The series of “House” party ads that Mike’s Hard Lemonade have started running are pretty effective and funny in the way that they domesticate tropes of the uncanny. In my favorite, the host of the party answers the door bell, and a headless deer simply stands on the doorstep, breathing. The mounted head in the… Continue reading The Trophy Talks Back: Mike’s Hard Lemonade “House” Ads
Tag: horror
The Uncanny in your Inbox — and a Book in your Mailbox
A brief alert to let readers of this blog and fans of all things “uncanny” know that my latest book is a large collection of micropoetry — called The Gorelets Omnibus. Aside from hundreds of twisted (and sometimes funny) horror poems, it features a collection of academic articles written about the gorelets project (by critics… Continue reading The Uncanny in your Inbox — and a Book in your Mailbox
JC Penney — Screaming For Retail
In their latest campaign, “Enough. Is. Enough,” JC Penney is running what is, to my mind, a hilarious television commercial, involving a serial montage of consumers shouting for outrageously loud and extended time periods at sales tags and other marketing tricks familiar to us all. What makes this commercial so great is all the horror… Continue reading JC Penney — Screaming For Retail
Interview with NHRS: The Uncanny in Popular Horror Fiction
A former grad student of mine, WD Prescott, is running an interesting website bluntly called The Non-Horror Reader Survey that is studying what today’s readers think about the modern horror genre. It features interviews with various readers, writers, and scholars, along with a research questionnaire you can fill out, if you want to participate. It’s… Continue reading Interview with NHRS: The Uncanny in Popular Horror Fiction
Uncanny Beauty and Weird Tales
Weird Tales magazine (issue #356) will have “uncanny beauty” as its theme, and I’m excited to see what it has in store. The cover art is gorgeous. Even Jeff Vandermeer’s cat loves it. I highly recommend subscribing to this longstanding genre fiction magazine, which has been around since the pulp era and helped draw attention… Continue reading Uncanny Beauty and Weird Tales
Uncanny Digital Literacies: Defamiliarization in The Classroom
Just found this neat Prezi presentation on “Uncanny Digital Literacies” by Sian Bayne, from the ESRC seminar series on Literacy in the Digital University (University of Edinburgh, 16 Oct 2009). I like the free-floating zoomieness of Bayne’s presentation, but with an ‘absent’ presenter, it is a little difficult to make the ideas and images cohere.… Continue reading Uncanny Digital Literacies: Defamiliarization in The Classroom
The Oobleck Effect: Living Liquid
Last year, writer Jason Jack Miller shared with me a popular YouTube video of uncanny monsters born by placing a layer of water and cornstarch on a subwoofer. I find myself returning to these videos often, contemplating the animism made possible by the rhythm of sound and the chaos of vibration. This neat effect “animates”… Continue reading The Oobleck Effect: Living Liquid
The Addams Family Returns…Online
A public service announcement: The Addams Family is now streaming for FREE on YouTube, from MGM. A pastiche of horror fiction iconography — and also an indictment of the 50’s nuclear family, the conventions of the sitcom, and all things domestic — this show is perhaps one of the most interesting and clear-cut manifestations of… Continue reading The Addams Family Returns…Online
Andrew Huang’s Uncanny Videos
I thank my colleagues at Seton Hill University, Laura Patterson and Maureen Vissat, for recently passing along a YouTube link to “Doll Face” by Andrew Huang. It’s a brilliant treatment of the relationship between media technology and gender identity, using uncanny structures like automatism and the compulsion to repeat to deliver its message. The video… Continue reading Andrew Huang’s Uncanny Videos
David Lynch’s Doppelgangers
In psychology, the shadow is the part of the unconscious that swallows threatening information and experiences that a conscious mind cannot hold onto and, at the same time, remain functional. However, a periodic confrontation with the shadow is necessary for a healthy psyche. In a Lynch film it is often the job of some sort… Continue reading David Lynch’s Doppelgangers