The Future of Fright 5r3l3d

This week's a short intro to Supermassive's new cinematic horror game, The Quarry. Why do we enjoy story-based games for horror? What makes The Quarry different from other horror games or even from its famous predecessor, Until Dawn?

We're back! It's been a long time and a lot has changed, but our format remains the same as ever. This week I discuss Alexis Langlois's short films: Terror, Sisters and The Demons of Dorothy. 

Here at the Future of Fright we're switching to a bi-weekly schedule for a bit. To kick it off, here's a relaxed discussion of found footage horror. What makes found footage so effective? What aspects of it might audiences find rote or off-putting? Can you fall asleep to this low-key, special sleepy-time episode? Let's find out. 

This week I'm ed once more by Angela Kim who walks us through the 2016 breakout hit Train to Busan. We talk Asian zombies, the threat of contagion, collectivism, American consumerism, the long memory of the Korean War, and more. 

Our political correspondent, Ben Latini, is back to discuss the surrealist and absurdist videos of Vic Berger. What makes horror so adept at political commentary? What makes absurdism and surrealism so suited for horror? 

This week is a short one as September arrives with a bang. This episode revisits some of the ideas from our inaugural episode to encourage listeners to think more critically about: Who the audience for a piece is? Who is represented in horror and how? And why does horror, specifically, have such a hard time depicting marginalized groups in positive ways? This week I also very briefly mention two articles, which I'll link here: The first by Nicholas Whittaker writing for The Point Magazine and the second by Angelica Jade Bastién for Vulture. 

This week instead of a solo episode my video game correspondent Jeremiah s me once more for a casual chat about horror in video games. What do we do with games that depend on running and hiding? What about permadeath? How can games frighten us? And maybe, just maybe, the real horror was all the first-person shooters we played along the way. 

This week is our longest episode yet as my guest, Kate Perillo, and I deep dive into the 1943 film I Walked With a Zombie.  This might just be the most in depth discussion that this film has enjoyed and it certainly deserves it. Kate and I talk the long afterlife of slavery, colonialism, zombified women, the horror of exploited labor, voiceovers, script changes, and what happens when audiences are faced with a narrative that evades neat and tidy endings. 

This week I expand on the idea of death and horror. What is so scary about dying anyway? And, shouldn't we want horror that does more than just poke at our easy, instinctual fears? What about horror that forces us to examine our lives or horror that brings us to realize just how insignificant those lives are in the grand scheme of the universe? 

This week the pod goes political as my guest, Ben Latini, and I discuss the bizarre and deeply disturbing animated YouTube videos of Aamon Animation and the cosmic horror of conservatism. 

This week I ask listeners to consider common horror settings, as well as those settings that surprise us or that show audiences something more interesting than merely a haunted house or cabin in the woods. 

This week's discussion is a can't miss. My guest, Nirmala Iswari, and I dive deep into the existential aspects of horror, how horror is an approach (rather than a genre), and how Netflix's Fear Street trilogy address issues of generational poverty, inherited trauma, and the reality of vulnerability. 

This week we think about the many forms that fear can take - anxiety, disgust, revulsion, panic - and sound some time thinking about how media produces those feelings in us. 

This week is a must listen. Special guest Angela Kim comes to discuss True Crime and Youtuber Bailey Sarian and her insight can't be missed! We also disclose how we would murder one another - awww! 

This week I discuss the 2019 vampire film Bit. 

In this episode I dispute my guest's definition of the horror genre and, eventually, we discuss the interesting and progressive subversions that take place in The Last of Us 2. 

For the inaugural episode we spend some time, just you and me, thinking about the allure of horror and what the genre offers that others can't. 

A taste of what The Future of Fright will bring.