Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper
‘Bring back lost things’ : The Recovery of Materiality in Contemporary Horror. / McMurdo, Shellie.
2022. Paper presented at Fear 2000: Horror Undying, Sheffield Hallam, United Kingdom.Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper
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TY - CONF
T1 - ‘Bring back lost things’ : The Recovery of Materiality in Contemporary Horror
AU - McMurdo, Shellie
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Retro horror has been a growing part of the wider horror genre since at least the late 2000s, heralded by such films as House of the Devil (2009): a film in which we can discern two forms of genre nostalgia that are central to this paper. The use of an analogue aesthetic and practical gore effects.While films such as Evil Dead (2013), The Void (2016) and Censor (2021) eschew computer generated effects and recall the tactile quality of practical make up artistry and puppetry from the 1980s, other recent genre entries such as V/H/S/94 (2021), Archive 81 (2022) and X (2022) prominently feature the visual aesthetics of outmoded media formats. This paper will argue that both of these strands evoke a longing for a horror decades past and its attendant material qualities, while uncovering how they also represent an intriguing intersection between process (the maintaining of and rituals around superseded mediums) and practice (the valorisation of practical over digital effects). This paper will demonstrate that these films are part of a broader analogue approach within the contemporary genre, where the accoutrements of previous eras are recovered and made central once more. Overarchingly, I will present these texts as “love letters” to past horror eras: ones that reinsert materiality as part of their appeal to genre fans, and as part of a process of homage
AB - Retro horror has been a growing part of the wider horror genre since at least the late 2000s, heralded by such films as House of the Devil (2009): a film in which we can discern two forms of genre nostalgia that are central to this paper. The use of an analogue aesthetic and practical gore effects.While films such as Evil Dead (2013), The Void (2016) and Censor (2021) eschew computer generated effects and recall the tactile quality of practical make up artistry and puppetry from the 1980s, other recent genre entries such as V/H/S/94 (2021), Archive 81 (2022) and X (2022) prominently feature the visual aesthetics of outmoded media formats. This paper will argue that both of these strands evoke a longing for a horror decades past and its attendant material qualities, while uncovering how they also represent an intriguing intersection between process (the maintaining of and rituals around superseded mediums) and practice (the valorisation of practical over digital effects). This paper will demonstrate that these films are part of a broader analogue approach within the contemporary genre, where the accoutrements of previous eras are recovered and made central once more. Overarchingly, I will present these texts as “love letters” to past horror eras: ones that reinsert materiality as part of their appeal to genre fans, and as part of a process of homage
M3 - Paper
T2 - Fear 2000: Horror Undying
Y2 - 1 July 2022 through 3 July 2022
ER -