She’s Not Imagining Things: ‘The Invisible Man’ & Horror’s History of Believing Women (Originally published for Bloody-Disgusting.com)

The original article was published for Bloody-Disgusting.com on March 5, 2020.

This editorial contains spoilers. 

“You’re not going out of your mind. You’re slowly and systematically being driven out of your mind.” – Gaslight (1944)

It’s one of the oldest tropes in the book of psychological horror: something unusual/terrible happens; female protagonist gets caught in the crossfire and blamed for it; no one believes said woman and thinks she’s crazy; we, the audience, can see she’s telling the truth and know she should be believed; woman eventually is vindicated or she wins our empathy, at the very least. In the mean time, something, someone, or a pocket of society is actually pulling the strings and the wool over her eyes through cruel mind games, manipulating, policing, abusing, and surveying her mind and body, as she fights that much harder to prove that no, she’s not “crazy”— she’s just being gaslighted.

Metalsploitation: The History of Heavy Metal in the Horror Film (Originally Published for Bloody-Disgusting.com)

The original article was published for Bloody-Digusting.com on April 9, 2020.

Blood, Satan, the occult, fighting off zombies, social chaos, violence, death— on the surface, these descriptors sound like your average indicators of our favorite horror movies, however, they’re just as representative of horror’s musical cousin equivalent: heavy metal. Just like metal horns and concerts pair so perfectly, these misfit subgenres have been tied together for decades— even coming together as one in the form of “metalsploitation,” (yep, a real term) in which heavy metal music is exploited, satirized, and, most importantly, portrayed lovingly within its own, unique variety of horror films. In honor of the latest heavy metal-horror movie to join the subgenre’s slate, the Alexandra Daddario-starring We Summon the Darkness that’s arriving on VOD this week, we’re looking at each decade of heavy metal’s progression and relationship to the horror genre.