Red’s Retaliation: The Untethering of the Subterranean Revolutionary – Fiction’s Fearless Females

  By Kalie Zamierowski of Just Dread-full            

Dear readers, gather around the campfire—okay, or the computer screen—as I regale you with a story.  Throughout time, we’ve been entertained with tales of heroes—the Mighty Achilles, Sir Gawain, Beowulf…Spider-Man, Superman, Ant-Man, Xena the Warrior Princess…and the list goes on.  I’m here today, however, to discuss a different hero—a single woman who, at a young age, was relegated to a cold, imprisoning underground lair not by any evil villain, but by her own image, staring back at her in a funhouse mirror.  For years, the subterranean woman lived among her subterranean people, a group of have-nots who were tethered to those in the world above, who “lived the lives” of those above ground, albeit without all the artifacts and accoutrements associated with living.  Angry at her fate, this young woman grew up and devised a plan, inspired by the image on a t-shirt, that could be executed with a mere lighter and a few pairs of scissors.  The woman planned not just to take over a city, a state, or a nation, but, with the help of the others who lived with her underground, to take over the world, to re-populate the world above ground with her enslaved, tethered people.  She did not want fame, power, or fortune—merely justice and the warm light of the sun, for herself and those she lived among.  Thus, with nothing but cunning brilliance, a few dull sheers, an eccentric family, and some kickass dance moves, a young woman and her family entered the “ordinary world,” intent on inhabiting it by dominating it.

Brian Asman’s Man, Fuck This House – When I’d Move Out of This Haunted House

It’s almost Halloweeeeeeeeeen!  That means it’s time once again to look at the age-old question of the haunted house genre – Why don’t they just move?  Sure, sometimes you’re snowed in at the Overlook and there’s no conceivable way to get out but most times, if I was in the protagonist’s shoes, I’d just up and move.  I don’t care if I was in debt and didn’t have the money or means to sell and buy again.  That’s what bankruptcy’s for!  Getting away from ghosts!  In fact, imagining when I’d move and the alternate story it would lead to as I watch/read a scary haunted house story is one of my horror coping mechanisms.  So, in honor of Halloween and all things scary and spooky, haunted and horrific, macabre and malevolent, I’m doing a li’l series about this.  In each installment I consider a haunted house novel and ruminate on when, if I were living within the events of the novel, I’d move the heck outta that house.  This time I’m looking at Brian Asman’s Man, Fuck This House which gets my vote for “Best. Title. EVER.” and the equally prestigious “I’ve Never Felt A Title More” award. 

This piece contains minor spoilers for certain incidents in the novel but the ending and all major twists are left out of the discussion.  So read on based on your comfort with such spoiler territory ;D.

Jac Jemc’s The Grip Of It – When I’d Move Out of This Haunted House

It’s the age-old question of the haunted house genre, isn’t it?  Why wouldn’t they just move?  It crosses my mind with every haunted house movie I watch or novel I read.  Sure, sometimes you’re snowed in at the Overlook and there’s no conceivable way to get out but most times, if I was in the protagonist’s shoes, I’d just up and move.  I don’t care if I was financially in debt and didn’t have the money or means to sell and buy again.  That’s what bankruptcy’s for!  Getting away from ghosts!  In fact, imagining when I’d move and the alternate story it would lead to as I watch/read a scary haunted house story is one of my horror coping mechanisms.  So I thought, in honor of Halloween and all things scary and spooky, haunted and horrific, macabre and malevolent, I’d write a li’l series about this.  I’d read haunted house novels and ruminate on when, if I were living within the events of the novel, I’d move the heck out of that house.  First up, is Jac Jemc’s The Grip Of It which is simultaneously the best and the scariest haunted house story I’ve ever read!

This piece contains minor spoilers for certain incidents in the novel but the ending and all major twists are left out of the discussion.  So read on based on your comfort with such spoiler territory ;D.

Smile, Doctor Who, and Lessons of Curiosity and Courage

Last night Kalie and I went to see Smile.  I wasn’t planning on blogging this weekend and I certainly wasn’t planning on writing a piece on the Smile movie as I don’t write about horror often.  However, as the movie unfolded I found myself thinking of Doctor Who.  This, in and of itself, isn’t surprising as I’m almost always thinking about Doctor Who.  However, I began to see a tie between the Doctor and the horrifying film unfolding before us.  Specifically, I found myself thinking of “Mummy on the Orient Express” (S8E8).  As these connections grew in my mind I could feel the piece developing alongside them…which was nice as there was no way I could have went to bed after I got home because THIS WAS THE SCARIEST MOVIE I’VE SEEN IN AGES and I needed time and distractions to decompress before bed.  So I started writing and here we are!  In an unexpected twist, Smile helped me see how the Doctor’s curiosity makes them such a remarkable hero.

This piece has basic plot spoilers for Smile so read on based on your comfort with such things :).

Ellie and Sandie from Last Night in Soho – Fiction’s Fearless Females

By Kalie Zamierowski of Just Dread-full

Every year a group of bloggers and I write about fearless fictional women to celebrate International Women’s Day. Each of these bloggers will be featured on my blog this year. The blog-a-thon started with Michael of My Comic Relief and, after my post, will go on to feature Nancy and Kathleen of Graphic Novelty² and Jeff of The Imperial Talker. Here’s my contribution to the Blog-a-thon this year!

Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho opens in the warm home of a quaint British town, a home where main character Eloise basks in her vintage-inspired bedroom listening to music from the 60s. The opening scene is so reminiscent of life sixty years ago, in fact, that we may suspect that we are in 1961, not 2021, and because of Wright’s ability to establish a scene we may also feel like we’re temporarily inhabiting a much more idyllic time period than our own. Certainly, that is what Eloise/Ellie (Thomasin McKenzie) imagines, the main character who we meet in the film’s beginning. Ellie has just been accepted to fashion school, and we get the impression, based on her excitement, that a glittering life in Great Britain’s fashion hub looks just as perfect, just as idyllic, as the 1960s do in her eyes. But sometimes attractive surface appearances mask a more insidious lurking reality—a fact which may be true of Soho in general, and is definitely true of Soho in the 60s, a reality that Ellie will soon find out.

Norma Bates – Fiction’s Fearless Females

By Kalie Zamierowski of Just Dread-full

One thing worth noting about the horror genre is that it produces images that resist quick mental erasure.  From the statuesque model who turns into a decrepit, decaying old woman in the infamous shower scene of The Shining to the bloody womb hanging limply outside the skin of Nola Carveth in The Brood, horror does nothing if not supply us with grotesque images of often monstrous women.  Psycho’s Norma Bates, then, is no exception.  In Hitchcock’s original film, Psycho, we see Norma not as a mommy so much as a stereotypical mummy; all that is left of her is a skeletal, eyeless frame and some tousled hair pulled back in a bun. We hear her character, and therefore understand her character, only through Marion Crane’s ears as the delusional Norman voices her from afar in the antiquated Victorian house on the hill outside Bates Motel.  But Norma is a famous mummy, and a famous mommy, to be sure, one who lingers in the mind of the viewer long after the theater lights go on, and one who has lingered in the cultural imagination now for sixty-one years and counting.  Significantly, Norma Bates didn’t get to speak for herself until 2013, when the hit TV show Bates Motel rescued and re-invented her character through Vera Farmiga’s portrayal of her as Norman’s mildly cooky but vivacious and loving mom.  As a woman who navigates an excruciating past, a corrupt, drug-infested city, and a psychotic son with surprising sangfroid, Norma Bates in Bates Motel is who I choose to feature this year for the annual Fiction’s Fearless Females blogathon. 

Dani from Midsommar – Fiction’s Fearless Females

By Kalie of Just Dread-full

Warning: Because of the film I’ve decided to talk about, the following subject matter will be unavoidably uncomfortable and dismal. Second Warning: If you’ve not yet seen Midsommar and you want to see it, well, first of all, get to it 🙂 (it’s free on Amazon Prime), and second, you may encounter some spoilers. Okay, you’ve been warned, onward:

Fiction’s Fearless Females – Wendy Torrance

By Kalie Zamierowski of Just Dread-full

One of my favorite scenes in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is a two or three second shock during which a series of terrifying events happen.  At this point in the film, Danny has been replaced by Tony, who’s saying “Redrum” in a voice that’s robotic at first and amplifies in intensity and urgency as Jack’s presence gets closer.  As Danny—or “Tony,” his psychic alter-ego—screams “Redrum,” Wendy reads the words backward in the mirror.  The camera pans in on the word “murder” written in childish handwriting with blood-red lipstick.  Almost as soon as we, the viewers, read “murder” in the mirror, we hear the unnerving sound of an ax chopping through wood and the camera moves to Jack, who wields the huge, sharp, silver device and uses it to slice through the wooden door of the caretaker’s quarters, where Danny and Wendy reside.  As if this nexus of sensation weren’t enough to alarm us, the viewers, and pull as even a little more deeply into The Shining’s sinister, unpredictable world, Wendy’s voice intercepts this moment with a simultaneously frenetic and bone-chilling scream—a scream that we’ll hear different variations of for the rest of the movie.  In turn, we, as the viewers—at least a little bit—start feeling Wendy’s maddening fear, and our cognition is ultimately forced to accept a mis-en-scene and narrative moment that’s eliminated anything reassuring or comforting for us to latch onto.  We are, in a sense, in the void, and we are there with Wendy.

Spider-Man’s Modern-Day Frankenstein Tale – “Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy”

Alright, originally I intended this as a Halloween post.  I was going to finally read “Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy” and write about it, analyzing how Dan Slott expands the premise of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in a modern setting.  However, life and work got in the way and I just got around to finishing reading it the other day.  I contemplated saving it for next year but I’m impatient and it’s more fun to keep the spookiness alive anyway.  When I finally jumped into Dan Slott’s world of Spider-Man tales, I avoided this storyline.  I’d heard conflicting reports about it and wasn’t ready for something with that sort of “baggage” as I was meeting his Spidey for the first time.  What I found upon finally reading it was a haunting tale that left me more emotionally shaken than I could have expected.

Waking Up To A Living Nightmare: A True Story

This story is not for the faint of heart.  But enough time has passed that I feel I can talk about it.  What follows is a true story, not embellished for either humor’s sake…or horror’s sake.  It is a tale of primal fear.  It is a tale of crushing fear.  It is a tale of waking before work to find yourself wrapped in your worst possible nightmare come to life.  But it’s also a story of survival (which, uh, is kinda obvious because I’m writing this).  Are you ready?  Then let’s go…