A couple of weeks ago, Reader contributors Kaylen Ralph and Catey Sullivan wrote about streaming productions with resonance for this double whammy nightmare season of Halloween and Possibly The Last Free Elections in the United States. (Oh, and there՚s still a deadly pandemic raging.) They joined Reader theater and dance editor Kerry Reid in an e-mail discussion of what stories like this mean in these very anxious days. Below is an edited version of that dialogue.
Kaylen Ralph: Ever since seeing The Grudge in theaters with my seventh-grade boyfriend, I have had an aversion to horror movies and TV shows. I absolutely lost my cool in that theater in 2004, and I’ve yet to recover from the abject terror and subsequent embarrassment I felt that fateful Friday night. Fifteen years later, as a single woman living alone, I still tend to stay far away from the horror genre as it’s typically represented in pop culture.
Ralph: Catey, I’m so glad you brought up romantic comedies! As excited as I am to check out some of the productions you highlighted in your feature, I still think my current mindset is far from suited to any sort of bingeing of the horror genre. I have been devouring rom coms, and I even joined a rom com viewing/screenwriting group at the suggestion of a friend. What’s funny, now that I think about it, is how even that group has dipped into the horror genre subset of rom coms, or at least we’ve explored the intersection there. We recently watched Death Becomes Her from 1992 together, and our group leader, Jackie, made the excellent point about how the perpetual beauty of women in rom com roles, and the actresses who portray them, has led to perhaps horrific standards of beauty? I guess there’s an element of horror inherent in that dynamic, as well. It’s inescapable!
But I’m also thinking about the notion of community coming together to fight the monsters. One of my favorites in the horror-comedy vein is Wes Craven՚s The People Under the Stairs from 1991. I never watched any of the Nightmare on Elm Street films. But Craven՚s take on the Reagan era (the villainous nameless couple in People are clearly modeled after Ronnie and Nancy, the latter played by longtime Chicago actor Wendy Robie) still resonates as an allegory about white power, white resentment, the demonization of poor people of color. But it’s also a portrait of what happens when communities unite and fight back. It was the first time I remember seeing the horror genre used as a tool for critiquing racial and class injustice, which of course is something Jordan Peele has been doing so magnificently.
