In the 35 years since John Carpenter‘s first big studio movie, 1982’s The Thing, which he made for Universal, was released, it’s metamorphosed from flop to underground classic in the horror genre.

‘My mind is bent to tell of bodies changed into new forms.’ These are the opening words of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

The set-up for David Cronenberg's remake of The Fly is straightforward enough. The handsome, eccentric scientist Seth (Jeff Goldblum) is trying to perfect a teleportation device.

Rosemary Woodhouse has unwrapped a piece of steak from its waxy brown paper. She cuts it in half and drops it into a hot pan. It sizzles. She flips it. She takes it out after a few seconds and places it on a floral plate. Slicing a corner, she eats quickly, happily.

When René Descartes, sitting in his armchair in Leiden in 1641, invites his readers to meditate alongside him, you get the sense he could do with the company.

In Ray Bradbury’s horror short story, ‘The Next in Line’ (1955), a woman visits the catacombs in Guanajuato, Mexico. Mummified bodies line the walls.

In the 35 years since John Carpenter‘s first big studio movie, 1982’s The Thing, which he made for Universal, was released, it’s metamorphosed from flop to underground classic in the horror genre.

In an era of countless reboots, we have come to regard the whole process as a cynical exercise whose primary goal is to slash expenditure, but that was not always the case. There was a time when remaking movies was about taking a classic conception and upgrading it to meet modern standards.

Let’s start by setting the record straight: mainstream comedies and dramas are great. In an increasingly complicated and frustrating world, cinema as a form of escapism is a valid move, and transporting an audience to a different world and making them laugh or cry is a noble endeavor in 2018.

To start our run up to Halloween, Thogdin Ripley and Philippa Snow of avant-horror publishers Hexus Journal pick thirteen films that blur the worlds of horror and the avant-garde to frightening, funny and sometimes shocking effect Horror film and experimentalism in film go hand in hand.

These are just the facts. On July 22, 2013, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, gave birth to her first child, Prince George. Two weeks later, an enormous “fatberg” was discovered in the sewers under London.

Like any other genre of film, television or literature, Folk Horror has its own collection of traits, tropes and tendencies.

The Thing

It might seem strange that a mythogeographer would be very interested in an action-horror movie from 1982, panned at the time of its release and largely ignored by audiences.

SONIC ACTS FESTIVAL - THE NOISE OF BEING Daniel Rourke - The Noise of Becoming: On Monsters, Men, and Every Thing in Between 26 February 2017 - De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, The Netherlands --- In this talk Daniel Rourke refigures the sci-fi horror monster The Thing from John Carpenter's 1982 film of the same name. The Thing is a creature of endless mimetic transformations, capable of becoming the grizzly faced men who fail to defeat it. The most enduring quality of The Thing is its ability to perform self-effacement and subsequent renewal at every moment, a quality we must embrace and mimic ourselves if we are to outmanoeuvre the monsters that harangue us. Daniel Rourke is a writer and artist based in London. In his work Daniel exploits speculative and science fiction in search of a radical ‘outside’ to the human(ities), including extensive research on the intersection between digital materiality, the arts, and posthumanism. In March 2015 artist & activist Morehshin Allahyari and Daniel released The 3D Additivist Manifesto – a call to push technologies beyond their breaking point, into the realm of the provocative, and the weird. sonicacts.com/2017/artists/daniel-rourkeCast: Sonic Acts

Horror movies don’t have the best track record when it comes to depicting queer characters. Often there are no LGBT characters at all, and when they do appear they’re likely to be broad stereotypes who are quickly dispatched by some monster.

You see, what we’re talkin’ about here is an organism that imitates other life-forms, and it imitates ‘em perfectly. –Dr. Blair, The Thing

Sonic Acts

Sonic Acts Festival 2017 - The Noise of Being. Photos by Pieter Kers.

Sonic Acts

Sonic Acts Festival 2017 - The Noise of Being. Photos by Pieter Kers.