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THE CURSE OF THE CURSIVE: THE HORROR OF THE HAND IN FOLK HORROR FILM TYPOGRAPHY
No full textThis chapter analyses typographic design, and the use of typefaces more broadly, in Folk Horror films. The chapter focusses on typography in the title and closing credits, within the films themselves, and in both contemporaneous and subsequent promotional materials. The analysis includes original 1970s films such as The Wicker Man (1973) and Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) among contemporary films which revisit the genre such as Midsommar (2019). The chapter considers the prevalence of typographic design inspired by carvings and drawings by hand, as well as hand-drawn or ‘daubed’ writing, and explores the horror of the bygone and the curse of the cursive, in the contexts of craft and handicraft. Paratexts, such as titling typography, operate as ‘thresholds to interpretation’ (Genette), creating atmosphere and performing as a vestibule for expectation. Horror films have a rich association with typefaces inspired by hand crafted modes of writing and often make use of glyphic typefaces (tapering typefaces inspired by stone carving), calligraphic typefaces (inspired by pen and ink calligraphy), blackletter or gothic typefaces (inspired by medieval illuminated manuscripts), or indeed hand drawn typefaces resembling claws, beasts and dripping blood. This trend continued in the 1970s when typographic design was dominated by clean, modernist, mechanized sans serif font design, or decorative typefaces drawing on Art Nouveau patterns. Establishing for general context the use of typography in classic horror films more widely, this chapter will then proceed to analyse the use in Folk Horror specifically and asks the question why has handicraft become associated with Folk Horror
untitled review of Darkness Between Stars, John F. Deane and James Harpur (The Irish Pages Press)
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Sunset Songs for Street Deviants
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Welcome to the New Age
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Draw the Blinds on Yesterday
Get PDFbook review of Silhouettes and Shadows. The Secret History of David Bowie's Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), Adam Steiner (280pp, Backbeat Books
Dark Town: Reimagining dangerous tradition, group ritual and brutal betrayal
Get PDFGlen Jellenik writing in The Oxford Handbook of Adaptation Studies defines ‘adaptation ‘as being ’An altered or amended version of a text, musical composition, etc., one adapted for filming, broadcasting, or production on the stage from a novel or similar literary source’.
‘The Lottery ‘(1948), a short story written by novelist Shirley Jackson was reimagined in the form of a Graphic Novel (2016) using the original text as the catalyst for an unsettling and beautifully rendered interpretation by Jackson’s grandson, Miles Hyman. Jackson was a writer renowned for her ability to create unsettling narratives which at first appeared to reflect the mundane nature of everyday American life, but gradually unfolded to reveal much darker themes. Jackson’s writing is sparse and thus, creates opportunities for Hyman to create new layers of communication. Through the use of strong, directional lighting, the characters are often depicted from below, creating a dramatic and sometimes threatening atmosphere, which is suggestive of a foreboding that is not necessarily defined in the original text until the climax.
Echoing his Grandmother’s technique, Hyman minimizes prose, allowing his striking images to create a veneer that is initially difficult to penetrate. Through the strategic use of cropping, he provides fragments of information that obfuscate the underlying tension building through the strangely lit images and hard to decipher characterizations. There is a sense throughout of what Freud termed ‘The Uncanny ‘. Unlike the film adaptation (1969), there is nothing light hearted about the atmospheres conveyed through these images.
Although it was Hyman’s original intention to faithfully reproduce the narrative, it could be argued that the death of his grandmother when he was only three years old prevented opportunities for conversation and collaboration with her to discuss whether or not his visual interpretation matched her own vision of what the characters and town should be, although the clothing and environments are reflective of the period in which the story is set and evocative of that time. He resisted attempting any adaptation of the narrative until recently and realised that it would be a challenging undertaking, particularly as there were few descriptive examples of either characters or environments. Hyman rendered both through the use of a ‘realistic ‘aesthetic
Solution Opportunities: For Iain Sinclair at 80
Get PDF'Walking Without A Donkey', a poem in an anthology for Iain Sinclair's 80th birthday.
A unique tribute to a remarkable writer, film-maker and walker, in an edition of only 400 numbered copies – each signed by Iain Sinclair – this 192 page A4 illustrated publication features over 170 contributors, including Peter Ackroyd, Caroline Bergvall, Keggie Carew, William Gibson, Xiaolu Guo, Philip Hoare, Toby Jones, Stewart Lee, Esther Leslie, Rachel Lichtenstein, Robert Macfarlane, Jonathan Meades, Dave McKean, Michael Moorcock, Alan Moore, J.H. Prynne, Denise Riley and Marina Warner
