Faculty of Horror

By Andrea Subissati and Alexandra West

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Typical duration
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Faculty of Horror episodes

March 24, 2022 Episode 105. Doom Scroll: Pulse (2001) and Suicide Club (2001)

In this episode, Andrea and Alex explore two different yet eerily similar films that came out of Japan in 2001. The conversation covers where history, humanity and community end, exploring what is left in its wake and the new limitations of imagining the future.

CW: Suicide. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones: 1-800-273-8255.

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REQUIRED READING
Pulse. Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001.
Suicide Club. Dir. Sion Sono, 2001.

EXTRA CREDIT
Haunted by Leo Braudy. A wide ranging examination of horror and its tropes.

Apocalyptic Dead by Kirsten Moana Thompson. A deep dive into films at the turn of the 21st century and our fear of the future.

Too Lonely to Die Alone: Internet Suicide Pacts and Existential Suffering in Japan. Chikako Ozawa-de Silva looks at the troubling phenomenon in Japan in the early 2000s.

The plight of Japan’s modern hermits. Hikikomori, discussed.

What You’re Feeling Isn’t a Vibe Shift. It’s Permanent Change. Elamin Abdelmahmoud’s piece for Buzzfeed on our shifting reality.

The End of History by Francis Fukuyama. The much cited piece about humanity’s (possible) end of ideology.
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1 hr 38 min
January 26, 2022Episode 103. 2021 Year in Review: From the Book of Fack
It’s that time of year where we look back at our horror and non-horror faves from the last year and have a bit of fun while we’re at it.

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EXTRA CREDIT
Alex’s Best of Horror
Dexter: New Blood
Titane
Censor
Caveat
Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched
Yellowjackets
Midnight Mass
Malignant
The Humans

Andrea’s Best of Horror
Saint Maud
Psycho Goreman
Candyman
Last Night in Soho
The Feast (Gwledd)
The Vigil
Caveat
The Sadness
Midnight Mass

Alex’s Non-Horror Faves
Wandavision
Jagged
Mare of Easttown
Succession S3
Real Housewives (Beverly Hills S11, Salt Lake City S2, Ultimate Girls Trip)
The Weakerthans
Olivia Munn Explores ASMR | W Magazine
We Hate Movies/ Maintenance Phase, Celery Juice episode
Trixie and Katya
Pig

Andrea’s Non-Horror Faves
Voyage of the Rock Aliens
A Column of Fire/World Without End by Ken Follet
Mythos by Stephen Fry
Who is Daniel Johns?
Twitch

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2 hr 24 min
December 21, 2021 Episode 102. Rule Breaker: Scream (1996)
Do you like scary movies? Because Wes Craven’s Scream sure does! In this episode, Andrea and Alex tackle the game-changing film, discussing its origins, impact and legacy.

Class of 2021 Merch is here! Original art by Slutfocate

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REQUIRED READING
Scream. Dir. Wes Craven, 1996.

EXTRA CREDIT
The 1990s Teen Horror Cycle: Final Girls and a New Hollywood Formula. Alex’s book on ’90s horror with a feminist gaze.

Men, Women and Chain Saws. Carol Clover’s treatise on gender in modern horror that coined the term Final Girl.

Columbine. Dave Cullen’s in-depth account of the Columbine shootings.

The Banality of Skeevil. Jude Ellison S. Doyle’s medium article on Skeet Ulrich’s particular brand of ’90s toxic masculinity.

Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers. Jude Ellison S. Doyle’s book on power and monstrosity.

Seventeen Magazine May 1999. Featuring Jewel on the cover, this issue contains the findings of Seventeen x Ladies Home Journal’s survey and the article, “No! 12 Ways to Make That Little Word Heard.”

Cine-limbo: The Millennial/New Age Virtual Afterlife Thriller by Linda Badley. Did Millennial teens grew up on a diet of death-denying media?

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1 hr 29 min
November 24, 2021 Episode 101. Death Trap: Saw (2004) and Hostel (2005)
Do you want listen to an episode about Torture Porn? Well, you’re in luck! Andrea and Alex dive into the 2000s to look at the phenomenon of Torture Porn; what preceded it, what it meant, and where we can potentially place it in our collective imagination.

Class of 2021 Merch is here! Original art by Slutfocate

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REQUIRED READING
Saw. Dir. James Wan, 2004.
Hostel. Dir. Eli Roth, 2005.

EXTRA CREDIT
Saw 0.5. James Wan and Leigh Whannell’s short film made as a proof of concept for what would eventually become Saw.

Now Playing at Your Local Multiplex: Torture Porn. David Edelstein’s piece in New York Magazine that coined the term Torture Porn.

Sympathy for the Sequel, Saw: The Final Chapter. Alex’s series on Rue Morgue TV.
HBO’s Succession podcast. S3E2 episode where host Kara Swisher talks to organizational psychologist Adam Grant.

How Masculinity Contests Undermine Organizations, and What to Do About It. From the Harvard Business Review, a look at how toxic masculinity took over corporate culture.

Smash hit horror Hostel causes a stir among citizens of sleepy Slovakia. Roth’s interview with European press about his take on Europe and why he made Hostel.

Ghost Faces: Hollywood and Post-Millennial Masculinity. David Greven’s book which features the chapter “Torture/Porn: Hostel, Homophobia and Gay Male Internet Porn.”

Gaylords of Darkness Episode 124: Lady Police Academy. Stacie and Anthony’s fantastic episode on Roth’s Knock Knock.

Capone and Eli Roth discuss horror movies, gore, Stephen King, the phrase “Torture Porn” and much more! An interview on Hostel 2 wherein Roth reveals his insights on feminism among other things…

Torture: A Sociology of Violence and Human Rights by Lisa Hajjar. How the morality of torture has shifted since 9/11 and the war on terror.

Are horror films immoral? No, they aren’t.

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1 hr 58 min
October 22, 2021 Episode 100. American Nightmare: The Crazies (1973)
Live from Salem Horror Fest, our 100th episode on George A. Romero’s The Crazies sees us tackling small-town life, biology, the Vietnam War, health care and our own podcasting mortality. Plus, a very special Cameo!

Class of 2021 Merch is here! Original art by Slutfocate

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REQUIRED READING
The Crazies. Dir. George A. Romero, 1973.

EXTRA CREDIT
The Crazies. Dir. Breck Eisner, 2010.

Robin Wood on the Horror Film. A collection of Wood’s seminal essays.

Hearts and Minds. The 1974 Oscar-winning documentary about the Vietnam War.

New Pandemics, Old Politics: Two Hundred Years of War on Disease and its Alternatives. Alex De Waal’s new book on modernity’s need for narratives and biology’s refusal of them.

The Birth of Biopolitics. Foucault’s lectures that introduce his theories of biopower and biopolitics.

The American Idea: The Best of the Atlantic Monthly. A large collection of essays that reflected and shaped America.

The Washington Post: “If we want people to take the coronavirus vaccine, we need to treat them like consumers” by Jennifer Reich. Has our history with DTCAs made us treat healthcare like businesses?

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1 hr 19 min
September 27, 2021 Episode 99. Be Our Guest: The Invitation (2015)
The table is set, the wine is poured and the time has come to take your seat at the table as we delve into Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation. From a history of dinner parties to the dynamics of grief, we’re serving up a once in a lifetime, four-course meal of analysis.

Class of 2021 Merch is here! Original art by Slutfocate

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Salem Horror Fest 2021 – tickets and info now available!
REQUIRED READING
The Invitation. Dir. Karyn Kusama, 2015.
EXTRA CREDIT
Millennials have dinner parties, they just don’t call them that. Nisha Chittal’s analysis of the history and evolution of dinner parties.

The American Dinner Party. A detailed breakdown of what constitutes a dinner party by Amy Nash.

Rue Morgue TV: An Expert on Cults Reviews The Lodge.

What is it about California and Cults? A history and analysis of the Golden State’s relationship with cults.

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism. Amanda Montell’s book about cults and their wide-ranging influence.

One More Time with Feeling. The Nick Cave documentary that follows the singer as he completes the album Skeleton Tree after the death of his son.

The White Album. Joan Didon’s iconic essay and essay collection about the West coast and the end of the ’60s.

The Epidemic of Despair: Will America’s Mortality Crisis Spread to the Rest of the World (2020) by economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton. Some findings from their book, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism.

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1 hr 22 min
August 25, 2021 Bonus content – Candyman (1992) Commentary
Sweets for the sweet! We’re still on our annual August hiatus but we accidentally said “Candyman” five times and resurrected a commentary we recorded for our Patreon back in 2019. Whoops!

Listen in to whet your appetite for Nia DaCosta’s reimagining this weekend!

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1 hr 38 min
July 27, 2021 Episode 98. House Warning: The Amityville Horror (1979) and Poltergeist (1982)
Call your bank and pack the moving truck because we’re uprooting everything we think we know about home ownership. From the Lutz’ mortgage with Devil to the skeletons in the Freelings’ closet (and backyard), Andrea and Alex unearth what lies beyond and beneath the white picket fences of American suburbia.

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Salem Horror Fest 2021 – tickets and info now available!
REQUIRED READING
The Amityville Horror. Dir. Stuart Rosenberg, 1979.
Poltergeist. Dir. Tobe Hooper, 1982.
EXTRA CREDIT
Gaylords of Darkness Amityville 4 episode. The incomparable Stacie and Anthony tackle one of the strangest movies ever made. A must-listen!

Stephen King’s Danse Macabre. King’s non-fiction treatise on all things horror.

Romance and Real Estate, Walter Benn Michaels. Michael’s chapter on the emotional ties to owned property.

Owning Up: Privacy, Property, and Belonging in U.S. Women’s Life Writing, 1840-1890. Katherine Adam’s book about the rise of individuality, property and women’s relationship to owning a home.

In the Nation, Why Owning a Home is Still the American Dream. A history of status, taxes and the uses of home ownership.

Digging Up the Indian Burial Ground Trope. Shea Vassar’s breakdown and history of the trope which includes Terri Jean’s 5 reasons for the trope’s enduring popularity.

The Terrifying True Story that inspired Poltergeist. A look at Amityville‘s neighbours that inspired Poltergeist.

Reaganomics killed America’s middle class. An examination of Reagan’s economic policies and their lasting effects.

Half-True Crime: Why the Stranger-Danger Panic of the ’80s Took Hold and Refuses to Let Go. A deep-dive into the 1980s moral panic and its after-effects.

Cursed Films: “Poltergeist”: The Shudder series by Jay Cheel tackles the many urban legends surrounding the Poltergeist franchise.

“Haunted Real Estate: The Occlusion of Colonial Dispossession and Signatures of Cultural Survival in U.S. Horror Fiction” by Gesa Mackenthun. TIL the word “occusion!”
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1 hr 53 min
June 29, 2021 Episode 97. No Future: Jack the Ripper in The Lodger (1927) and From Hell (2001)
The fog of Victorian London settles on Alex and Andrea as they dive into “Ripperology”: the facts, fiction and shadow cast by Jack the Ripper over our culture. By examining how the figure is depicted in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger and The Hughes Brothers’ From Hell, we can begin to untangle the history of more than one problematic man involved in creating their own mythology.

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REQUIRED READING
The Lodger: A Story of London Fog. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1927.
From Hell. Dir. The Hughes Brothers, 2001.
EXTRA CREDIT
The Lodger. Marie Belloc Lowndes’ novella.

From Hell. Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s iconic graphic novel.

London: A Biography. Peter Ackroyd’s seminal book on a sprawling city with an even bigger history.

The “Lodger Evil” and the Transformation of Progressive Housing Reform, 1890–1930. An in-depth look at the lodging house boom of the turn of the century.

Rule, Britannia!: The Biopic and British National Identity. An examination of how popular British figures have shaped the country’s film output.

“Murder for a Penny: Jack the Ripper and the Structural Impact of Sensational Reporting” by A. Luxx Mishou – the history of sensational reporting and its role in Jack’s reign of terror.

“Jack the Ripper, the dialectic of enlightenment and the search for spiritual deliverance in White Chappell” by Alex Murray – how Jack contributed to Horkheimer and Adorno’s dialectic of enlightenment.
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1 hr 36 min
May 25, 2021 Episode 96. Missing Links: Trollhunter (2010) and Willow Creek (2013)
If you go down in the woods today
You’re sure of a big surprise

Andrea and Alex leave the comforts of modernity and go back to nature to discover what humanity has left behind through our obsessions with cryptids and conspiracy theories. From our fascination with humanity’s evolution to our need to colonize, we have a lot of explaining to do.

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REQUIRED READING
Trollhunter. Dir. André Øvredal, 2010.
Willow Creek. Dir. Bobcat Goldthwait, 2013.
EXTRA CREDIT
Grizzly Man. Dir Werner Herzog, 2005.

The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters and Our Obsession with the Unexplained. Colin Dickey’s in-depth examination of the myths that keep us up at night.

CBC Ideas Podcast: Conspiracy Theories. A fascinating look at the rise of fringe theories invading the mainstream.

“Survivorman Bigfoot” takes on the provincial government of British Columbia.

“Cryptozoology in the Medieval and Modern Worlds” by Peter Dendle. Bigfoot myths not only bridge the gap between humanity and beasts but science and faith.

ERRATA: Andrea referred to American primatologist Dian Fossey as having been murdered by the gorillas she was studying – she was actually murdered via machete, a crime which remains unsolved.
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1 hr 27 min