Horror, besides being entertaining, is also a powerful tool for raising awareness, reflecting both individual and collective fears and concerns. While every country has its own horror manifestations, this essay focuses on Mexico because of its unique and unsettling relationship with horror. This relationship is analyzed under the term “mexplatterpunk.”

The depiction of the undesirable castaway as horrific monster is a tale as old as Frankenstein, and in the centuries that have passed, this archetype has taken many different shapes, and we can thank new applications of abjection for that. Is it because of the violent nature of the mutilation, or is it because of the repugnant visage of the human body?

In the '90s, after the precedent was set over the last decade, two wildly different trans characters were brought into existence just two months apart. The first, Special Agent Denise Bryson, DEA in Twin Peaks. The second, serial killer Buffalo Bill in The Silence of The Lambs.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho continues to be tumultuous ground for trans authors and viewers. In Private Traps, Dave Riser posits questions around the transphobic and ableist histories that force us to contend with this beloved classic film.

Out of all the pieces of pop culture that feature vampires, the Castlevania franchise stands out for one particular reason. Everyone’s favorite character? The castle. Rarely is the setting of a storyline one of the first things that fans recall. While it’s mostly fans of the Castlevania video games who are responsible for this pop culture preference, the castle depicted in the critically acclaimed Netflix series has also received praise.

Cinematic trilogies are common, but few tell the epic anti-hero story as well as the Friday The 13th films. These beloved movies capture one of the most iconic horror characters of all time: Jason Voorhees.

How can The Tingler—a post-atomic horror film about a lobster-like creature that manifests on your spine whenever you are afraid—possibly be compared to something as life-affirming and fancy-free as a musical? If we set aside genre and look at the form and content of both The Tingler and another self-reflexive picture from the same decade, Singin' in the Rain, the correspondences between the different genres are fascinating.

Self-harm is a subject so taboo that even the horror genre struggles to depict it. The Substance is a film that embraces this difficult topic alongside aging, and bodily mutilation through the lens of societal pressures.

Movies like Cocaine Bear and Unnatural have captured audiences for their extreme depictions of bears, but how does this dramatization of unpredictable bear attacks effect our relationship to wildlife off screen?

A lifetime combination of fictional and nonfictional encounters will weave terrifying images in our minds about encountering a bear in the woods. Grizzly and The Edge exploit the primal fear of being hunted by a brown bear, realistic or not.

Welcome to Bear Month at WSB! Grizzly bears have long held anxieties for hikers and campers in the backcountry, and have made their way into the horror genre as a pseudo serial killer - but are these fears unwarranted?

Tragic, haunting, and immersive, Joel Anderson’s 2008 masterpiece Lake Mungo is one of the finest pieces of ghost storytelling in recent history, literalizing Jacques Derrida’s concept of hauntology, or the persistence of an element of the past.

Andrzej Żuławski's Possession, having gained cult status 40 years later, tells the story of a failing marriage and an equally devastating relationship to God and divinity.

Pedro Almodóvar’s controversial 2011 film The Skin I Live In is the ultimate conundrum: It is both visually and auditorily appealing, exciting and shocking, and yet it is deeply problematic.

A deep dive into the visuals of The Exorcism of Emily Rose reveals a haunting foreshadowing of the economic recession.