John Carpenter’s original Halloween (1978) premiered at a time when the horror film genre was undergoing distinct changes. As Ernest Mathijs notes in a Flow forum post on the ritual of Halloween horror viewing, monster films and other classic horror were being replaced at the end of the 1970s with “stories about the ‘horror within’, the evil amidst the community.” Some predecessors of Halloween, such as Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976) and Charles B. Pierce’s The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976) had begun this tradition of community based horror (or horror within a small town), while films such as Black Christmas (1974) and Silent Night, Bloody Night (1972) had started a tradition of horror films that were holiday-centric. Carpenter’s Halloween,
…show more content…
The idea of horror within a community, and the portrayal of horror centred around a particular holiday or celebration, is particularly informative when considered in relation to Halloween cult horror viewing. The community aspect of Halloween, the sense of gathering (and also the possibility of threat) that defines the celebratory aspect of the season, is echoed in ritual viewing practices and the ‘horrorthon’ format. In this paper, I seek to explore horror binge-watching and marathon viewing through an analysis of cult horror spectatorship during Halloween: the specific rituals of viewing, the context in which the films are viewed, and the influence of cult horror films that have inspired this type of viewing (including Carpenter’s Halloween, Friedkin’s The Exorcist, and Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). The cult films that are viewed in these formats reject horror cinema as a commodity, either by existing before contemporary “mockbusters” and early horror film imitations or by embracing the commodity in excess. I will argue that the cult audience, through the marathon or the binge viewing of these horror cult classics, is in effect challenging the contemporary commodification of Halloween horror through cult audience
The idea of horror within a community, and the portrayal of horror centred around a particular holiday or celebration, is particularly informative when considered in relation to Halloween cult horror viewing. The community aspect of Halloween, the sense of gathering (and also the possibility of threat) that defines the celebratory aspect of the season, is echoed in ritual viewing practices and the ‘horrorthon’ format. In this paper, I seek to explore horror binge-watching and marathon viewing through an analysis of cult horror spectatorship during Halloween: the specific rituals of viewing, the context in which the films are viewed, and the influence of cult horror films that have inspired this type of viewing (including Carpenter’s Halloween, Friedkin’s The Exorcist, and Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). The cult films that are viewed in these formats reject horror cinema as a commodity, either by existing before contemporary “mockbusters” and early horror film imitations or by embracing the commodity in excess. I will argue that the cult audience, through the marathon or the binge viewing of these horror cult classics, is in effect challenging the contemporary commodification of Halloween horror through cult audience