heartfieldsbin

[heartfieldsbin]

Horror Aesthetics and Three 6 Mafia

Music often borrows from the aesthetics of other media, and Black music is no exception. Whether its Wu-Tang’s love for Kung-Fu movies or George Clinton’s love for sci-fi b-movies, there’s a tendency for Black music to proudly wear its influences. This is not just for the sake of embodying the aesthetics of the source material, but to get the listener to take part too. One region that’s always fascinated me in this regard, are attempts to adopt horror aesthetics in music like the Memphis horror-core styles of Three 6 Mafia.

Horror is a unique area to adopt in music because horror, so often, requires the full immersion of the viewer to function. Most horror is rooted in images and the visualization of terror, so being restricted to the realm of audio without any visuals to assist means that the sounds of horror need to speak even louder. Conveying or instilling horror through audio only takes a lot to be done well and not fall into the territory of camp, but some acts have been capable of it, seen in no better case than DJ Paul and Juicy J of Three 6 Mafia.

The Memphis horrorcore scene would not exist without Three 6, and Three 6 would not exist without horror. Though the sound of Memphis’ cassette hip-hop underground favored dark textures, it took the very deliberate incorporation of horror aesthetics from the producers of Three 6 to create the signature sound of the city. The production duo of DJ Paul and Juicy J was nothing if not boundary pushing and referential. The pair’s massive knowledge of cheap horror and exploitation films appears throughout the album, whether as influences on the instrumentals or being directly sampled into the tracks. The sound they create is more than eerie, it feels haunted. The degraded cassette quality of the recording has the air of a snuff film but speaks to how the duo see life in Memphis. In the Netflix documentary Hip-Hop Evolution, the pair voice how life in Memphis feels somewhat hopeless. As the city where Martin Luther King was assassinated, the Black population can’t help but feel haunted by the reputation of an economically stagnating city, they articulated.

The horror elements present in a work like “Mystic Stylez” by Three 6 Mafia try to both capture the horror of being Black in the Memphis, while also portraying the supernatural horror that the group are capable of. The occult and satanic imagery serve as a cloak for the group and makes the horrific passages of “Mystic Stylez” appear autobiographical from a perverse antagonistic view. In the realm of Horror fiction, the anthology-like story telling found on the album is a rarity for Black creatives, but in the realm of music, the album is a complete anomaly. The uniqueness of the album is made better by how influential it later became.

[heartfieldsbin]

Sympathy and Zombies

I love zombie movies. Some of my favorite horror movies may be thrilling psychological horrors, but the pulpy joy of an old zombie movie is irreplaceable. In particular, I have a fondness for the original Ramero trilogy of Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), and Day of the Dead (1985). Each one is not only foundational in its own right, but in each film you see Ramero’s relationship to the Zombie mythos gradually evolve from a sense of evil to endearment, to sympathy.

1968’s Night of the Living Dead is an uncontestable horror classic. The acting and pacing make an otherwise underwritten B-movie incredibly watchable even 50 years later. The film’s themes of racial tension may not have been Ramero’s intention, but the film is made all the better for including it with the simple theme that division will tear mankind apart. Ramero has a nuanced view of his human characters, with conflict originating from characters and their insecurity, prejudice, and desperation. Characters like Mr. Cooper and the troupe of white hunters that accidentally our main character Ben are unlikable and at times outright dangerous to the characters we care for, but the movie still sees them as more human than the zombies. The zombies are a constant threat, one that is handled by unity and coordination, but a deadly threat to uncooperative individuals.

By 1978’s Dawn of the Dead, the zombies are shown to be devastating, but after the immediate apocalypse, the danger the present becomes almost passive. The main characters of this zombie story hope to stay safe in a mall and the zombies within it are ultimately dispatched halfway through the movie. From then, the movie watches as our heroes laze about in a consumerist paradise, enjoying themselves but becoming bored of their perfect lifestyle. Rather than focus on the fear of zombies in particular, the movie begins to focus much more on the byproducts of a zombie apocalypse: scarcity, loneliness, alienation, and distrust. The film’s climax isn’t even initiated by zombies, but instead by a neo-Nazi biker gang that’s formed in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. The ultimate threat to the mall isn’t the zombies outside, it’s the dangerous and uncooperative humans that attack it. When the mall is ravaged by the bikers, they create the opening for the zombie menace to appear. In this case, the zombies are not a blight on all humanity, they have become symbol of people failing to cooperate. The movie ends on zombies retaking the mall and our human characters being forced to flee, with it being unclear if they’ll find another refuge.

By Day of the Dead, Ramero has more sympathy for the zombies than he does with the humans of his films. The film follows the last enclave of human survivors in a military bunker as they gradually tear each other apart. The lone scientist of the group believes he can develop a cure for the zombies, but he’s fascinated by a pet zombie that demonstrates the ability to recall his former life. A group of soldiers that protect the base also grow impatient with the doctor and his antics and take control of the base and the other handful of mercenaries and personnel there. The human characters of the film are all seen as deeply flawed in some way, whether it be that they’re distrusting, conniving, depraved, power hungry, or paranoid. The humans of the film are the greatest threat to one another, and the zombies merely act to barricade them in. By the film’s end, Ramero frames the death of the tyrannical soldiers by the hands of zombies as a victory. All our characters are assuredly not going to survive, but the film frames it as a rebirth for an earth without humans.

Ramero’s developing relationship with zombies is something that was incredibly ahead of its time, and something that more contemporary films like The Girl with All the Gifts emulate in their plot. After so many decades of seeing zombies on the screen, it seems like filmmakers are also getting more endeared to the monster.

[heartfieldsbin]

Anthology and Black Horror

As a creative and artistic, phenomenon Black Horror is an incredible development, but it is also notably a development of the movie industry. Every successful movie needs some form of funding from the studio system, so seeing Black stories told is just as much about studio green lights as it is about creative voices coming into their own. Black Horror is more defined by the stories being told and the acters that star in the films, but a diversity of people behind the scenes and involved in production allows these ambitious stories to be told on their own terms. Since studios have only recently started to give approval to Black Horror movies, largely thanks to the success of Jordan Peele’s ‘Get Out’ and ‘Us’, the field of the genre has not totally solidified. Because studios are still hoping to capitalize on Peele’s runaway success, directors and writers of color may find it easier to break into this lane that the preexisting genre domains. As such, an important thing to think about is how this genre can be made accessible to the most voices possible.

In class, we discussed the Rusty Cundieff horror anthology ‘Tales from the Hood’, which is an interesting example not only of early Black Horror but also anthology horror, a part of the genre with just as much of a long, interesting history. Though the film’s multiple sections are all directed by Cundieff, it’s presentation as an anthology opens it up to be a very collaborative film. Each section is vastly different in terms of subject, setting, character, and even the underlying horror. While watching, I considered how great it might be, both for the modern burgeoning of Black Horror and for Black creatives, if a collaborative anthology series were attempted today.

Though horror anthologies are not very rare, it does take an incredibly capable creative team to assure that it is up to the standards of the film it will be compared to. I remember that in the year following the runaway success of ‘Get Out’, CBS launched a rebooted version of the Twilight Zone hosted by Jordan Peele. Peele ultimately took up the role of the original Rod Serling insert from the older Twilight Zone, though the marketing referenced ‘Get Out’ frequently, almost preying on the audience’s hope to see horror of the same terrifying caliber as Peele’s earlier work. It was a tremendous disappointment when the series released and was ultimately a mediocre attempt at recapturing the Twilight Zone’s magic. By choosing to retread past nostalgia rather than make good on the promising new ground of Black Horror, there was no opportunity for the new Twilight Zone to highlight emerging creators of color.

It’s for this reason why the recent Black Noir anthology series on Shudder is so promising, not only a series exploring many aspects of Black Horror, but also an opportunity for many different voices to be heard in each. Black Horror stands in a position where its most popular figures can leverage their popularity to do any number of ventures. Though many audiences may hope for more films from people like Jordan Peele or Nia DaCosta, audiences may benefit more if these figures give a stage to young creators also hoping to tell a story within the lens of Black Horror.

[heartfieldsbin]

Candyman 2021 and 1992, Picking the Bones from a Film

I haven’t stopped thinking about Candyman since I saw it in the class screening. I watched the 1992 original the night before seeing the 2021 Candyman, and I wasn’t too sure what to expect. I wasn’t that familiar with the marketing campaign, so I was incredibly surprised to find that the 2021 version was not a remake, and instead a sequel to the ‘92 version. Some of this surprise came from my own perceptions of the ‘92 Candyman.

The original Candyman is an interesting film, though one that’s flawed and incredibly reflective of the dated sensibilities of its time. The film follows a white postgraduate researcher, looking into local tales of a figure called candyman that supposedly originated from the housing projects of Cabrini Green. This plot centers the white, academic perspective of the ghetto, mostly that it is a tragic place where dangerous gangs exist and terrorize all authorities. Though the film has an interest in the deterioration of the ghetto, it fails to fully investigate institutional complicity in the creation and destruction of communities of color. The film makes references to its main character, Helen Lyle, living in a building that was formerly a housing project, but that’s hardly investigated beyond when it's mentioned. The film’s conclusion fails to bring closure to any of the themes of racial conflict, instead focusing on giving some redemption to the main character as she defeats the Candyman. The movie frames this ending as a victory, resorting to a trope of Lyle as a white savior, practically saving this community from the supernatural horrors that menace it.

Considering how dated the 1992 version is, and how poorly it handles some of its elements, I thought that it would be totally erased from the chronology of the story. Instead, the 2021 version follows up on all the events of the previous film and reanalyzes all the previous events that took place. The ‘21 version doesn’t shy away from reexamining Dr. Lyle’s character and motives in the original, drawing scathing parallels between Lyle’s rather exploitative research into the urban legends of Cabrini Green and the previous forces that produced Candyman. The line that brought this to the forefront of my reading of the film was Burke’s remark in the laundromat, “They love us for what we make, not for who we are.” That line is first meant to refer to white culture, but more specifically a wealthy white businessman from Chicago that incited the first killing that formed the Candyman mythos. However, given the phrasing, one can also see it as a critique of the academics of the first film, since Lyle and her colleagues only care about the Black people of Chicago for the urban folklore that they create and share. Without this, Lyle would never have given Cabrini Green a second thought, let alone that her very nice apartment is gentrifying the area. Ultimately, the goal of the recent Candyman is to undo the end of the original but save and protect the mythos it creates. By the end of the ‘21 film, Candyman’s return is framed as heroic, and undoes the characterization from the ‘92 version that Candyman is a sinister and wicked force that kills indiscriminately. The new film instead sees Candyman in a much more favorable light. Again, Burke summarizes this sentiment in his line, “Candyman is our way of dealing with the fact that these things happened, are still happening.”

The recent Candyman clearly has a complex relationship to its predecessor. In one part it has the greatest love for the fantastical horror it creates, but the world those horrors terrorize is a terribly flawed interpretation of waking life, and it undercuts the horror of Candyman when a story about Black trauma fails to fully engage in what it sets out to do.