Carl Nabozny, a college Multi-media Coordinator and instructor of courses including The Horror Genre, has shared one of his lesson plans with us for Blogtober. Looking to chat the hours away with the aid of quotes from horror greats, pre-written discussion questions, and notated research? We’ve got you. We’ve also got photos of Carl’s library displays promoting the course each October…ghoulishly great.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Nosferatu, (1922)), Psycho (1960), Night of the Living Dead (1968), It (1990/2017/2019) all of these films fall under the umbrella of the Horror Genre. “The monster often plugs into our shared sense of the archetypes, and in horror films we often indulge our nostalgia for myth and magic.” (Grant, p.328, 2005). Edgar Allan Poe’s(1809 -1849) fingerprint is left on the horror genre. Many of Poe’s methods for murder are reoccurring themes in horror movies.
Sergei Eisenstein (1898 -1948) reminds us, “Every motion picture affects heads and hearts, but as a rule motion pictures are not produced especially for heads and hearts.”
Questions to consider:
- Why do we want to see so many similar examples of particular genre conventions in films? (ex: Cowboys wearing hats and riding horses)
- Are some people drawn to certain genres because of an individual search for meaning?
