I am proud to report the publication of some of my film studies research at What Sleeps Beneath — a fantastic horror film-focused journal that not only features some brilliant current film reviews and interesting thinkpieces on the genre, but also recently won the annual “Best Blog” award from Pittsburgh City Paper. Right on.
My contribution is called “Screamin’ in the Rain: The Orchestration of Catharsis in William Castle’s The Tingler“ and in it I compare Castle’s over-the-top screamer of horror to one of the most heart-moving movie musicals ever made, Gene Kelly’s Singin in the Rain.
What’s that? What on earth does a musical have to teach us about a horror movie? To put it simply, one is a singalong, the other is a screamalong. Their approach to audience interactivity — and the joy we take from both — is similar in modality. And as I argue in my essay (drawing inspiration from the work of the late Pittsburgh media scholar Jane Feuer), they also try to perpetuate myths about the value of cinema as an art form… and the way that horror presents itself as a means for “catharsis”.
If you’re into academic film criticism, you can read my essay free at What Sleeps Beneath.
And here’s to William Castle, who always got me laughing and screaming at the same time. If you want to see more of his work beyond The Tingler, you can’t go wrong watching Mr. Sardonicus.
