trend, I identified that the films dubbed ‘torture porn’ shared the common traits of a) belonging to the horror or violent thriller genres, and b) depicting protagonists trying to escape from confined locations, but they have little else in common.

It is my hope that the term will eventually be co-opted by fans. Roughly the same connotations surrounded the terms ‘slasher’ and ‘video nasty’, and both have subsequently been accepted by fans. At present, the label still seems to carry negative overtones, which is a shame given that many of these films are worthy of serious consideration. Although the production bubble burst around 2012, numerous horror/thriller films are still being made that would have been swept up in the press furore if they had been released a decade ago.

 Can you talk more about these ‘negative overtones’ in press discourse in relation to Torture Porn? What “common traits belonging to the horror or violent thriller genres” do you see as significant in genealogical terms? Can you give any examples of films that historically share these “common traits”?

This is necessarily sweeping – I spend three chapters setting this up in the book – but broadly speaking, the negative discourse suggests the following (and I dispute each of these characterisations):

•  Torture porn is unique because the films comprised of graphic, gory, realistic, sadistic violence

• Torture porn films offer little in the way of narrative and characterisation, because they are concerned only with violence, bloodshed and suffering

• Torture porn filmmakers seek to out-do each other, creating ever-gorier depictions in order to shock

• Since torture porn films offer nothing but violence and shock, torture porn’s pleasures are one-dimensional

• By encouraging viewers to take sadistic sexual pleasure in watching others suffer, torture porn erodes moral values

• Thus, torture porn is at best culturally worthless, and at worst genuinely endangers the populace. Thus, torture porn’s creators are greedy and irresponsible

• And anyone who willingly consumes these films is mentally deficient, perverse, and/or culturally undiscerning.

Re: the second question, and “the films dubbed ‘torture porn’ shared the common traits of a) belonging to the horror or violent thriller genres, and b) depicting protagonists trying to escape from confined locations” - what I meant is this:

When I wrote the book, 45 films had been called ‘torture porn’ in three or more separate articles in major English language news publications. I looked at those films to work out what the narratives had in common (so that I could pin down what critics saw as the defining features of ‘torture porn’). There are very few traits that all 45 have in common. One is that all 45 films are either horror films or violent thrillers. The second is that in all 45 films, protagonists are depicted trying to escape from confined locations.

What sparked your interest in the phenomenon? Did it emanate from your own fandom? Or was it developed through academic interest first and foremost?

 My interest was initially sparked by seeing films such as Saw and the 2003 remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, both of which I enjoyed. I wrote several pieces on films that were described as ‘torture porn’, and the opportunity arose to write the book when Palgrave expressed an interest in the theme. It was only then that I started to reflect on the press discourse and that these films were being called ‘torture porn’. Prior to that, I had ignored the label as just another attempt by the press to disparage horror, based on taste judgements and press critics’ insufficient knowledge of the genre. My interest in the press discourse came about as part of contextualising the book, and trying to understand what the critics using the term were objecting to.

I consume horror in my leisure time, and I have done since I was a kid. That relationship with horror precedes my academic interest in the genre (which only began with my PhD). For me, the two modes of engaging with horror – as academic and as consumer – are different. They are intertwined inasmuch as I find the genre intellectually rewarding; it routinely challenges my pre-conceptions, and I return to the genre because I enjoy that challenge. Many of my academic articles originated from that kind of initial stimulation. However, my enjoyment is not itself academically significant, so it doesn’t play much of a role in my academic work. I begin my academic writing with the assumption that the reader either does not know or does not care about the films I am referring to. I also frequently write about films that I did not enjoy and would not endorse to other consumers. Even though I follow the genre personally and professionally, I don’t really consider myself a fan. I don’t identify with the kind of enthused devotion to the genre that fanaticism suggests. I have certainly defended the genre as an academic, but I don’t think of my work as celebrating horror.

I agree wholeheartedly that your work does not celebrate the horror genre. Like the best academic work, be it in horror, cult or fan studies, one can certainly study something that they love without championing or celebrating the genre. But if I may challenge you on the idea that fandom equals “fanaticism”—a highly problematic description—and that this means you do not identify as a ‘fan’ per se. In your previous statement, you emphasize a strong binary between academic and consumer. I don’t mean to suggest that being a consumer of horror and cult media means that your academic identity and research is therefore contaminated in some way—although I would say that the binary between academic/consumer is often much more fluid and dialectical than this kind of semiotic splitting.

 Regarding ‘fanaticism’, I'm going by the etymology of ‘fan’ (an abbreviation of ‘fanatic’), so I didn’t consider it a controversial connection. I'm not trying to imply that fanaticism is negative, just that it implies a degree of enthused celebration that I don’t identify in my personal engagements with horror. Perhaps ‘consumer’ isn’t strong enough to describe my bias towards horror over other genres, but I can’t think of another term that captures the extent to which habit drives my engagement with the genre. I look out for new horror films being added to Netflix or new Blu-ray horror releases, and those practices are at least partially the product of routine. Obviously there is nothing unique about that, I'm just trying to pin down the distinction between my engagement with horror compared with the level of celebration and enthusiasm exhibited by people who attend horror conventions, queue to get autographs, have multiple tattoos of their favourite films and so forth. It seems like those individuals are getting something more out of the genre than I do, or are exhibiting their enjoyment of the genre in a way that I don’t. To me, those individuals are fans, and to call myself a fan would be to do a disservice to the cultural practices that those individuals engage in.

Hopefully that distinction will help to explain my other comments about academic and personal engagement. I'm not trying to posit a complete split between my personal engagement with horror and my academic engagement. As I say, there are ways in which they are intertwined. What I'm trying to capture is that (to me, at least), fandom connotes celebration. There are films I love, but I don’t write academic work based on that enjoyment. Again, just as an attempt to pin down what I mean, I have heard some other academics making this kind of statement – ‘I just saw [film x], I loved it, I need to write something about it’ – with the implication that they enjoyed the film as a consumer and want to express their enjoyment of the film via academic writing, even though they don’t yet have a formulated idea on which to base their argument. To be clear, I don’t see anything wrong with that approach. I'm not suggesting that this amounts to intellectualising one’s enjoyment (although I'm sure that does happen). I'd guess that if the individual does write something based on this starting point, they dig into the film to capture and articulate whatever they enjoyed about it. I surge to approach films in that way because it doesn’t cross my mind to write unless I have a grip on the idea/argument. I often think ‘I just saw [film x], and it got me thinking about [idea y]: I might write about [idea y]’. It doesn’t matter whether I enjoyed [film x], what matters is that I have [idea y]. If I only have ‘I just saw [film x], I loved it’, then the trail just ends there.

I hope that clarifies the distinction I'm making when I say that my enjoyment as a consumer doesn’t play much of a role in my academic work.

 Your statement about torture porn still carrying “negative overtones” seems like a defence of the films grouped arbitrarily beneath that banner. It is, as you remarked, “a shame given that many of these films are worthy of serious consideration.” In essence, is this not a kind of defensive measure against entertainment journalists’ penchant for ‘disparaging’ the genre?

 As I say, I have defended horror – and torture porn in particular – against disparagement. Those defences are about acknowledging the value or cultural significance of a film or set of films in face of negation of that value or significance. That project is distinct from celebration, and the defence does not necessitate enjoyment.

How would you describe your attachment to, say, A Nightmare on Elm Street? Do you collect cult objects, whether blu-ray/ DVD, posters and other memorabilia? Rather than being a fan of the horror genre in general terms, would you identify as a fan, or perhaps some other appellation, of a limited range of texts/ franchises/ objects? Or are you arguing that you have no affective attachment to the texts and objects you study in your academic pursuits?

A Nightmare on Elm Street is my favourite film inasmuch as I’ve seen it many more times than any other film, and my enjoyment of it has lasted nearly 30 years. I have various objects associated with the film – an autographed picture of Robert Englund, a replica glove, Freddy figures, and so forth – but these were all bought for me by people who know that I like the film. I don’t recall buying anything like that for myself. I own multiple copies of the film, not because I collect them, but because access to the film and formats have changed; e.g. I bought a DVD to replace my VHS, then bought a Blu-ray to replace my DVD. I have bought versions of the films to access various extra features (commentaries, documentaries, behind the scenes FX footage), as well as various books and documentaries about the film series. The latter is the strongest expression of my fandom. I don’t own anywhere near as much paraphernalia for any other film or series. It still seems like such low-level engagement that I'm reluctant to call myself a fan: I feel like a “Fred Head” (as the really devoted fans are called) would scoff at the idea that my engagement is sufficient to be considered “real” fandom. I have referred to myself as an ‘Elm Street nerd’ occasionally, so maybe that is a better appellation.

My personal attachment to A Nightmare on Elm Street meant that I had ample documentary material to draw on when writing about the series, but my engagement with the supplementary materials was different when looking at it for research compared with pleasure or personal interest. I have been considering writing something on Elm Street for a while, mainly because it seemed wasteful that I was not using the knowledge I’d accumulated about the series. Without the idea, however, I was stuck.

I'm certainly not suggesting that I have no attachment to the films I write about as an academic. Rather I'm suggesting that my personal enjoyment of a film and my professional engagement with the same film are distinct in ways that I find to be significant. My academic engagement with films neither augments nor diminishes my enjoyment of them. My personal enjoyment does not help me to write academically about films.

 You have also written about one of the most transgressive films of the new millennium, and perhaps one that makes popular ‘torture porn’ films, such as Saw and Hostel, seem vanilla in comparison—that is, Fred Vogel’s August Underground (2001). I admit that I have not yet seen the film or its sequels as I was put off by descriptions from scholars and friends, many of whom cautioned me about viewing the film (and I have pretty strong stomach for horror!). What are your thoughts about August Underground? Does it fit into the discursive category of ‘torture porn’? Is there a moral dimension that should be considered in scholarly terms?  What do you think the objectives of the filmmakers might be? And do you think the film has a right to exist?

 In terms of plot, August Underground is comparable to torture porn insofar as depicts individuals being held captive and being tortured. However, August Underground’s focus is almost exclusively on the antagonists. In contrast to torture porn, the audience does not get to know much about the captives, and the film does not follow their attempts to escape. I personally find August Underground interesting, but it is intentionally “aggressive” towards the audience. It isn’t for everyone, and it doesn’t strike me as being designed to entertain. If you are cautious based on the description, then avoid it; it is almost certainly exactly what you are imagining, except it also contains long-periods where nothing happens. Although it is seldom mentioned (because the violence is so attention-grabbing), much of the running time is spent on the killers driving around, engaging in mundane leisure pursuits. By design, August Underground is as tedious as it is harassing, and that adds to the realism. The monotonous sections are important to the film’s structure, leaving space to process the horror. Vogel’s intention, as I understand it from interviews, was to create the most realistic looking snuff-style film he could. The image is intentionally degraded to look like a n-th generation VHS copy of home camcorder footage, with no hint as to its origins. If one were to watch it on an unlabelled VHS with no prior knowledge about the footage or where it has come from, one would be forgiven for believing the murders to be genuine. Elsewhere I’ve argued that the combination of fictionality and realism encourages viewers to reflect on the ethical implications of what it might be like to encounter genuine snuff (not that such a thing exists) or atrocity footage more generally.

I don’t believe that any film has a right to exist, so August Underground has as much claim to that right any other movie. As far as the moral dimensions are concerned, August Underground is a work of fiction made by consenting adults. The production itself does not raise unique moral concerns (i.e. the same concerns apply to fiction filmmaking in general). The content intentionally flouts taboos, but again the same moral concerns apply much more broadly. I don’t hold a particular moral objection to taboo-flouting in art, although I appreciate that some people will find August Underground offensive or tasteless. I do not see any evidence that the film is, for instance, a form of hate speech directed towards a particular individual or set of people. In that regard, I do not consider the film’s subject matter to be morally problematic, even though the fictional characters in the film commit immoral acts (all of which are contrived).

There are legal considerations relating to distributing (and purchasing) the film internationally even though it is fictional, and these carry attendant ethical considerations. If the film were circulated on unmarked VHS tapes – and this is rumoured to be one of August Underground’s early marketing techniques – then the film’s realism and taboo-flouting content may raise other problems. The film is so realistic that if stripped of context, a viewer might reasonably consider the crimes represented to be genuine. One could imagine a situation in which police time was wasted investigating the footage, for example, and I would have a moral problem with that diversion of resources. Moreover, it could seriously disturb an unwitting viewer, although I suspect that such viewers would turn it off almost immediately. Filmmakers are responsible for creating a set of images, and viewers are primarily responsible for deciding which images they consume. That relationship is problematised if the film were circulated without adequate contextualisation (on an unmarked VHS, for example). In that case, the person distributing the tape (whether that is the filmmaker or another party) would act irresponsibly in leaving the footage in public places. I'm stretching the point, but it is nevertheless a consideration given that the film certainly circulated in bootleg forms among horror collectors (I first encountered it in 2003 via a bootleg DVD rip with only the title written on it).

In press discourse, there are currently many claims being made about the resurgence of horror in cinema and that we are experiencing a new ‘golden age’ for the genre. Do you think this is true?

Pretty much any financial and critical success within the genre is cause for celebration given that horror is so frequently denigrated. I see little evidence that we are in some kind of ‘golden age’, however, at least in the press’s understanding of the genre. Horror is a financially successful genre on the whole (usually because the films are relatively cheap to make). Its visibility in the theatrical context tends to come in peaks and troughs, so I don’t find the current peak especially remarkable. The critical success of films such as Get Out, It Comes at Night, A Quiet Place and so forth again is nothing new per se, and nor are critics’ attempts to suggest that these are “elevated” or “post-” horror films. The same modes of thinking surrounded movies such as The Shining, for instance. The discourse about a ‘golden age’ is driven by press critics who ignore so much of the work being produced within the genre, particularly lower-budget horror. Some of that work is making a much more significant contribution to the genre than these critically lauded theatrical releases are. Much of the ‘golden age’ work is not especially interesting or inventive. For example, although it is well-made, It Comes at Night re-treads ground that should be extremely familiar to most followers of horror. I can only presume that the critics who lauded it as original and fresh haven’t seen many zombie movies and so could not perceive how derivative it is. That said, if It Comes at Night’s critical success helps other horror filmmakers to secure funding, then that is great. If funders and distributors are emboldened to take risks on lower-budget or new filmmakers because of critical and financial successes within the genre, then I'm all for talk of a ‘golden age’.

Has the ‘torture porn’ cycle ended? What do you think of contemporary horror cinema? And what are your thoughts about current cycles, trends and so forth? 

As a period of heightened production, the torture porn bubble burst around 2012. However, numerous films continue to be released each year that fit the remit, including Hounds of Love (2016), Escape Room (2017), and most prominently Jigsaw (2017). The press still use the term quite regularly. Various films (such as mother!) have been referred to as torture porn in reviews, and uses of the term in major English-language world publications has not dipped below 100 uses per year since 2006. I won’t say too much more as I have a short chapter about the current state and future of torture porn coming out in an edited collection soon. Suffice it to say that there are plenty such films still being produced, even if they aren’t attracting the same level of negative press (because they are mainly DTV releases). I'm sure there will be a torture porn resurgence at some point.

We are in an odd moment horror-wise. Many of the recent major cycles – remakes, found-footage, zombies, supernatural movies like Insidious – are rolling along but are somewhat played-out. Overt socio-political horror such as the Purge series and Get Out seem to be enjoying some success given the fractious climate, but we also don’t really need political reality represented via horror right now. Twitter is full of people proclaiming that we are living in the end-times, so I don’t know that we’ll see a massive boom in socially-conscious horror. It is just as likely that we’ll see the rise of silly, fun escapist horror, or a continuation of the nostalgia of “classic” screenings (including quite recent “classics”). 

Indie horror is looking great at the moment, and that area doesn’t receive anywhere near as much attention as it should. Digital technology is helping filmmakers to create remarkably good-looking films for next to nothing. 15 years ago, microbudget features essentially looked like amateur home videos. Now, even Steven Soderbergh is shooting horror on an iPhone 7. The formal differences between low and moderately budgeted horror are becoming harder to spot in horror-drama (films that are not FX-heavy), and I hope that results in more viewers giving lower budget films a chance. Streaming platforms like Shudder and Amazon Prime are also helping to put an array of films in front of consumers. Browsing through cover images and plot blurbs on Prime video is the closest experience I’ve had to the glory-days of video rental stores, and the stakes for a “bad rental” are so low now. That might mean people turn off very quickly – I’ve found myself abandoning films on Netflix that I would have made myself sit through had I rented the same film on DVD – but it may also mean that hidden gems are discovered by larger audiences.

Steve Jones is Head of Media in the department of Social Sciences at Northumbria University, England, as well as Adjunct Research Professor in Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa. His research principally focuses on sex, violence, ethics and selfhood within horror and pornography. He is the author of Torture Porn: Popular Horror after Saw (2013) and the co-editor of Zombies and Sexuality. His work has been published in Feminist Media Studies, Sexuality & Culture, Sexualities,  and Film-Philosophy. He is also on the editorial board of Porn Studies. For more information, please visit www.drstevejones.co.uk

Cult Conversations: Interview with Stacey Abbott (Part II)

Given its historical vintage, what is it about the figure of the vampire that continues to fascinate audiences?  How has the vampire been updated, revised and resurrected in different historical contexts?

Well, that is a huge question. I teach an entire module on this and only scratch the surface but here goes.  I think that there are a lot of reasons why the vampire fascinates audiences. To begin with they embody taboo subjects about death, ageing, and mortality.  Death remains the great unknown and a subject that we don’t talk about but, for the most part, we are all afraid of it. But the vampire confronts us with death and offers or represents an alternative.  Vampires don’t age. This is both uncanny – something that doesn’t age is fundamentally weird – and attractive.  Vampires are both dead and live forever. There is something terrifying and attractive about that, which in itself is part of the allure – they attract and repulse.  So there is something contradictory and liminal about the vampire. They are like us but not, familiar and unfamiliar, attractive and repellent.

Vampires are also outsiders who embody transgressive identity and otherness.  They usually come from somewhere else and embody the dangers and allures of strangers but they are also inherently liminal in terms of identity, gender, sexuality. Historically, they embodied an otherness to be feared – in Dracula the vampire is the foreign other infiltrating and infecting England – and this still occurs in films such as 30 Days of Night which is also about border crossing. But increasingly vampires tap into our own identification with the ‘other’ or our sense of being an outsider. This is why they have become increasingly sympathetic. Because many people are more likely to identify with their strangeness then with the Van Helsing’s of the world.  So where female sexuality was punished in Dracula, it is celebrated in The Vampire Lovers and Daughters of Darkness. I think that the sense of otherness that they embody is why they have been, in recent years, so popular with teenagers. Adolescence is defined by feeling different, alien in your own body or in your social circles and the vampire is a very convenient metaphor for that sense of strangeness. In the case of Twilight the vampire offers an escape from Bella’s feelings of being awkward, clumsy, plain and also isolated. To become a vampire for her means becoming special, strong, beautiful but also to be accepted as part of a family and community – one of the cool kids. I am not saying that this is a good thing or not but I can see the attraction of this text for adolescent girls which I think is stronger than, or at least as strong as, the romance narrative.  The Lost Boys offered a similar narrative with Michael on the cusp of adulthood and masculine responsibility and being presented with an alternative that embodied a more fluid conception of gender and sexuality (the film is more preoccupied by Michael’s relationship with David than with this female love interest Star). Becoming a vampire also, for Michael, means staying young and beautiful forever. The film offers a conservative conclusion where Michael rejects these temptations and accepts his place as the head of the house and as part of a heteronormative relationship, but the pleasure of the film is in the possibility of rejecting this conception of normality.

The vampire has evolved and been updated in many ways. As the world became more secular, the significance of religion to the genre waned. Films such as Near Dark and Blade  throw out the old rules that seem somewhat out of date. They integrate with other genres such as the western and science fiction to refresh the conventions and make them more frightening again.  The vampires in Near Dark are frightening because they are purely driven by the desire for chaos, they go anywhere and do anything. They are brutal and nothing can stop them except the rising sun.  Other films from Martin to The Hamiltons to Transfiguration, present the vampire as a type of serial killer and presents vampirism as an illness or social influence, tapping into changing perceptions and conceptions of mental health. Is Martin a vampire or the victim of abuse having been told that he was cursed from an early age? One of the major trends has been the way in which the vampire has been increasingly presented as a form of disease or plague. Rather than being an individual creature invading the modern world, vampires in Ultraviolet, Stakeland, I Am Legend, and The Strain represent a plague that spreads across the world.  The vampire has become more apocalyptic.  This is in part a backlash, I think, against the rise in popularity of the romantic vampire in the form of Twilight but also the success of the zombie in literature, film and TV.  We live in apocalyptic times and our vampires are becoming a bit more apocalyptic.  

Finally, I think the vampire often challenges our sense of ‘normality’ by offering an alternative. Sometimes that alternative is positive and sometimes it isn’t but the genre constantly gets us to question what it means to be normal and what is more monstrous – the monster or normality itself.

Given that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is over twenty years old, why do you think the character remains culturally relevant? What do you think about the news that Buffy will continue in another form (and with a new slayer)? 

As mentioned above, I teach a course on vampire film and television and every year I am delighted to see that a number of students have seen Buffy and define themselves as fans. Often, they have come to the show because it was recommended by a parent or older sibling but it still has currency. Yes, clothes and hair styles have changed and the computers are wonderfully dated. I mean an entire narrative strand revolves around a floppy disc falling down behind a teacher’s desk. Do modern audiences even know what a floppy is? And if Ms Calendar could have backed up Angel’s cure to the Cloud, then the story of season two who have ended very differently.  So twenty years on, it is dated in places. But I believe that the horror of adolescence and growing up is timeless and by couching these horrors through the metaphor of the monster-of-the week allows the series to transcend the trappings of time period. Issues such as bullying, social anxiety, loneliness, internet predators, sexual violence and domestic abuse are timeless and the monster narratives explore these in detail.

As a feminist text, the focus on not just a kick-ass heroine but a woman trying to negotiate her path in the world and standing up to patriarchy – whether in the form of the Watcher’s Council, the high school principal, the Mayor, a dominating father or the Initiative (which is yes led by a woman but is a government run, patriarchal institution) – still holds sway.  Buffy gives a speech about power in the episode ‘Checkpoint’ (5.12) as she confronts the leaders of the Watcher’s Council who have attempted to diminish her self-confidence in order to assert control over her. She tells them how everyone has been ‘lining up to tell me just how unimportant I am. And I’ve finally figured out why. Power. I have it. They don’t. This bothers them’. This speech stands as a testament to how patriarchy and any form of dominant social order often attempts to maintain its position by belittling and undermining those they are attempting to control. The best way to assert control is to convince others that they need authoritative rule. The way in which she pauses the narrative to stand up to this authority and diminish their power by revealing their machinations – as well as throwing a sword at one of them (well who hasn’t wanted to do that) –  is as timely today as ever.  Buffy is about power: female power, the power of family, friendship, the sharing of power and the dismantling of power.

Of course, the show isn’t perfect and it is a product of its time. When it was on the air between 1997-2003, there were very few LGBTQ characters on network television and having Willow come out was incredibly progressive for the time. But now it is far more commonplace on television and the hesitancy in showing Willow and Tara kiss or display their sexuality in an overt way, particularly in season four and five, seems old fashioned now. Similarly, the character Xander Harris has received a great deal of criticism in recent years, particularly in the #metoo era, because his treatment of Buffy is often seen as problematic. Most notably, the series has received a great deal of criticism for its depiction, or lack thereof, of people of colour. They are either absent, demons or stereotypical.  The spin-off Angel tried to compensate for this by being set in a more multi-cultural Los Angeles and featuring the African American character Gunn as a regular. But there remain issues and there has been a great deal of discussion of this theme with respect to both shows.

This was why I was not surprised when I heard the news about a new Buffy series that would be more multi-cultural and socially inclusive. Originally couched in the media as a reboot, I was initially quite sceptical.  Why reboot Buffy as it is a loved series that is skilfully written and directed and that still holds up as quality television? Yes, there are issues but they are part of its place within a period of television history.  Also, rather than reboot an old show with a multicultural cast, it seems more useful to create something new with a multicultural cast. But as more came out about the project and the new showrunner, Monica Owusu-Breen, it became clear that this isn’t going to be a reboot but rather than an extension of the narrative world and potentially something quite new. A new Slayer with new stories and I am all in favour of that.  I think that there is a lot of scope in the story line and potential to update the Slayer narrative to suit the current televisual landscape. This seems ideal to me as you will introduce Buffy to new audiences while appealing to established fans of the original series.  I look forward to seeing what Owusu-Breen has in mind.

What are you working on at present and what have you planned for future research?

I have a few projects in various stages of development. I am currently co-editing, with Simon Brown, a special issue of Slayage, reflecting on the legacy of Angel which will be published to mark its 20th anniversary in 2019. The more I watch and rewatch Angel, the more Angel’s struggle to negotiate the moral grey areas of adulthood feels relevant. Also, the way in which the show challenged and undermined traditional notions of masculinity still feels fresh and pertinent within the contemporary televisual landscape. The decision to replace Sunnydale’s Hellmouth under the high school with the multi-dimensional corporate lawfirm Wolfram & Hart as the site of all evil seems to speak volumes to the horrors of the 21st century. This show isn’t about one named and clearly identifiable Big Bad but a patriarchal culture of evil that is fuelled by big business.  Its mantra that you have to keep fighting even when the odds seemed stacked against you feel like an important lesson in the contemporary climate.   

Lorna Jowett and I are co-editing a book for the University of Wales Press on Global TV Horror. We wanted to follow up our TV Horror: Investigating the Dark Side of the Small Screen (2013) with something that reflected on the growing popularity and availability of horror on television and its increasing global presence. So this is an exciting project, working with people writing about TV Horror from around the world, including the UK, US, France, Brazil, Spain, Japan, New Zealand and Canada.

As for my own writing, I am very excited to be writing the BFI Film Classic on Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark (1987).  This was Bigelow’s first solo-directed film and I would argue it remains one of her most visually and narratively striking films. It did not do very well when it came out but it found a cult audience on video in the late 1980s. Narratively it follows a young man, Caleb, who is turned into a vampire and must decide if he is prepared to give up family, responsibility and his humanity in favour of the outlaw life of a vampire. The vampires – particularly as played by Lance Henrikson, Bill Paxton and Jenette Goldstein -- are far more engaging and attractive despite their undeniable blood lust and violence. Significantly they seem to both embody the dark side of the nuclear family while also representing an alternative to traditional family values. This film raises some really interesting questions about blood, duty, family and chosen families. It has been criticized as featuring a conservative ending, much like The Lost Boys, but I am inclined to read the film as more ambiguous in its politics and that is something I’ll be discussing in the book. Visually it merges the vampire and horror genre with the western and road movie and features stunning Noir-ish night time cinematography and Bigelow’s recognisable kinetic style. It is a delight to begin to unpack the film’s complexities, both narratively and visually, in this book.

In terms of future projects, I am in the process of developing two long term projects. The first is a co-authored book with Simon Brown, looking at the horror genre through adaptation. This isn’t going to be a book that simply compares ‘original text’ with adaptation. As I said above, I am very interested in media specificity and so this book will consider how the horror genre adapts to different forms and media. So we will be looking at adaptations of horror from novel to film, film to stage, comic book to television, and so on. It is a great time for horror and we have enjoyed doing some of the preliminary work on this by going to see the stage adaptations of Let the Right One In, Carrie, and The Exorcist and thinking through the different ways in which horror is adapted to suit different media and performance styles.

The other project is a monograph on horror and animation, bringing together two of my great loves. I have been teaching the History of Animation for years but this will be my first foray into animation in terms of my research. There are two strands to this project. I am interested in the presence of horror in media for children from Scooby Doo to Nightmare Before Christmas to ParaNorman. How and why are the tropes mobilized for this particular audience and to what end? Is horror rendered safe through animation? But I am also interested in the ultimately uncanny nature of animation – making the inanimate animate – which comes to the fore in stop-motion animation. So my work in this book will not be exclusively focused on children’s animation or even narrative film but it will look at works that galvanize the surrealism and uncanniness of stop motion – so lots of Svankmajer. As I said, both projects are in early stages and I am still developing my ideas.

And finally, what five films or television series would you recommend that you feel represents ‘the best’ that the horror genre can offer and why?

If I have to limit my choices to five then I will not include any of the texts I have already discussed in detail here, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Near Dark. It seems better to open up the discussion to significant texts that I haven’t had the opportunity to talk about in any detail.  

Vampyr (Carl Theodor Dreyer Ger 1932)

This film embodies the Gothic potential that is an inherent part of cinema. Taking place in a landscape that seems to exist on the border between reality and dreams, life and death, it tells a familiar vampire story – woman is fed on by vampire until vampire is destroyed and she is released -- but told in a distinctly cinematic fashion. It is filled with disembodied shadows, superimpositions and double-exposures, alongside a ghostlike roving camera, a disjunctive use of sound, and a mise-en-scène filled with momento mori, including skulls, skeletons, and Grim Reapers.  Watching this film is like being invited to cross the veil into the land of dreams and nightmares where you are never certain what is real and what is not. It is a haunting landscape of the undead.

Les yeux sans visages [Eyes without a Face] (George Franju, Fr 1959)

This is a haunting film of a completely different kind that feels up-to-date with a vengeance. Set in contemporary Paris, it tells the story of an internationally leading plastic surgeon whose daughter has been severely disfigured in an accident and so he attempts to repair her through a face transplant. The only problem is whose face is he transplanting? The doctor’s nurse stalks the streets of Paris, looking for isolated young women to lure back to the surgeon while the daughter Christiane wanders her family home, wearing an exquisite and yet disturbing porcelain mask that makes her appear as a ghost haunting the family home.  Like contemporaneous horror films, Psycho and Peeping Tom, this film reimagines horror as emerging from family and home – no longer a source of comfort and security but the birthplace of the monstrous. Additionally, the surgery scenes are filmed with medical precision and lend the film a gruesome form of body horror that continues to unsettle even the most committed horror fans.

Night of the Living Dead (George A Romero, USA, 1968)

A landmark independent horror film that contributed to the transition of horror away from the period Gothic tales to contemporary horror. A siege narrative about a group of strangers trapped in a house as the dead return from the grave with a hunger for human flesh, this film (along with its sequel Dawn of the Dead) established the template for the contemporary zombie film. Filled with decomposing zombies, graphic depictions of cannibalism, and explosive confrontations between the living, the film offers a nihilistic view of humanity that became typical of the period. Featuring an African-American lead, the film taps into the culture of racial tension that surrounded the Civil Rights movement and still fills relevant today. Significantly, Romero shot the film with gritty, realistic aesthetic that rendered the horror all the more unsettling and contemporary.  Using the rise of the undead as a threat to the status quo, the film questions who are the more monstrous the zombies or the living.

American Mary (Jen and Sylvia Soska, Can, 2012)

Canadian filmmakers Jen and Sylvia Soska offer us a distinct and disturbing twist on the rape/revenge formula presented with Cronenberg-esque fascination with body horror. The film tells the story of a medical student who pays for her education by performing underground, illegal extreme body modification surgeries. After she is drugged and raped by a group of her medical professors and tutors, she drops out of school and decides to use her body modification skills in an unusual and cathartic form of revenge. This is a film that challenges notions of beauty and the monstrous, normality and the disturbed. It offers a distinctive female perspective on violence and rape while also confronting the audience with provocative images of the body that unsettle traditional conceptions of cinematic beauty and voyeurism. It is a fascinating film that does not disappoint.   

Hannibal (Bryan Fuller, US, 2013-15)

The past ten years has been an incredible period for the horror genre on television with so many amazing series, pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable on television. Hannibal  stands as an exciting example of the potential for network television to be as provocative and experimental as cinema. Based on characters from Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon, the series infuses the police forensic procedural with the aesthetic tastes of serial killer Hannibal Lecter. Each episode contains a crime scene that is laid out like a work of art, blurring the lines between the macabre, the gruesome and the beautiful. This is a series that challenges us to sympathise with Hannibal while also confronting us with  the horrors of his actions. Focusing on the relationship between Hannibal and FBI profiler Will Graham, the series becomes increasingly experimental in its style, blurring the lines between nightmare and reality as Graham comes increasingly under Hannibal’s influence.  This is an aesthetically rich series with lush visual style and an experimental musical score like nothing you’ve ever heard before. It is a must watch for the horror film.

Stacey Abbott is a Reader in Film and Television Studies at the University of Roehampton. She is the author of Celluloid Vampires: Life after Death in the Modern World (2007), Angel: TV Milestone (2009), Undead Apocalypse: Vampires and Zombies in the 21st Century(2016), and co-author, with Lorna Jowett, of TV Horror: Investigating the Dark Side of the Small Screen (2013). She has also written extensively about cult television and is the editor of The Cult TV Book (2010), Reading Angel: The TV Spin-Off with a Soul (2005) and TV Goes to Hell: An Unofficial Road Map to Supernatural (2011). She is currently co-editing, with Lorna Jowett, a book on Global TV Horror and is writing the BFI Classic on Near Dark.

Cult Conversations: Interview with Stacey Abbott (Part I)

For many scholars in Fan Studies and Cult/ Horror Studies, Stacey Abbott needs no introduction. Her work on various currents of pop culture and genre—including Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and sister show Angel, as well as the vampire and the zombie in general terms—are required reading on many University degree programmes. Stacey is a robust scholar, and I’m proud to say that many of her publications sit within arm’s reach on my groaning shelves at home. In the following interview, Stacey and I discuss her own fandom, her academic pursuits and the state of horror in the 21st Century, among other things. I hope you enjoy this installment of Cult Conversations.

How would you describe your research interests for readers not familiar with your work?  

Increasingly these days I describe myself as a horror studies scholar as so much of my work comes back to horror and the Gothic. But more broadly, one could describe me as a genre specialist as I am very interested in science fiction alongside horror. I have written on romantic comedies as well and hope to write about musicals one day.  One of the key focuses of my interest in genre is how and why genres develop and change from an industrial, technological and cultural perspective. I am very interested in media specificity, for instance, how does the horror genre work on television and how is that different from film. But also how do genres come to embody or represent changing socio-political climates and cultures.  Through these interests I have come to specialise in texts that feature monsters such as vampires and zombies. My PhD was on vampire films and this interest in vampires then led me to the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, which led me to writing about cult and genre television, another major interest of mine. I started out as a film scholar but increasingly my work moves back and forth between film and television.

Do you recall when the horror bug first bit you? Did you identify as a fan of the genre prior to becoming a scholar? Or was it your academic pursuits that you led to vampires, slayers and zombies?  

I grew up with an obsessive passion for the cinema but did not prefer one genre over another. I would move comfortably from screwball comedy to musicals to horror (and still do). But I did always have a taste for horror. In fact, I was recently listening to Alice Cooper’s song ‘Steven’, which is on his Welcome to My Nightmare album, and I have clear memories of listening to the song as a child (my older brother was an Alice Cooper fan) and finding this song really scary and absolutely enthralling. I have always been fascinated by the fact that something can be enticing and scary at the same time. I remember watching The Exorcist and Halloween on TV as a child and they made a big impact on me. Watching horror films on television was a key starting point for my interest in TV horror. I also remember my older brother telling me about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when it came out. He found it terrifying and I was fascinated by the idea of this film and that it would scare my brother in that way. I couldn’t see it until years later and I was really nervous about seeing it because of that memory. I worked in a video store as a teenager so would regularly take out videos of slasher movies and watch them with my friends.  So, I did identify as a fan but I wasn’t involved in broader horror fan culture until years later.

My passion for horror did grow as I became more academically involved in the study of film. The more I studied the genre, the richer I found it and the more I enjoyed the films. So as an undergraduate film student, I wrote about Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Angel Heart and I gave a presentation on Robin Wood’s ‘The American Nightmare’ and the more I studied film the more I came to feel that there was something cinematic about horror. I loved the aesthetics of the genre and the way in which aesthetics could generate emotion. So, my passion for the topic has been fuelled by academic study and my academic study has fuelled my passion for the genre.  Similarly, I started writing about vampires as a Masters student at the University of East Anglia and I would never have guessed that I would still be writing about them but the more I studied the folklore, literature and the cinematic and televisual heritage, the more I realised that there was so much to say about the genre and of course more and more films keep coming out, so there is always more to say.

What is it in particular that continues to fascinate you about the genre? What are your primary fan-objects and can these differentiated from the objects you study?

My fascination with the horror genre is two-fold I suppose. I am fascinated by the aesthetics of horror, whether this be the special make-up effects and intense gore of 1980s body horror or the gothic aesthetics of the genre in the 1920s and 1930s.  For instance, I have recently written on the use of sound in early werewolf films and how the transition to sound cinema facilitated a new aesthetic conception of horror.  So I am interested in the industrial factors that contribute to the changes within our understanding of the horror genre. But I am also fascinated by the cultural implications of horror. How do these films generate fear; do they tap into cultural fears or particular cultural moments? What can the genre tell us about ourselves?  What we fear - or perhaps what fears the genre taps into – can be quite telling. And it isn’t always about fear. The vampire genre, for instance, often oscillates between attraction and repulsion. So it also confronts or provokes us with desires as well as fears.

For me there is a very fine line between fan-object and object of study. For instance, I am a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel and part of my fandom is integrated with my desire to analyse and break down what is going on in these texts. What are they doing that I find so interesting? But that does not mean being uncritical. In fact, I find that fans can often by hyper-critical. While as a scholar I need to negotiate my fandom with my scholarship, I don’t think that this is entirely unique. I think that academics are often fans of the objects of their study. That is why we study them.  Dickens scholars are usually fans of Dickens.  Horror scholars are fans of horror.  

To go back to your question, my primary fan-objects with respect to horror are Night of the Living Dead (and all of Romero’s zombie films), Martin, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I am a particular fan of horror that came out of the 1960s and 1970s.  But I also love 1980s films such as Fright Night and The Lost Boys. Too many to choose from. And there are some amazing films that have come out in recent years, such as Stakeland, The Babadook, American Mary and so many others.

You have recently completed work on a chapter about The Purge and the way in which it intersects with contemporary US politics. Can you summarize your argument?  

In the 1970s Robin Wood made the argument that the American Horror Genre had potential to be the most progressive of popular genres because it could tap into and express the desire for social change that he saw as fundamental to the post-Vietnam/Watergate era. The genre’s nihilism was expressing the rage of a generation.  This argument has become quite prevalent in defining horror of the 1970s. My aim in writing about the Purge films was to examine the relevance of Wood’s argument in the contemporary political landscape, in particular how we read these films that in many ways seem to be consciously rehearsing this argument, questioning what happens in horror when the subtext becomes text.  Are the filmmakers trying to use the genre for political purposes or are they simply taping into recognisable themes to make them seem more relevant and commercial? So as part of this argument, I reflect on how the franchise negotiates its commercial imperative with political commentary on class and race in the United States. The franchise seems increasingly, and self-consciously, relevant within the contemporary US socio-political landscape. I suppose, another thread to the argument, is to challenge recent conceptions of post-horror, which suggests that films with socio-political readings are somehow new or make them more than horror. I argue that this is what a lot of horror does as part of its natural matrix.   

Following on from that question, are the politics of contemporary horror cinema being underpinned by a marked shift? And what do you think of the notion of cinema as a “reflection” of a broader cultural, social and political climate?   

I think that there has often been a relationship between horror and politics and during periods of particular political strife, cinema taps into this tension.  We see this in the 1930s and the depression, 1950s and the cold war, etc. So I would not see the contemporary horror landscape as unique. In fact, for every Purge film or Get Out, there is a Paranormal Activity – a film that is not overtly presenting itself as political. But within a complex political landscape, I think horror is a very fruitful genre for filmmakers to explore social or political issues. Get Out – like Night of the Living Dead before it -- is an excellent example of this.  Horror often allows filmmakers to take familiar scenarios to their extreme to expose the true horrors that underpin the everyday – like the racial tension between Ben and Mr. Cooper that is exposed due to the stresses of a zombie apocalypse in Night of the Living Dead or the middle-class racism that underpins the plot of Get Out. Of  course, the horrors that underpin the everyday don’t have to be political. A film like Hereditary uses horror to explore the impact of grief and the pain of loss. We don’t talk about death very often and horror is an outlet to perhaps talk about it or tap into and express feelings of loss. The Babadook similarly explores grief and the difficulties of being a single parent, often expressing the inexpressible. So horror can express many things from the personal to the political.

But we shouldn’t read horror cinema as purely a reflection of a single political reading and/or ideology. There are conflicting readings of the alien invasion films of the 1950s that read them as examining the horrors of Communism while others read them as exposing the horror of social conformity. These readings may differ from film to film and/or they may often co-exist in some films.  Sometimes filmmakers intend for their films to offer a social or political commentary as with Get Out but often they are a product of multiple influences which can open the door to multiple readings.  

This brings us to the second part of your question. I think we need to be cautious about thinking of cinema – any type of cinema – as a reflection of the real world. Cinema is not a mirror but rather a product of a wide range of influences, voices, contexts. These can often be contradictory.  So, I tend to think of cinema as a construct rather than a reflection.  This does not mean that we can’t read them in relation to broader cultural, social and political climate or events. I think that cinema – like the filmmakers who make films and audiences who watch them – is a product of its time and its cultural, industrial contexts.  And horror is a very rich text to unpack in this manner. The Purge films seem to consciously critique a culture of racism and violence in the US, as well as an economy that seems to benefit from this culture of fear. At the same time, they aestheticize and in many ways celebrate gun culture. While they seem to critique the NRA, it is always the men with guns who save the day.  As a series of films, they raise many interesting ideas that are exciting to unpack. I am fascinated by the contradictions.

In academic and press discourse, it seems that horror remains discursively constructed as oppositional, disparaged and maligned. Do you agree that this is the case?

I would tend to agree. Of course, there have been changes to attitudes about horror. It is more accepted as a subject of study, although you might still find some critics or members of the press questioning the study of vampires at university. Vampires and zombies are, however, taught in universities across the UK and the North America, on top of countless modules on horror. The London Film Festival regularly programmes horror films, although under the banner ‘Cult’ and from August 2013- January 2014 the British Film Institute devoted a four month season to the Gothic, which included some of the best of past and contemporary horror and Gothic cinema. Some would argue that it would have been harder to plan such a season had it been called Horror and even under the banner of Gothic, there was resistance. But overall, it was a great success and a sign of progress in terms of the genre’s recognition.

Having said that, I think that the genre is still often maligned or perceived as disreputable. The most common way that this manifests at the moment is through the way in which terms such as ‘post-horror’, ‘smart horror’, or ‘elevated horror’ are being used in the press as a way of distancing some films from other examples of horror. These terms suggest that recent films, such as Get Out, A Quiet Place, and Hereditary, are different or separate from horror because they are intelligent, skilful, or thought provoking. What these terms don’t recognise is that horror has always been these things or had the potential to be these things. Bride of Frankenstein, Cat People, Night of the Living Dead, and The Brood are all intelligent, skilful, and thought-provoking films. Of course, some films function more viscerally than intellectually, and these terms seem to suggest that they are a lesser form of horror and I would argue against this. The beauty of the horror genre is that it can function in multiple registers and is constantly shifting and changing. If it didn’t the genre wouldn’t work. So, a film that is deliberately trying to provoke the audience through graphic depictions of gore is potentially as interesting and significant as a film that appeals to our intellect. And many films do both. Wes Craven, David Cronenberg, and Jen and Sophia Soska (to name a few) are masters of visceral and intellectual filmmaking.  They are not necessarily mutually exclusive concepts.

To describe horror as ‘oppositional’ is not necessarily a negative, rather it is kind of the point. Horror is meant to make us uncomfortable and the best horror can take us to dark places and challenge us in an intellectual and/or visceral way. Every once and a while a film – or television series- comes out that pushes the boundaries of acceptability – Psycho, Eyes without a Face, The Exorcist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Serbian Movie or The Human Centipede 2 – and these films  can fall fowl of censors and critics. But to me that often means they are doing what horror should do – provoke, make us think and make us uncomfortable.  In television this happens too. The Walking Dead generated a lot of controversy for the premier episode of season seven ‘The Day Will Come When You Won’t Be’. It was criticised for going too far; pushing the boundaries of acceptability for television; traumatizing its audience. It was repeatedly compared to ‘torture porn’  -- a phrase which is used to connote exploitative graphic horror  and is itself highly problematic and inaccurate in its comparison to this episode.  But to me that is when a horror text gets interesting. For a series set during a zombie apocalypse, where people get eaten by zombies every week, characters regularly meet gruesome ends, and which showcases the decay of the zombie body in graphic detail, I am fascinated by what about this series premiere was perceived as going too far. Many critics fell back on familiar arguments about how horror desensitizes audience to violence but if the reaction to this episode showed anything, it proved that audiences were not desensitized. They responded viscerally and emotionally – whether they were angry or traumatized or grief stricken. The ability to generate that emotion and reaction is truly amazing and one of the many reasons I love horror.

In what ways is Buffy the Vampire Slayer a “cult” text? What marks the series out as “cult,” especially considering it was so impactful in mainstream terms?  Do you view Buffy as characterised by the horror label?

Cult is, of course, a slippery term and there are many ways of thinking about a text as cult. One way of thinking about cult is to see it as standing in opposition to the mainstream but this then raises questions about what we mean by mainstream. Buffy may have been impactful by influencing other series in terms of representation of women and the development of long-running narrative arcs, as well as contributing to a culture change in terms of the presence of horror on television. And it has entered into broader cultural consciousness with, for instance, Entertainment Weekly celebrating the show’s 20th anniversary last year. It has a high recognition factor. But even at its peak it was still generating small audiences as compared to mainstream franchises such as CSI or reality television. It was broadcast on smaller networks – first the WB and then UPN – who were interested in targeting particular audiences rather than the largest audience share. It is about a teenage girl -– named Buffy – who fights and kills vampires. This is a show that is not aimed at everyone but is aimed at particular niche audiences.  While I would argue that everyone should watch Buffy because it is brilliant and, at its best, an example of outstanding acting, writing and directing (not to mention music, editing, action choreography etc), it just isn’t going to appeal to everyone. Some people aren’t going to get past the ‘kill vampires’ bit or the name ‘Buffy’ or the, at times, low budget special effects and make-up.  There is something in the constitution of the series, and even the title, that is setting up the show as cult or at the very least a show aimed at an audience who ‘gets it’. 

Also, it came on the air during the early days of internet fandom and was key to showing the potential that the internet had to offer fan culture in terms of online forums, sharing/production of fanfiction. I think that the series, clearly coming out at the right time, encouraged an engaged fandom who wanted to discuss, analyse, and create. It was emotionally engaging and it was appointment-TV. Remember this was a series broadcast weekly for 23 weeks of the year and then you had to wait until September for the next season. This left a lot of space and time for fans to want to fill with discussion and fan creation; fill in those narrative blanks (like what Buffy and her friends did over the summer).  

Finally, it was created by Joss Whedon and a brilliant team of writers and directors who wanted this show to be more than a popular series but one which generated passion and loyalty on the part of its fans.  Most of them self-identify as ‘fans’ of some form of cult television and wanted their audience to feel that type of loyalty and love for this series that they had felt for other shows like Star Trek or The Night Stalker. So they embraced the cultness of the text, engaging with fans in online forums; encouraging and supporting fan creations; and engaging with fans at conventions.

As to the second part of your question, I absolutely see the show as characterised by horror. Now today we look it and it, of course, seems tame and incredibly restricted in terms of what it could show or not show. But this is where context is important. When it came on the air, there was very little in the way of horror on television, particularly American network television.  Of course, it hadn’t always been this way. Horror was prevalent in the 1970s for instance, and the 1980s saw a number of horror anthology series being produced. But in 1997, there was The X-Files, which while incredibly indebted to horror, sold itself as science-fiction.  HBO’s Tales from the Crypt ended in 1996. There just wasn’t that much in the way of horror on the air. There were censorship restrictions on what you could show and a hesitancy for networks to pursue horror as it was seen as a more niche genre.  So, to be horror, it was common for series to mask their horror-leanings within a genre matrix.  The X-Files is science-fiction/horror and Buffy is teen comedy/drama and horror and Angel is Film noir and horror. These are just a few combinations.

But Buffy’s focus on exploring the monster as metaphor for adolescence is completely based upon horror conventions and tropes. It is replete with vampires, zombies, ghosts, werewolves, slashers, giant praying mantises, Frankenstein monsters, demons, evil politicians, mad scientists, and the list goes on. It uses these monsters to explore the evil that surrounds us and exists within us. Aesthetically, it often draws its visuals from German Expressionism and Gothic cinema and operates in dialogue with established horror traditions or classics of the genre – such as Dracula and Halloween. The show walks a fine line between its various genre leanings in order to manage the horror so that the material remains suitable to the show’s target teenage audience and to the network’s need to conform to FCC regulations. So the dark visual style is balanced by a bright and colourful visual style but the series never lets you forget that the darkness is still out there or that the most violent horrors might emerge in the bright light of day such as when the very human Warren shoots Buffy and Tara.

For me Buffy, and subsequently Angel, represents a key transitional moment when it became clear you could do horror on network TV and there was an audience for it. It is notable that after they were both off the air, Supernatural starts on the WB which is a series that is hugely indebted to both shows and overtly sold itself as horror. While it also offers hybrid generic matrix, integrating horror with melodrama and comedy in much the same way as Buffy, it could sell itself as horror in a way that Buffy had to downplay.  Post-2005, we start seeing the floodgates opening to horror on TV and now we live in a very different televisual landscape where some of the most exciting things in horror are happening on television – see Hannibal, Penny Dreadful, American Horror Story, In the Flesh, The Terror – I could go on for ever.

Stacey Abbott is a Reader in Film and Television Studies at the University of Roehampton. She is the author of Celluloid Vampires: Life after Death in the Modern World (2007), Angel: TV Milestone (2009), Undead Apocalypse: Vampires and Zombies in the 21st Century(2016), and co-author, with Lorna Jowett, of TV Horror: Investigating the Dark Side of the Small Screen (2013). She has also written extensively about cult television and is the editor of The Cult TV Book (2010), Reading Angel: The TV Spin-Off with a Soul (2005) and TV Goes to Hell: An Unofficial Road Map to Supernatural (2011). She is currently co-editing, with Lorna Jowett, a book on Global TV Horror and is writing the BFI Classic on Near Dark.  

Cult Conversations: Interview with Ekky Imanjaya (Part II)

What films stand out as exemplars of the sub-genres you mention, such as Kumpeni and Perjuangan? Can you explain more about these sub-genres in the Indonesian context? Do they draw upon Western traditions (such as the Italian Cannibal boom of the 1970s, for instance? Are there any sub-genres you think are exclusively generated by Indonesian filmmaking?

Actually, I already wrote about the subgenres in my papers in 2009 and 2014. Here, I will elaborate again.

I find Karl Heider’s theories useful to do genre mapping of popular genres, considering that only few scholars wrote seriously and deeply about popular films, let alone exploitation and B-grade movies. Heider suggests various genres and types into which most Indonesian films can fit comfortably (Heider 1991, 39-40). Heider argues that popular genre films are the best examples to do a cultural analysis on since films directed by auteurs or for the purpose of artistic expressions were intentionally detached from their cultural origins. 

I argue, based on Heider’s theory, that there are two basic types of classic Indonesian exploitation films. The first one are films that have stories rooted in Indonesian tradition, history, folklores, or storytelling. Commonly, these kinds of films are full of strangeness, exoticism, and otherness, according to the perspectives of Western fans. The Legend genre, Kumpeni genre, and Horror genre belong to the first basic type of the films, all of which contain elements of mysticism and/or traditional folklores.

Suzzana in White Crocodile Queen (1988)

The Legend Genre includes dramatizations of traditional legends or folktales. The main protagonists usually have supernatural powers. This genre includes costume dramas, historical legends, or legendary history.  For Example: Snake Queen and White Crocodile Queen.

Suzzanna as snake queen

The Kumpeni genre are films which tell stories of the conflict between the Dutch and the Indonesians (17th-19th centuries). The term Kumpeni is the local term of compagnie which comes from Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC), or  the Dutch East India Company (1602-1799). The prototypical plot pits the eponymous hero with supernatural and mystical powers  (Jaka Gledek, Jaka Sembung, Pak Sakerah) against the Dutch forces. Jaka Sembung or ‘The Warrior’ series is the best example of this sub-genre.

Horror in the “Crazy Indonesia” context”  deals with supernatural powers and supernatural monsters, and have a direct connection with traditional folklores. For example: Queen of Black Magic, Mystics in Bali, and Satan’s Slave.

The second type are the ones that have many similarities with international exploitation films. I argue that there are three genres formulated by  Heider with these kinds of characteristics:

Firstly, the Japanese Period Genre. Set in Japanese colonial era (1942-1945), usually about Indonesian women who are kidnapped  and harassed by the Japanese army, and later, became a prisoner or saved by a Japanese officer. This genre is very close to ‘womensploitation’ and Women in Prison films.  War Victims is a good example of this genre.

Secondly, Perjuangan (struggle) period films, which are about the battles to defend a nation’s independence (Heider 1991, 42-43); these look similar to mainstream American action B-grade films.  Both genres are rooted in historical stories of wars in Indonesia. Examples of these films include Daredevil Commandos, Blazing Battle, and Hell Raiders.

And lastly, cannibalism or, as Heider’s puts it, ‘expedition films’.  Some scholars and critics call these “Jungle films” (Tombs and Starke 2008, Sen: 1999, Tombs 1997). The plot consists of a group of “civilized” people discovering unknown places and encountering its native inhabitants (Heider 1991, 45), as in Primitif and Jungle Virgin Force. In an interview with Mondo Macabro filmmakers, Gope Samtani the producer clearly mentioned the 1970s Italian Cannibalism as the inspiration to make Primitif.

JUNGLE virgin force (1983)

There are also films that simply imitated WIP formula, such as Escape from Hell Hole, and Virgins from Hell.

Of course,  there are some hybrid films with the characteristics of more than one genre, and can be categorized and fit in some sub-genres of Western exploitation categories. For example, I argue that characteristics of the Mockbuster or Remakesploitation (in Iain Smith’s term) are embedded in Lady Terminator, which is a blend of Legend and Horror, and has “adopted” parts from Terminator mixed with the traditional folklore of The Queen of South Sea; whereas Intruder is a Rambo rip-off. 

As with much of Western exploitation, then, the Indonesian tradition seems to borrow and plunder already existing and successful properties from North America, Lady Terminator and Intruder’s Rambu being two of your examples. Would this be a fair assessment?  Are there other examples of Indonesian exploitation cinema “remaking” or “adapting” elements of US mainstream filmmaking?

I must go back to the early 1980s when  the government founded Prokjatap Prosar (Kelompok Kerja Tetap Promosi dan Pemasaran Film Indonesia di Luar Negeri/ The Permanent Working Committee for the Promotion and Marketing of Indonesia Films Abroad) and brought  Rapi Films’ Gope Samtani  and Parkit Films’ Raam Punjabi to international film markets in prestigious film festivals such as Cannes, Berlinale, and Milan’s MIFED (Mercato Internationale Del Film Del TV & Del Documentario)  (1982-1983).  The producers learned how to deal with global  film markets, to understand the global demands and tastes, and how to sell their own films to potential buyers. And starting in 1985, after Prokjatap Prosar got dismissed in 1983, they  went independently to international film markets, including Milan, Cannes, Berlinale, and Los Angeles.  

And, after learning the nature of transnational film markets,  they intentionally started to make films that could fit in global market’s taste and demand, and one of the strategies is by doing joint-production as well as using Caucasian actors.  Although in 1984 Rapi Film collaborated with Rapid Film GMBH (Munich,   Germany) to make No Time to Die (Danger - Keine Zeit zum Sterben / Menentang Maut), the joint-production trend started  in 1987 as  Rapi Films and Troma Entertainment co-produced  Peluru dan Wanita, globally known as Jakarta (Triangle Invasion) directed by Charles Kauffman). The co-production projects between two film companies produced three more films, including the infamous wrestling and redubbing film Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters.

Other film companies followed the co-production mode.  Some such films included  Bidadari Berambut Emas (Lady Dragon 2, Ackyl Anwari, 1992),  Harga Sebuah Kejujuran (globally known as Java Burn/Diamond Run, Deddy Arman & Robert Chapell, 1988), and Jaringan Terlarang (Forceful Impact, Ackyl Anwari 1988), and  Dangerous Seductress (Bercinta dengan Maut, Tjut Djalil, 1992).  In these films, they tried to duplicate  the look and the feel of Western exploitation films.

Not only imitating the style of American exploitation films, they also include foreign actors, both professional (Billy Draco, Mike Abbott, Chyntia Rothrock, among others) and amateur ones (Barbara Constable and Ilona Agathe Bastian were tourists, Peter O’Brian was an English teacher), and directors (such as Guy Norris) in these films. Actually, a  year before Jakarta, there was a movie titled Dendam Membara (Final Score, Arizal 1986) starring Chris Mitchum.

So, we can see Indonesian films with Rothrock starring in them in  Angel of Fury/Triple Cross (1990) and Tiada Titik Balik (Lady Dragon, 1992).  

Beside that, as  mentioned earlier, I argue that there are Americanized exploitation subgenres in “Crazy Indonesia” films, similar with the formula and characteristics of   womensploitation, mockbusters,  cannibalism, and women-in-prison films. I claim that, based on the formula and characteristics,  Japanese period films are  Indonesian version of women-in-prison films, and  War Victims is one of the films.  WIP films in Indonesian contexts include Virgins from Hell and Hell Hole.

Lastly, I must mention the success story of Primitif, Barry Prima’s first movie. In an interview filmed by Pete Tombs and Andrew Starke (titled Fantasy Films from Indonesia), the producer openly admitted that they made Primitif in order to make local “Jungle Film”, just like the trend of Italian’s Cannibalism.  This is the first film being sold in international film market--sold in the 1979 Cannes Film Festival through an Italian distributor, SBO. Interestingly, the distributor seemed to hide the fact that Primitif was an Indonesian film.   Primitif was also screened in a West German TV station in  1979 and 1980.  

And finally, which five films would you choose that represent the ‘best’ that Indonesian exploitation cinema offers and why?

Lady Terminator (Tjut Jalil, 1988).

I think the film is one of the most popular and most discussed films online related to Indonesian movies. It is on the list of 100 Cult Cinema (Mathijs & Mendik, 2011) which includes films such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and El Topo (1970).   The film is a perfect example how the filmmakers tried to blend Hollywood’s action film (namely Terminator) and legend genre with famous local folklore and mysticism. In its promotional material, it says :” “Even the jaded patrons of 42nd street were shocked to see how the lustful Lady T dispatched her victims...!".       

In Indonesian context, the film caused “moral panic” and was banned after 11 days of public screenings in 1989  because the film was considered as being  “too nasty”.  The film got post-production overseas and without  passing any official censorship, and returned to Indonesia illegally  in home video format.

Mystics in Bali  (Tjut Djalil, 1981)

In his book, Mondomacabro: Weird and Wonderful Cinema around the World, Pete Tombs named the chapter of Indonesian films by “Mystics in Bali”. Later, Mondo Macabro DVD  labels the film as “The Holy Grail of Asian  Cult Cinema”.

The film is infamous among global online fans for its exoticism and weirdness of “Far East mysticism”, such as “the flying head eating unborn child” and “the lady who turned into a pig”.  the promotional material says: “This is the film that introduced a new kind of monster to the world’s cinema screens. A sensation on its initial release in Asia, Mystics in Bali was deemed too bizarre and shocking to be screened in the West.” One of my colleagues, Jan Budweg, informed me that he found a document in Germany stating that the film was banned in the country for being “too weird”.

The film tells a story about how to become a Leak, “the most powerful black magic in the world”. And, interestingly, when most of local horror films are strongly related to Islamic teachings and Muslim clerics became  the “savior”, Leak is a Baliness ghost with the rich culture of Bali’s Hinduism.

Jaka Sembung (The Warrior) (Sisworo Gautama Putra, 1981)

Let me start with my own experience in 2008. After I finished presenting my final paper at Universiteit van Amsterdam, some of the young students approached me and expressed their gratitude for watching the action of Rawarontek or  Pancasona charm. “Thank you for introducing me with this Asian  superhero. Here, there is no such thing like it, especially when the separated body and head can unite after being chopped off.”.

Jaka Sembung is my favorite local hero. I consider him as local Superhero since he has supernatural* powers  and fight against colonialism and protect his people. 

And one of the “magic” of the film, as well as other films, is the Special Effect, thanks to El Badrun.

Special Silencers (Arizal, 1979)

Also one of the most discussed “Crazy Indonesia” films in the internet. In AVManiacs, November 2011, the fans consider the film as “.. one of the craziest, goriest, wildest, over-the-top Indo-fantasy-flicks ever” and “…gore, violence, trees growing out of peoples bodies in very gory detail, bad kung-fu, bad romance, Corny dialogue, weirdness, weird magic, fire, torture by smelly shoes, rats, snakes, more gore, Barry Prima, Eva Arnaz…”.  Moreover, the film is “…even crazier than the Turkish stuff I've seen.”.  No need further explanation, I guess.

Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters (Jopi Burnama, 1982)

This is the first Indonesian films being circulated globally in DVD format as well as the first (and the only?) film being redubbed intentionally (in VHS release: 1997).

DVD release: Oct 14, 2003) for marketing purpose by an international distributor.  Lloyd Kaufman’s Troma Team  decided to rework the original film by rewriting and rerecording the dialog and music score in order to make it into a “Troma film”.  They call this reworking process “Tromatized”.  As a  result, influenced by Woody Allen’s What’s Up Tiger Lily (1966), the film has totally different story and flavour.

In his 1998 book (co-written with James Gunn), Lloyd wrote “We change a kickboxing Rambo type of hero into an Elvis impersonator. We change the lady in the film from a serious Indonesia heroine into a Jewish-mama-type of person…”.  They also add new sound tracks including, as Kaufman puts it in his book, “…numerous instances of farting, bad sportsmanship, and a chronically masturbating little boy who was singularly obsessed with his ejaculate and the size of his mother’s breasts”.  

In 2001, Joko Anwar wrote a phenomenon of the discussion of Indonesian B-grade movies in some midnight movies forums,  in the Jakarta Post. And  he mentions the film: “Troma pushes it to the lowest point of stupidity by redubbing it with very dumb dialog that plays for pure laughs”.

Satan’s Slave (Sisworo Gautama Putra, 1980)

Considered as one of the scariest film by 1980s generation in Indonesia, this film is the first local Zombie film enriched with local tradition and context. The film has no  specific  motive that commonly exists in domestic horror films, such as “ oppressed female character, mostly being raped,  became a ghost and seek revenge”. The powerful female  shaman just picked  random people who “are far from religious path” to become satan’s slave. So, it could be anyone, it could be us.

The film is the reason Joko Anwar remade Pengabdi Setan (2016) and brought it to the next level and made this B-grade film into an artistic world class horror films and became the first position in 2016 box  office films and gaining more than 4 million spectators—the first Indonesian horror film in that position.

Ekky Imanjaya is a faculty member of Film Program, Bina Nusantara University (Jakarta). He just finished his PhD study in Film Studies at University of East Anglia. The title of his thesis is “The cultural traffic of Classic Indonesian Exploitation Cinema”. His scholarly papers were published in some journals, including Cinemaya, Asian Cinema, Plaridel, Jump Cut, and  Cinematheque Quarterly. His popular articles were published in some media, including Rolling Stone Indonesia, Catalogue of Taipei International Film Festival, and Südostasien.  In 2015, Ekky guest edited a special issue titled "The Bad, The Worse, and The Worst: The Significance of Indonesian Cult, Exploitation, and B Movies" in Plaridel: A Philippine Journal of Communication, Media, and Society. 

Cult Conversations: Interview with Ekky Imanjaya (Part I)

Happy New Year aca-fans and all the best for 2019! Our first installment of the Cult Conversations series of the new year features Ekky Imanjaya, who recently completed—and successfully defended—his PhD thesis on Indonesian exploitation cinema at University of East Anglia (supervised by Mark Jancovich and Rayna Denison). This is a topic that I literally had zero knowledge about, and learned a great deal from Ikky during our conversation, which encouraged me to go off on one of my online hunts for these films (the hunt is part of the fun, right?). I mean, who wouldn’t immediately want to watch films with titles such as White Crocodile Queen, Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters or Lady Terminator? I am sure that cult scholars and fans—and scholar-fans— will find some hidden gems in the following interview and the geographical and historical context of Indonesian exploitation/cult cinema is fascinating, to say the least. I very much look forward to following Ekky’s research in the future.

Lady Terminator! “She mates…then she terminates!

— William Proctor

When did your personal journey into Indonesian exploitation cinema begin? Would you say you were a fan first? Or was it your academic pursuits that led the way?

Well, like many of my friends, when I was a kid back in the 1980s I loved watching local exploitation films. Of course, at that time, we were not familiar with the term as we only wanted to watch the action/martial art scenes and legend-fantastic stories. Kids like me watched the movies based on our favourite movie stars (and genres such as mystics or martial arts), instead of directors. So, we loved watching Barry Prima’s films, or Suzzanna’s films (known as ‘the horror queen of Indonesian Cinema’). They are most probably the most favorite of the 1980s cult icons—despite that Indonesian people never label the films or the stars as “cult” and I could not find any scholars or critics using the term “cult cinema” in analysing Indonesian films, until the films got recirculated in the early 2000s. Such films, borrowing terms from Barry Grant and Mathijs and Sexton respectively, back in the 1980s and 1990s were considered as  “Mass Cult” and “Cult Blockbusters”.

Barry Prima: Indonesian Actor and Martial Artist

Although I watched these kinds of classic Indonesian trashy films and became a fan when I was a kid, my scholarly interest in these kind of films began in 2007 while I was doing my master study at Universiteit van Amsterdam. Before 2007, when I was a film journalist, those films were (and still are) overlooked and shunned by most film critics, film journalists, and film scholars, except when discussing controversial topics or particular fields of study such as gender studies or analysis of social classes. After 1998, when New Order’s President Suharto stepped down, people were excited to witness and enjoy the works of the New Generation of filmmakers with their innovation and creativity in less state-controlled situations. However, nobody focused on these trashy films.

Suzzanna Martha Frederika van Osch (1942—2008)—’the queen of Indonesian horror cinema.’

However, in 2007 I found a DVD titled “Mystics in Bali” distributed by Mondomacabro DVD in Boudisque, Amsterdam.  Later that week, I found out that there are many of Indonesian exploitation from the New Order era (particularly 1979 To 1995) that were globally recirculated in the 2000s by transnational distributors and celebrated by global fans. The global fans even have the term “Crazy Indonesia”, and seen as a thread in the AVManiacs forum on September 14, 2007.  

Initial questions occurred to me:  why are Indonesian films of the 1980s and 1990s being internationally circulated and celebrated abroad 35 years after their original release? Why is there interest in exploitation films and not the official  “Indonesian Films” as a representation of official and legitimate culture? Why were there many trashy films produced and circulated nationally and transnationally in the New Order period, the years commonly known for strict censorship and state-control within film industry?

In domestic mass media, it was prominent director and screenwriter Joko Anwar, then film reviewer for The Jakarta Post, who wrote an article titled ‘Badri films a big hit overseas,’ published on 9 December 2001.  Joko states that the films (he specifically mentioned Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters (FFFF), Lady Terminator,  and The Warrior/Jaka Sembung series) are “…still being talked about and looked for on videos by many bad-movie lovers worldwide and are widely discussed in some midnight movies forums”. He even recommended some exploitation and cult film websites for more details and for online shopping. Joko admitted that those B-movies from, and outside of, Indonesia are one of the reasons why he makes films. He repeatedly praised the films by comparing classical films with recent ones. In 2005, Anwar uploaded the DVD covers of the transnational version of the movies on his ‘Multiply’ blog, which caused many Indonesian fans to want to know more about the exported film and purchase them where possible. Joko Anwar’s activism is significant in engaging many post-New Order local fans with the “Crazy Indonesia” phenomenon, and also can be considered as the bridge for local film enthusiasts to recognize and, later, celebrate the films.

Inspired by Joko Anwar’s Multiply account and my own discovery, I started to undertake research on the topic, and presented a topic as my final assignment for a module titled “Fictional Events and Actual Emotions”, convened by Dr. Tarja Laine in 2008. After presenting the idea at the B for Bad Movies conference in Monash University (Melbourne) in 2009, I finally published the paper called ‘The Other Side of Indonesia: New Order’s Indonesian Exploitation Cinema as Cult Films’ in Colloquy.   And, finally, I was invited to be the guest editor of Plaridel: A Philippine Journal of Communication, Media, and Society Special Issue, Vol 11, Issue No. 2, 2014.  The topic of my special issue is “The Bad, The Worse, and The Worst: The Significance of Indonesian Cult, Exploitation, and B Movies".

In 2009, I emailed Professor Mark Jancovich proposing this idea and asking him to become my supervisor for my PhD study. In less than 5 minutes, he said yes. But it took me 4 years to study at UEA (I started in January 2013), since it was difficult to get the funding, particularly with this “unusual” topic.

Your PhD thesis, The Cultural Traffic of Classic Indonesian Exploitation Cinema, is certainly a valuable area of study and one that has not been studied in great depth in Western academia. How would you explain your thesis to someone who is not familiar with cult cinema in the Indonesian context? How does Indonesian exploitation cinema differ from the grindhouse tradition in the US-context in terms  of content and theatrical exhibition?

My PhD study focused on two key terms: the Politics of Taste and Global Flow related to the film traffic of the films being analysed, namely, transnational Indonesian films from 1979-1995 recirculated globally in early 2000s and 2010s. My PhD thesis critically argues against mainstream point-of-views, which commonly devalue Indonesian trashy films. Firstly, I challenged the “official history” of Indonesian cinema through the framework of cultural traffic, by including and highlighting the significance of exploitation and B-films, and how the films need to be part of any serious discussion about Indonesian cinema. Secondly, I argue that, from the viewpoint of the global flows of the films, classic Indonesian exploitation films are both the effect and the cause of a conflict of interests of various politics of taste applied by several agencies: the State, cultural elites, local film producers, local film distributors and exhibitors, local audiences, transnational distributors, and global fans. 

Regarding, the different between Indonesian cult movies and other cult movies, actually, there are two perspectives: the perspective of Western/global fans and transnational distributors, and local audience and producers/distributors.   

From the global perspectives, they consider what I called “classic Indonesian exploitation films” as cult movies. The films were originally produced, distributed, exhibited in Indonesia, as well as exported (or sold in international film markets), produced by Indonesian filmmakers (and joint-production with filmmakers from other countries), particularly between 1979 and 1995. The films were reworked and recirculated by transnational distributors, legally and illegally, in the early 2000s and labelled as “cult movies”. The most popular distributors include Mondo Macabro (I wrote a paper about them, and will be published soon in Plaridel journal), Troma Entertainment, and VideoAsia’s Tale of Voodoo.  

Global fans have the term: “Crazy Indonesia“--a term popularized by Jack J when he started a thread with the same title in the AVManiacs forum, 2007. In the first posting of the thread at AVManiacs (14/09/2007), Jack  states that he borrowed the title for this thread from another member, Gaenter Muller, who used it for his website, ‘Weird Asia'. Unfortunately, I can’t find a way to trace the website.

The fans wrote reviews or discussed the films in the thread, as well as in their own blogs, such as Cinema Strikes Back, Mondo Digital, 10K Bullets,  Ninja Dixon, Critical Condition, Damn That Ojeda!, and  Backyard-Asia. Regarding Indonesian films, they focus only on “Crazy Indonesia” films and, at the same time, reject other kinds of Indonesian films.

Borrowing from Karl Heider, I argue that they love particular sub-genres of Indonesian films, namely “Indonesian genres” (Kumpeni, legend, supernatural-horror/mystics) and Americanized exploitation subgenres (Japanese Period genre which is similar with womensploitation, Perjuangan/Struggle period genre or action/war movies, mockbusters, cannibalism or Jungle/Expedition films, and Women-in-Prison). Hence, they are only interested in some specific genres and styles from a specific era of production.   

The local perspectives are different. When I undertook my PhD research, I could not find either scholarly or popular articles using the term “exploitation” or “cult” related to Indonesian movies, until those 1980s and 1990s movies were redistributed globally in early 2000s.  Some critics did mention similar terms, such as  “trashy movie”, “slapdash movies”, and “poor quality movies” by Salim Said, Heider’s description of “The art of movie advertising” which is quite similar with the tradition of exploitation films in the Western tradition. Rosihan Anwar once also used the term “sexploitation” in 1978. This is not surprising considering that the movies are considered unimportant and against the official definition of “Film Indonesia”, which should represent the “faces” of Indonesia, true culture, and with cultural and educational purposes (or, “Film Kultural Edukatif”).

Hence, in some cases, I had difficulties applying the Western-centric concept and definition of “cult movies” onto the context of Indonesian cinema, particularly those produced in New Order era.  I am currently developing an idea for an academic paper regarding “Cult Movies, Indonesian Style”. If we agree that the essence of “cult movies” is concerning lively celebration and the rituals of their militant followers, most local audiences in the past and in the 2010s have different styles. There were no fan rituals, cosplay, comic-con, fanzines and so forth, until a few years ago. The traditions associated with Western cult cinema, such as Midnight Screenings, Midnight Movies, Drive-in cinemas and Double Bills are not common in Indonesia, but they have “Layar Tancap” (traveling cinema shows) tradition in rural and suburb area (my paper on this matter will be published soon in Cine-Excess Journal). And most of the films were produced by major film companies and were released theatrically and on home video format (traveling salesmen usually came door-to-door in the neighborhood offering the Betamax video format) for mainstream audiences, and became popular films with some of them even gaining blockbuster status.  

Regarding film references, most of local audiences are not familiar with, for instance, Rocky Horror Picture Show or El-Topo, but they love the Dangdut musicals starring Rhoma Irama, or comedies starring Warkop DKI, or Benyamin Sueb, or propaganda films such as Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI (The Treason of G30S/PKI, an official version of the 1965 event)—which were not circulated in global VHS circuits in the 1980s and are not in the cult DVD circulation of the 2000s.

The terms ‘trashy’, ‘slapdash’ and ‘poor quality movies’ to describe Indonesian exploitation cinema seems to be aligned with discourses in the Western context. How do you feel about these films being labelled in such way as to mark them out as ‘bad’ films? Do fans ‘love to hate’ these films? Or are they described as ‘so bad that they are good’? Given that fans, as you say, reject certain films and include others, is Indonesian exploitation cinema a form of what Jeffrey Sconce terms ‘paracinema’? There certainly appears to be similarities with the cultural distinctions and binaries constructed around exploitation and cult in the Western content. Even the term ‘trashy’ constructs cultural distinctions between exploitation and mainstream, as in the Western context.

This questions can be answered from two perspectives: the Indonesian perspective in New Order era, and the more recent global fans. Let me begin with the first one.

As I mentioned before, there is no term for “cult movies” or “exploitation movies” (as discussed in Western countries). The terms ‘trashy’, ‘slapdash’ and ‘poor quality movies’ came from a few important figures of the cultural elite back in 1980s and 1990s. At that time, domestic exploitation films were mushroomed and became mainstream and some of them became box office films. Although New Order government applied sharp censorship and strict regulations towards the film industry, they still had interests in this kind of films. Naturally, they have terms such as “National Cinema” that can represents “the true Indonesian culture” or in attempt to “seek Indonesian faces on screen”, and should be Film Kultural Edukatif (films with cultural and educational purposes), known as the “qualitative approach”, but still they had the “quantity/audience approach”.  For example, the Minister of Information Mashuri Saleh issued the Ministerial Decree no. 47/1976, which states that film exporters are obligated to produce five films (later, reduced to three) for the right to import films (Said 1991, 88). This quickie quota policy was in response to the decline of film production in 1977 (from 77 in the year before to 41, as written by Said in 1991).  As a result, the quantity of films increased significantly.  For example, the 1978 Indonesian Film Festival received the largest number of entries in the New Order era.  On the other hand, many of these films are criticized for not been good quality. Salim Said underlines that the films are “not just slapdash films but films with an overemphasis on elements such as sex and violence”, and this phenomenon led to “the rise of trashy movies” (Said 1991, 89-90). That was where the terms came from.

The main idea of quantitative/audience policy was to “let the quantity of films grow first, therefore the quality will automatically follow” (as written by senior film critic JB Kristanto in 2004). Interestingly, in Indonesian context, the exploitation films were the mainstream films, whist most of Film Kultural Edukatif had difficulties in getting audiences.

The other perspective is the perspective of global fans and transnational distributors. They like the strangeness, the weirdness, the otherness of the films. As I mentioned above, they have their own term, “Crazy Indonesia”, which is in line with some of Karl Heider’s definition of Indonesia’s sub-genres, such as Kumpeni (local heroes fights Dutch colonial army with supernatural powers), Legend (folklores/fantasy with supernatural and magic powers), Japanese Period (W-I-P), and Jungle/Expedition (Indonesian style of cannibalism) genres. The difference between the “Crazy Indonesia” films and the exploitation films from Western countries relies on the exoticism of these subgenres. In an interview with myself,  Pete Tombs, the co-founder of Mondo Macabro, shares the same argument:

“Again, to us in the West, the mythology they explored (South Sea Queen, Sundel Bolong etc.) was new and very “exotic”.  There was also something interesting in seeing western exploitation staples, such as the women in prison movie or the monster movie, being filtered through Indonesian eyes. Finally, I suppose for us there was a feeling that things like supernatural horror and black magic were maybe taken a bit more seriously by audiences in Indonesia than they were in the West, for cultural/historical reasons, so the films weren’t so self-conscious or “camp” as UK or US productions” (Imanjaya 2009d, 148)

Can you explain more about the political climate in which these films emerged and re-emerged? Terms such as “New Order” may need explaining for readers unfamiliar with exploitation in the Indonesian context.

The New Order regime era was established in 1966 and ended in 1998. The years 1965-1966 were a big transition point for Indonesia. In the previous decade,  there were ideological battles and political polarizations among many parties. The Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, or PKI), one of the biggest political power in Old Era, was destroyed and Suharto became the President. New Order accused PKI to take over President Sukarno (the previous president) in September 30, 1965, thus the Army under Suharto “destroyed” and banned PKI’ and the members (or people who were accused as members of PKI) were imprisoned or killed.  On the other hand, if you watched Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence, you can find  the “other perspective” of the event.

Learning from the final years of the “Old Order”, an era that was marked by economic and political instability, Suharto’s “New Order” framed all aspects of potential Communist infiltration of cultural output as subversive and put the film and media industries under military control, and thus established a level of oppression and censorship. However, at the same time, Suharto tried to build the nation, including the film industry. On one hand, they tried to dominate every aspect of life under the guise of security, development, and stability . For example, in the film industry, the government applied strict censorship and controlled all aspects of film production from screenwriting to distribution and exhibition. On the other hand,  The New Order had several policies designated to rehabilitate the development of the film industry and support the import of foreign films. Ministerial decrees were enacted to improve film development with a focus upon a “quantity approach” or “audience approach”. This kind of decrees paved the way of exploitation films to bloom.

Ekky Imanjaya is a faculty member of Film Program, Bina Nusantara University (Jakarta). He just finished his PhD study in Film Studies at University of East Anglia. The title of his thesis is “The Cultural Traffic of Classic Indonesian Exploitation Cinema”. His scholarly papers are published in some journals, including Cinemaya, Asian Cinema, Plaridel, Jump Cut, and  Cinematheque Quarterly. His popular articles were published in some media, including Rolling Stone Indonesia, Catalogue of Taipei International Film Festival, and Südostasien.  In 2015, Ekky guest edited a special issue titled "The Bad, The Worse, and The Worst: The Significance of Indonesian Cult, Exploitation, and B Movies" in Plaridel: A Philippine Journal of Communication, Media, and Society.