Is there a place for fear in Christianity? And if there is, what value does the horror genre bring to the Christian life? To answer these questions we must uncover what sort of world it is we inhabit, and we mustn’t be too hasty in presuming to already know. For if the world is a […]
The Dirty Deacon’s Top 10 Horror Films of 2016
Disclaimer: Pinning down actual years on films is a tricky endeavor. Some films travel film festival circuits and have limited theater releases well before they’re actually “out”. However, my list below contains the top 10 horror films that had a wide release in 2016, whether it was in theaters or through video-on-demand services. So while films like The Love Witch […]
A Short Guide To Hammer Horror
“Born into a land of brutality and evil…it came from terror and fear! The curse…laid on a baby!” A brief list you’ll find in Issue 3 of The Mockingbird, right in time for Halloween! The Gospel According to…Hammer Horror! Nearly all are available to watch in full on YouTube. Ah Ah Ah Ahhh! “Don’t look […]
“Is This Real Life or Is This Just Fantasy”: Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932)
Ian Olson (who brought Mbird a wonderful reflection on Law and Grace in the new Godzilla) and I decided to put together a 4-part series in celebration of October and Halloween–Mbird-style, of course! We both chose two of our favorite horror films and wrote an article for each one and then allowed the other to […]
On TV: Why BBC’s Luther Is The Scariest Show On TV
I am coming up on my one-year anniversary of Mockingbird graciously allowing me to become a contributor. It all started with my series on the intersections between horror cinema and Christianity: “In the Event of a Cosmic Horror”. So I couldn’t leave the Halloween season alone without some sort of post dealing with horror and […]
Religion and Zombifixation: In Need of Flesh and Blood
Today’s fantastic post on the living dead (spoiler: everyone) comes from Andrew Byers with Ben DeSpain: Zombies. They are everywhere, and coming to a theater near you. Pop culture today seems fascinated with the living dead. But it’s not necessarily the voodoo version of the zombie that so excites our imaginations. The 21st century zombie […]
Mockingbird at the Movies: Evil Dead (2013)
I used to be like “Why are we doing a remake? What are remakes being done for?” But then, we do that all the time in the theater. If we weren’t doing remakes, nobody would know who Shakespeare was. I’m not saying that Robocop is Shakespeare, but it’s a way to … we’re retelling. That’s what we do as human […]
In the Event of a Cosmic Horror, Pt. 6: The End (Is Not The End)
When I first decided to put this series together, I was planning on using several different sources as jumping off points for each post. But the more I consulted Eugene Thacker’s In the Dust of This Planet: Horror of Philosophy vol. 1, the more I realized how essential it was to providing a solid foundation […]
In the Event of a Cosmic Horror, Pt. 5: The Creature Feature
This past weekend I set out to watch my three personal favorites of the creature feature sub-genre. Considering it was also my twenty-ninth birthday, these viewings made for good celebration (red flag: this guy is a little off, methinks). My selections may show my “chronological snobbery” (C.S. Lewis), but rest assured, I am in no […]
In the Event of a Cosmic Horror, Pt. 4: The Apparition
Have you ever had an experience with a ghost or spirit? Odds are, like most haunted house movies, the set up involved an unfamiliar setting and a kid, or kids. They are more willing to ‘expect the unexpected’ after all. For instance, perhaps you can imagine a situation in a house in the middle of […]
All Aboard the Murder Train: Sigmund Freud Visits The Cabin in the Woods
Another wonderful one from new contributor Charlotte Getz: If you haven’t seen Joss Whedon’s Cabin in the Woods yet, then you might be like me – you don’t just watch a scary movie, scream, and then roll over and go to sleep. No. You ingest it. Your skin soaks it up like toxic rays that, […]
In the Event of a Cosmic Horror, Pt 3: The Living Dead
The third installment of Blake Collier’s groundbreaking In the Event of a Cosmic Horror series. To read part one, go here. Or part two, here. Okay, let’s just get it out of the way. Zombies automatically make Christians think of the “resurrection of the body.” And, if we are honest, it is the closest pop […]
