1. 28 Days Later (2002)

This creepy post-apocalyptic zombie flick by Danny Boyle delivers on all levels: a frightening and fast-moving plot, a unique twist on zombies and their origin stories, a thrilling climax ,and the wonderful Naomie Harris in the lead. It’s a rarity to find mainstream Western horror films with black women playing leading characters. In 28 Days Later, Harris plays Selena, a survivor of the apocalypse with a tough, intense exterior, but who is caring and nurturing as well. She’s a multi-dimensional character that the film, and the leading man, rely on.

2. Audition (1999)

In this movie Eihi Shiina plays the protagonist Asami, and she brings a new definition of terror. Rated one of the scariest movies of all time, Shiina is what makes Audition come to life. Her acting is impeccable, shifting from quirky and adorable, to strange, distant, and eventually, horrifying. A warning though: Audition is disturbing. At times, it’s hard to tell what’s a dream and what’s real in the movie. It shifts through surreal sequences, with Shiina tying it all together.

3. Macabre (2009)

In this Indonesian gory horror film, both the protagonist and antagonist are amazing Indonesian actors of colour. Julie Estelle plays Ladya, the main protagonist, a woman who is determined to survive through extraordinary circumstances. Shareefa Daanish plays the terrifying Dara, who sufficiently gave me the creeps through the entirety of the film with her disturbingly calm smile and unquenchable blood lust. This movie is not fit for anyone who can’t handle scenes with lots and lots and lots of blood. Despite the overwhelming gore, the film is worth watching, especially to see the excellent performances of Estelle and Daanish.

4. Bhoot (2003)

Bhoot is a Bollywood horror film, relying on the basic, but classic, premise of a house haunting. While Bollywood is certainly not known for horror, Bhoot was a chilling film that was met with critical success. Leading lady Urmila Matondkar is credited for being the ultimate saving grace for the film, keeping it excellent with her brilliant performance. Her scenes as a possessed housewife received huge praise. Bhoot is truly a rare horror gem of Bollywood cinema, and a film that seemed to inspire other Bollywood directors to try their hand at horror.

Next time on Oh, The Horror, I talk about the virginity allegory in classic horror films.

1. Hostel (2005): The Hostel franchise is problematic for a variety of reasons. First and foremost it’s part of the torture porn or “gorno” subgenre and that automatically raises red flags for me. In one scene during the second Hostel film a woman is hung upside down from the ceiling completely naked—now tell me there isn’t something inherently wrong with that. Worse is the classic “scary Eastern Europe” undertones that many horror movies use to make their Western viewers feel uncomfortable, leftover fears from the Red Scare era. Hostel’s only merit is the possible critiques of elitism running through the film: The antagonists are rich sociopaths bidding on travelling young adults. Even so, if it is indeed a social critique it is utterly overshadowed by the rest of the film.

2. FeardotCom (2002): This movie was essentially a thinly veiled excuse to show image after image of brutalized women presented in a sexualized manner. It’s like a strange cross between bondage and actual brutality, and by the time this film ended, I just felt sick to my stomach. There are so many ways to portray a misogynistic antagonist, but countless shots of naked, bound and bleeding women is just not the way to do it. Fear.com gets a bit F in my books.

3. Human Centipede 2 (2011): This one is a no-brainer. In fact, I’ll admit I didn’t even watch this movie: I read the entire plot on Wikipedia out of curiosity. As if the first Human Centipede wasn’t repulsive enough, they made a second one that took gross to new heights. It seems like the ultimate goal of this film was shock factor—scene after scene after scene. There’s no real thought put into it. So how does mediocrity equate to something problematic? Let me think: the scene where a baby’s skull gets crushed, the scene where a guy masturbates with sand paper. I’m not going to keep going, but I assure you there’s more.

4. Skeleton Key (2005): Skeleton Key is absolutely rampant with racism. Using the slavery era and public lynchings as the historical context to the plot, the film creates no sympathy for its black characters; they are the antagonists. Not only does it demonize its black characters, leading lady Kate Hudson is presented as the frightened white woman haunted by a vengeful black ghost. As many thumbs down as possible for Skeleton Key.

5. The Hills Have Eyes (2006): There’s one infamous scene that renders The Hills Have Eyes remake horrible:  a graphic rape scene that really serves no purpose in the film’s plot. The film is scary enough without this scene—it’s thrown in for pure shock factor,  devoid of any type of social critique, or really anything that would justify putting such a graphically misogynistic scene in a movie.

In the next Oh, The Horror, I’ll list some great horror films that feature a woman of colour in the lead role.

Despite the fact that most of us find comfort in the warm, overly buttery cooking of our grandmothers, old women in horror are the creepiest. You know granny means trouble in a horror movie when she walks into a room dressed in that classic granny cardigan, compassionately offering tasty snacks for lost, cold, and hungry travellers.

I recently watched two really excellent horror films, Mercy (2014) and The Talking of Deborah Logan (2014), which both have terrifying old women as the antagonists. Both movies sufficiently scared and intrigued me. It got me thinking: what is our perception of the elderly, and what makes them so frightening in horror?

It’s no surprise that our society is uncomfortable with aging. We have an obsession with youth and it’s painfully obvious in the beauty aisle of any store. Rows and rows of creams are stacked next to each other promising youthful rejuvenation, improved skin elasticity, and the destruction of wrinkles. Crows feet are our enemies. Laugh lines scare us. The battle against aging is a multi-million dollar industry. We are a society in denial of the reality of growing old.

Old-age-related illnesses like Alzheimer’s and dementia feel like inevitable epidemics waiting to ensnare us as we grow old. It can devastate entire families to watch our loved ones become someone who they’re not. It’s the bogeyman of aging. In both Mercy and The Talking of Deborah Logan, the old women have age-related illnesses. Deborah has Alzheimer’s, and Mercy’s sickness is unspecified but leaves her as a shell of her former self. In each film these illnesses make the women vulnerable to evil influences, suggesting that a demon is really to blame.

It poses a strange question. Are old-age related diseases the demons of aging? Are we afraid of old people because we are afraid of what we might become when we age?

On one hand, I love the creepy old lady movies. They always get to me. There’s a scary possessed old woman in The Exorcist III and I screamed during a close-up scene of her face as she began lunging with a kitchen knife.

But on the other hand, while diseases and deteriorating minds is a frightening thought, I’m comfortable with the idea of aging. I’m actually stoked to be a gentle kind grandma, rocking on the front porch with my ice tea and pet goats (don’t ask). But our deep discomfort with old age and the unpredictability of mental illness in seniors is clear from the scary old lady trope of mainstream horror.

From the films mentioned above to others such as Drag Me To Hell (2009)  and Dead Silence (2007) to the notoriously evil old couple in Rosemary’s Baby (1968), there’s no doubt we all have a secret fear of grannies gone bad. In horror movies grandma’s not there to rock you to sleep and give you extra cash when your parents aren’t looking; she’s the Nana of your nightmares. Perhaps we also get a thrill out of the strange juxtaposition of an old lady wearing knitted sweaters and bedroom slippers suddenly becoming a hell-bent minion of Satan. It reminds me of that diner scene in Legion where the granny with the kind smile and pink cardigan suddenly leaps onto the ceiling with jaw outstretched and a thirst for blood in her eyes.

Next week I examine the opposite of the frightening old women: the creepy little kid, e one of the greatest tropes of horror.

I was absolutely thrilled when I watched The Possession (2012), simply because it’s the only horror movie I’ve seen with a Jewish exorcism. I felt like an overeager high school student, ready to take notes about how the Rabbi prepared for the exorcism. It’s really that rare—I’d been so used to seeing priests do the job.

Religious themes are an intrinsic part of most horror films. Ideas of pure evil, seeing the light, and lost souls are immediately tied to religious ideas. Whether it’s ghosts or demons, it’s connected to the underlying idea of an afterworld, a heaven and hell. Horror generally relies on Abrahamic religious ideas, but even then it’s really only Christianity. From overtly Christian horror films such as Bless The Child (2000) and The Prophecy (1995)—where Viggo Mortensen portrays a weirdly sexy Satan—to more subtle ones like the slasher classic Friday the 13th franchise (which hint in later sequels that Jason Voorhees has consorted with the devil), Christian religious themes are everywhere in horror. The problem is that there is little to no diversity in religious themes. Ideas of “foreign” religious practices are usually simplified down to African voodoo practiced in New Orleans, which is, more often than not, portrayed incorrectly and is rife with racism.

One of the major flaws with over-using Christian themes is that it makes horror movies predictable. We start to catch on to exactly how a demon can be defeated, and exactly how to rid your home of a ghostly presence. We learn that you slap a flew Crucifixes on the wall, read your Hail Mary’s, avoid locust swarms, and you’re pretty much good to go. Not only is including different religions in horror more progressive and diverse, but it’s also more interesting for the genre. The only thing is that if horror does choose to expand to, let’s say, Eastern religions, writers and directors need to make sure they’re not tokenizing it, exotifying it, or using it to essentially scare white people from the scary rituals of foreigners.

Adding different religious themes to horror is also very timely and would reflect the diversifying demographic of audiences. As the Western world becomes more racially and religiously diverse, our media needs to reflect that, and storytelling needs to pay attention to it or else plots will read as socially irrelevant. We are a diverse society, but if horror would have us believe we’re entirely homogeneous.

Instead of the same old “the power of Christ compels you!” let’s look at Hindu traditions, let’s look at jinns in Islam, churels from South Asian folklore, or Japanese Oni. Enough with sprinkling holy water; I want to see how lime or lemon is used in Hindu pooja to protect from evil spirits. And I want to see these traditions treated with respect, rather than portrayed like the backwards customs of the mystifying “Orient.”

Next week, I look at the elderly in horror, tropes of the creepy old lady, and how frightened we are of aging.

Like every other movie genre around, horror confirms to the same white hetero and cis normative, able-bodied standard of beauty. Your leading lady scream queen is almost always checks off all those boxes: beautiful, thin, able-bodied, cis, straight, white. Horror movies have abundance of scenes where said perfect model actress is walking around the house in her underwear or taking a steamy shower. The self-esteem crushing thoughts usually pop up here: “She has no cellulite. Why can’t I have no cellulite? How does she have such a flat stomach?”

It’s disappointing. Horror is supposed to be the outcast genre. Even the best horror films don’t often receive the prestige and praise of other genres. Unlike other genres, horror has a huge underground movement. Indie horror is vastly popular, and the endless streams of horror B-Movies are constantly flooding out, due in part to the fact that horror is relatively cheap to make. But if the genre is the renegade of the film world, why does it still conform to the Eurocentric mainstream beauty perception of beauty?

The horror genre asks so many deep questions about who we are as a society It taps into our sadomasochism, our strange attraction to violence, and our most uncomfortable fears. And with all this insight, the genre still fell for the same skinny, hairless, cisgender, straight, able-bodied, white woman trend. The genre is rife with fatphobia, exploiting fat actors to be extras struggling to run away from zombies and the like. Those with visible disabilities are practically non-existent. And those with invisible disabilities (mental illness) are stigmatized as rampant axe-murderers with evil alter-egos. Horror breaks so many boundaries, smashing through our comfort zone, and pushing our perspective on what crosses the line. And yet the boundaries of mainstream body image stand as strong as ever.

The importance of showing different bodies and identities in horror has two major benefits: the first is obvious, we can destroy conventional ideas of body image and propel horror as the genre that is the most socially progressive. But the second is also purely for the intelligence of the genre: it’s simply not realistic to keep having the same people appear throughout horror. Diversity in horror means better and more realistic plots and more interesting character development.

I love horror because it is such an outcast in so many ways, and it appeals to outcasts. But when the stars of the film are the same billboard babes that made me feel bad about myself throughout my adolescence, that outcast comfort falls to pieces. Generic conformity might work for mediocre, money-making romantic comedies, but it just doesn’t suit horror.

Next week, I look at religion in horror and where horror movies are lacking in religious diversity for horror origin stories.

1. Prince of Darkness (1987)

Not only is this film certified creepy and unsettling, but the cast is progressive and diverse. OK, so the two main lead characters are both white. But, the full cast of the movie is very diverse and each character is portrayed sans stereotypes. Not to mention, the leading lady is badass and intelligent. Prince of Darkness merges typical religious themes of horror and science in a flawless way. With an eerie score, unique and undeniably scary plot, and well-written characters, this movie gets an A+ on levels of scariness and progressiveness.

2. The People Under the Stairs (1991)

The main character of this chilling ’90s Wes Craven flick is Poindexter Williams (Brandon Adams), affectionately nicknamed “Fool” by his loving big sister. Fool is a young black boy from a low income neighbourhood in Los Angeles. Greedy elitist landlords are going to evict Fool and his family from their apartment, and this is essentially how the plot goes underwear. Brandon Adams is excellent in his role as Fool, and Wes Craven effectively satirizes this very eerie form of conservatism in the main antagonists, known only as “Mommy” and “Daddy.”

3. You’re Next (2011)

It’s difficult to explain why this movie is progressive without completely giving away the whole film. All I’m going to say is: there’s a woman in this movie who will make you cheer and scream and revel in all her intense badassery. She is, by far, one of the kick ass women in horror I have ever had the pleasure to witness. Let’s just say, this is a woman who knows the meaning of survival. The scary factor of this film? Way up there. The antagonists don creepy animal masks and paint “you’re next” on the walls in blood.

4. Night of The Living Dead (1968)

As explored in my very first Oh, The Horror post, Night of the Living Dead is not only a must-watch horror classic, but it broke barriers about race in horror films. Having a black lead in horror is rare, and having them portrayed as stereotypical caricatures often follows. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead exploded through those barriers, and Duane Jones was excellent in his role as Ben. Politics aside, you can’t appreciate horror if you haven’t watched this black and white zombie classic.

5. The Thing (prequel) (2011)

The 2011 prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 classic may not be able to live up to the mastery of the original, but I chose The Thing prequel because of the strong leading lady. For diehard Carpenter fans, such as myself, it’s hard to choose the prequel over the the original. But my Carpenter fandom aside, The Thing prequel is well-written and the protagonist Kate Lloyd is an intelligent and strong leading woman, which harshly contrasts the original The Thing, which is, arguably, a boys club, (Side note: You really ought to watch the original The Thing as some point though).

6. Alien (1979)

Whether you categorize this as sci-fi or horror, Alien is going to terrify you regardless. With chest-bursters and face-huggers galore, this is the kind of film that will have you jolting out of your seat. Plus, protagonist Ellen Ripley is by far one of the most badass fictional characters in the history of everything. She’s pretty much an ass-kicking space Goddess battling through slime and terror aboard a spaceship. Watch this movie on Halloween and you’ll get scared and grossed out, while simultaneously being so thrilled at how fantastic she is. It’s also the kind of movie that you can enjoy re-watching.

7. The Orphanage (2007)

This movie is chilling, undeniably creepy, and bizarrely heartwarming. The main character Laura is a loving mother and a strong, determined woman. I love how this movie is able to show that nurturing compassionate mothers are also strong badass women. There’s a tendency in horror to only show strong women has emotionally detached and devoid of any typical feminine. But The Orphanage plays on the strength and trials of motherhood. In my experience, Spanish horror films have rarely let me down. Only thing is: this film is in Spanish, so subtitles are a must.

8. Saint Ange (2004)

This French-Romanian film is one of those subtly scary movies; one’s that make you question what you’re seeing and are psychologically thrilling. Saint Ange (or House of Voices, it’s American name)  is also beautifully filmed. The cinematography is delicate and dark making this an aesthetically pleasing film to watch. There are strong hints in the film that the main character Anna is a survivor of rape and other physical abuse. The film is set in 1958, and it’s clear that Anna doesn’t want the baby, but has no real options to abort it. Anna is such a complex character; she’s compassionate, loving, but not ready to be a mother. She’s afraid, prone to breakdowns of tears (and rightfully so) but motivated to uncover the secrets of Saint Ange.

9. Candyman (1992)

Candyman is a modern adaptation of an old frightening tale set against the backdrop of racialized poverty. The movie hits the spot on both scares and social critique. It shows white academics fascinated with the tale of Candyman, but ultimately removed and disconnected from the horrors of it. But deaths as a result of Candyman’s wrath are silenced and forgotten because the victims are poor black people from a dilapidated housing project that society views as ultimately disposable. What’s more Candyman’s origin story is rooted in anti-black racism and lynching crimes. This is a great film for anyone looking to get frightened and a great talking point about race politics in film.

10. They Live (1988)

Of course, another Carpenter film made it onto this list. They Live isn’t super diverse in its casting, but the plot and premise of the film is undoubtedly progressive. It’s essentially a horror satire about the one percent, where the ruling bourgeois are actually aliens brainwashing the masses into submission. The film comments on consumerism, subliminal messages of advertising, and the maintenance of the status quo. This film is perfect for progressive viewers!

And as a little treat, here are some films that, while not being special in the socially-progressive category, are still spooky and Halloween-worthy.

1. The Exorcist III (1990)

I’d recommend the first The Exorcist, but that’s a given. I watched The Exorcist III not expecting much at all, only to find that it’s surprisingly good. There’s a murder-mystery involved, plus the obvious elements of demons and hellish scares. It’s creepy and the plot does have some connections to the first film. Also, there’s a part where an old lady crawls across the ceiling. I told you it was scary.

2. The Blob (1988)

Another surprisingly awesome horror flick, The Blob sounds like such a silly concept and the 50s version is more of a comedy than a horror film, but the 1988 remake delivers. The Blob is great for gross practical special effects. It’s a fun film to watch on Halloween—not psychologically disturbing in any way, just some nasty scary blob-ish fun.

3. Audition (1999)

As cliched at this might sound, Audition is not for the faint heart. This Japanese horror flick is one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen. Just read the reviews online and you’ll get the gist of what you’re getting yourself into. The beginnings of the film are almost like a romantic comedy and then descends into some of the weirdest stuff I’ve ever seen.

4. Rec (2007)

This is one of my all time favourite scary movies. First off, don’t watch the American version. You need to watch the Spanish Rec, which is the original. Rumour has it, the director kept the actors in the dark about one of the scary pop-up moments of the film, so the reactions are apparently genuine. Whether or not that’s true, the reactions certainly seem genuine. I highly recommend Rec for any Halloween scary movie-thon.

5. Witchboard (1986)

Anyone creeped out by Ouija boards will love this movie. This movie is all about a Ouija board session gone wrong, and the ultimate mystery: Who is the spirit talking through the board? Let’s just say this: Everyone in the house heard me scream when I watched this film in my room.

Next week I look at an unusual side of horror films: how they impact body image and self-esteem via an abundance of random sex scenes that are in almost every modern day horror film.

For years, women in horror have been the terrorized damsels. We are, more than often, the main characters of horror films, hence the creation the scream queen—actresses who became iconic for their presence in horror films, and, of course, their shrill shrieks. Yet despite the popularity of women in horror, for decades, women were there not to fight back against the antagonist, but to simply, it seemed, flail in blouses that were falling apart.

In more recent times, ’80s horror and onward, women in horror have survived and even defeated the monster or killer that is after them—but only after showing some skin and, of course, also providing excellent scream queen fodder. While the scream queen tradition is positive in a lot of ways, showing that we can be both strong and rightfully fearful at the same time, many scream queens make terrible decisions. Every horror movie watcher has, likely more than once, screamed at the TV: “Lock the goddamn doors! Why are you going up the stairs? Just shoot him in the head already.”

On one hand, this hesitance to just shoot the killer a second time, just in case, (because they’re always magically alive), or going the absolute wrong way, is a key part of building horror suspense. If characters made all the right decisions, there would be little room for fear and tension. Still, seeing women fight in their underwear at their friend’s sleepover is ridiculous. As a woman, I’d just like to say: I don’t sleep in a little lace nightie and I don’t hang out with my friends topless. And if a man I didn’t know called my phone and started breathing on the other line, I probably wouldn’t talk to him let alone be charming and flirty. Us women go through a lot; our survival instincts are top notch and horror needs to recognize that.

One good thing about women in horror? They always sense an evil presence in the house, and it’s usually the boyfriend/husband/father that insists that this house is a wonderful new place to start fresh. So a note to all the guys out there with a woman in their life: if she says there’s an evil presence in the house, there is most definitely an evil presence in the house. One could argue that the idea of the woman in the movie always being able to sense ghosts lends itself to the stereotypes of “female intuition” and women’s “emotional sensitivity”—there is merit to that. Though, I have to admit I get a certain satisfaction about seeing women in horror usually being right when it comes to ghosts and ghouls.

It can go the other way, too: the creation of a “strong” woman character who is utterly fearless, brazen, angry, and abrasive. But all this does is create one-dimensional character whose supposed strength is really her only character trait. If a depraved weirdo is chasing you with a chainsaw, it’s human nature to be afraid and screaming at the top of your lungs. However, we need to see women in horror who get afraid, panicked, and flustered at times, yet still have the capacity to be brave, tactical, and display some obvious common sense. The strong angry woman vs. weak emotional scream queen just puts women into polar opposite categories, making unrealistic sexist tropes, rather than well thought-out and insightful characters.

And if mainstream horror directors seriously find that too hard, the least they could do is quit the lace nightie stuff. Believe it or not, women like to be comfortable when they sleep. Surprising, right?

Next week, in honour of the spookiest time of year, I give you my top horror movies that are sure to scare you silly, while also being progressive and diverse films.

What are torture films? The biggest examples are the Saw and Hostel franchises, and the ever-controversial Human Centipede 1 and 2. However, there are lots of torture films, even among B-grade horror films; it’s a big trend. Remakes of older horror classics seem to always end up nauseatingly gory, bordering on the torture genre. I’ve frequently had the problem of putting on what appears to be a classic slasher, stuck-in-a-house-with-a-serial-killer kind of film, and had it turn out to be a torture film. I immediately switch it off.

First off,  the genre shows a complete lack of creativity. Ghosts and ghouls, hellish dimensions , the iconic images of hockey masks or striped sweaters and fedoras, parasitic otherworldly life forms terrorizing researchers in the Antarctic—now that’s creative. Even the simple black and white silent film Nosferatu changed how we saw vampires forever. That is horror creativity at its finest. Performing surgeries on live people—that’s grotesque. If I wanted to see that, I’d go to one of those bizarre hospital auditorium thingies. If I wanted to see innocent people get brutalized, I can turn on the news. Viewing horror films does have a definite element of sadism, but torture films take that sadism to the extreme.

Torture films are scary, yes. But is being scary the only way we can make good horror? Is profiting on the viewing of extreme pain and suffering healthy for audiences? There’s a difference between paying for creepy thrills and mild psychological scares, and dishing out cash to watch ultra-realistic slicing and dicing of characters wailing in agony. Sure, it’s fictional, but the total desensitization to images of extreme violence is real.

It’s one thing when you’re joking around with your friends cheering for the slasher running ridiculously down the street with an axe and another when people are excitedly taking in graphic scenes of eyeballs being removed and limbs being cut off. Half the time, the freaky part isn’t watching the movie, but knowing that some people are actually truly enjoying this macabre show. I guess some directors figured that the invention of realistic fake blood and advanced special effects meant they could sacrifice good plots, creativity, and subtle, albeit creepy, scares for total violent mayhem.

And on top of that, torture films are notorious for the sexualization of women’s deaths, hence the idea of calling it torture porn. In fact, all horror films are notorious for this, but I see it more deeply in the torture genre, because the women are often tortured whilst naked. Guys die with all their clothes on, women get cut up with their breasts exposed. Guys die in a spree of violence, women are first groped and licked before their horrific demise. Even when explicit scenes of rape are not shown, they are alluded. It bothers me that somewhere, someone out there is getting a sickening adrenaline rush from watching a naked woman undergo brutality.

It doesn’t matter that it’s fictional; it does something to our society. It’s also a direct reflection. Women are brutalized in real life and the murder of women is so frequently accompanied by rape. Patriarchy has normalized this, and film is just as much as a part of that normalization as any other medium. When horror normalizes misogynistic imagery, we internalize it. And if you’re not convinced that we internalize it, then just look at some of the comments and tweets every time there is a news story about a woman getting beaten and raped—hundreds of “she deserved it” and insensitive “jokes.” So despite the fact that this violated and dehumanized character is fictional, I take it personally. As a woman, it feels real to me.

So, excuse me while I impatiently wait for this trend to end. I guess I’m just not into repetitive frames of senseless violence and if that makes me oversensitive, then I’ll gladly be oversensitive rather than utterly desensitized, or worse, salivating over scenes of tortured women. Monsters under the bed, Satan’s spawn, and high-tension slasher chase sequences are more my thing.

Next week I’ll be looking at mental illness in horror films regarding the ever-popular trope of the “psycho” killer and horror’s obsession with psychiatric hospitals.

From its major lack of racialized characters to helpless screaming women running through the night in their underwear, horror is notoriously problematic genre. Still, at 20-years-old, I’ve gone from avoiding all horror-related things throughout my adolescence (I will always be teased by my family for bolting out of a cheap haunted house in terror) to watching several horror movies a week. I’m still an incredibly easy scare, but I just can’t resist horror: the opportunity to see society’s deepest fears and  to examine society’s deepest prejudices—acted out in hyperbolic spectacles of evil and terror. And so, for the next six weeks of my internship, I will examine my most favourite horror films, the most loathsome, and everything in between, all to combine two equally scary things: horror movies and politics.

First up, let’s look at a classic: George A. Romero’s iconic 1968 zombie flick Night of the Living Dead. Romero’s choice to cast black actor Duane Jones for the lead role was hugely significant. The main character, Ben, was initially written as a part for a white actor (they were going to cast Rudy Ricci, who was one of the writers of the film). Needless to say, it was kind of a big deal that a black actor landed the lead role, in a movie that wasn’t explicitly about race, nor part of the Blaxploitation trend of the 60s and 70s.

Now, had the character been explicitly written as black, there’s a chance the script would’ve been littered with racist stereotypes. But the script was left unaltered even after Jones was cast. His character Ben, is by far the most capable person in the film. While other characters bicker and wail, he gets the job done. However, one very problematic scene occurs when Ben lays the lightheaded and overheating Barbara, played by Judith O’Dea, down on the couch and attempts to take her coat off. It’s a scene that certainly made some viewers uncomfortable, or at least those who internalize racist suspicions of the black man that lusts for white women. Barbara then smacks Ben, and Ben proceeds to punch her in the face. The scene is also odd—it doesn’t really fit with Ben’s character. He’s tough and takes no shit, that’s for sure, but this scene is overboard, and was apparently, not an original part of the script.

The sad part is in 2014, if a black actor were cast in the lead role for a horror film that was not explicitly about race, it would still be a big deal. The presence of racialized characters in lead roles in horror is an area in which the genre is still lacking—something that can be said about many genres, such as fantasy and sci-fi.

Other then the Night of the Living Dead 1990 remake starring Tony Todd,  two more recent films with black actors in the lead are Def by Temptation (1990), and The People Under the Stairs (1991), neither of which match the commercial success and cult following of original Night of the Living Dead. Todd also stars as the Candyman in the Candyman movie franchise—not the lead per se, but the villain. There’s also British horror/comedy gem Attack the Block (2011), which follows a group of underprivileged teenagers in Brixton fighting off monsters, but the movie falls more closely into the sci-fi genre. Forty-six years later since Night of the Living Dead was released it seems little has changed.

Mention black characters in the context of horror movies, and everyone jumps to the go-to “joke” that “the black guy always dies first.” Unfortunately, it’s true: black characters, and most racialized characters for that matter, tend to play minor side roles in horror films and are quickly killed. It’s this horror movie reality that everyone pretty much laughs about, despite the fact that it has deeply problematic connotations as to the way we view black and other racialized characters: as unimportant, disposable, laughable side tokens available for the first kill.

While Night of the Living Dead was in no way a perfect pinnacle for diversity—especially concerning the portrayal of the female characters—it’s still, unfortunately, more progressive then so much of mainstream horror today.

Next week, I’ll be exploring the demonic possession genre and its obsession with female sexuality. Cue the theme from The Exorcist.

Hana is an intern at This Magazine, and a self-described angry feminist. She spends her time blogging, illustrating, and re-watching Lord of the Rings.