The critical frenzy around the recent postmodern horror film, The Cabin in the Woods (2012), as a game-changer or reinvention of the horror genre, suggests that journalists (and even fans) have forgotten that horror is always-already a reflexive genre. Horror films show a formal awareness of the constraints and conditions within which horror genre artists work, regarding the expectations of a knowledgeable fan-base, the production realities of a limited budget, having to work within and against traditional horror themes and conventions, and with other genres and other media (e.g., television, gaming), and even with existing horror scholarship. This introductory class will give students a pathway into the critical study and discussion of horror through healthy debate around the way popular (and sometimes scholarly) discourse problematically frames horror as constantly in crisis and in need of rejuvenation. In addition to clips from The Cabin in the Woods, we will screen in its entirety Tod Browning’s 1935 film Mark of the Vampire.
Kristopher Woofter teaches courses on the American Gothic, the Weird tradition, and literary and cinematic horror in the English Department of Dawson College, Montréal. He earned his PhD from Concordia University. He is co-editor of the upcoming collection, Joss Whedon vs. Horror: Fangs, Fans and Genre in Buffy and Beyond (I.B. Tauris). Kristopher is also a programmer for the Montréal Underground Film Festival and served for ten years as a co-chair for the Horror Area of the PCA/ACA annual national conference.
