(Un)common Horrors

The night has put the village to sleep, the streets are empty, the gates are locked. Only Nana Sofija sits in front of her house, looking at the sky. The moon is as big as a balloon of milk ready to pop. It looked the same that night, a long time ago, when she and Milica sat in front of the house. It got so close to the ground that it seemed it wanted tickle the crowns of the trees. They giggled, took turns laying down in each other’s lap, talking. Before going to bed, Sofija went to the outhouse bathroom to wash. She lathered her body eagerly, thinking about the jokes they had told. She stroked her breasts, her belly, her upper arms. She spread her legs to reach what women quietly called down there. A flickering image of Milica’s warm eyes came to her, it was as if she was still there. She felt a weird jolt. She spread her lips, then looked left and right to make sure she was alone. Her fingers kept moving. The blood inside boiled up with lust. The moonlight burst over the fields. So,...

Since the very first appearance of eighteenth-century Gothic tales, horror narratives have had a lot to say about space, that is, of how human protagonists interact with their surroundings, and how the environment reflects and affects their feelings, anxieties and preoccupations. This seemingly unusual but rather strong connection was in the early days transposed onto the American continent, where it went on to become one of the red threads of literary and cultural imagination, transcending a single horror narrative and recurring in a series of them, evolving as the genre evolved through changing social and historical circumstances. However, not many larger-scope academic publications have appropriately addressed this intricate aspect of the American cultural imagination. This is precisely what Marko Lukić’s Geography of Horror: Spaces, Hauntings and the American Imagination offers: a reconsideration of the history of American fiction through the prism of the genre and with firm theore...

Kuću u kojoj privremeno boravim, u Alpama, čuva gotovo slijep pas. Na lijevom oku ima tumor ružičastocrvene boje. Tumor visi, poput divovske suze, i vidi se kako vene pulsiraju u njemu. Zahvaća mu oba oka, a ukloniti ga kirurškim zahvatom bilo bi beskorisno. Pas će potpuno izgubiti vid. Pitanje je dana. Osim toga, star je. Kad mu priđeš jedva može ustati. Ipak, trudi se. Zaista se uvijek jako trudi. Uspijeva ustati tek nakon što si ga već iz sažaljenja pomilovao, odšetao i stigao do ulaznih vrata kuće. Kad zatvarajući vrata zirneš prema njemu, pogled kao da mu govori „ne ostavljaj me ovdje” ili „povedi me sa sobom u kuću” ili „sakrij me u svoju sobu”. Radi se o pogledu koji ima više od jednog značenja. Ne možeš odrediti što točno znači, kao i s pogledima svih drugih pasa. Mislim pritom na pse koji dobro vide, koji skaču i laju i igraju se s djecom. Međutim, ovdje nema djece. Ja sam najmlađi stanar, mlađi čak i od psa. Ponaša se prema meni kao da sam dijete. Umorno maše repom i pretvara...

In one of the numerous negative reviews, Michael Hann described singer-songwriter Morrissey’s debut novella, List of the Lost (2015), as “an unpolished turd of a book, the stale excrement of Morrissey’s imagination,” yet from a queer perspective, it is pioneering. This article explores Morrissey’s innovative engagement with Gothic horror, building on his explorations of the mode during his musical career. Throughout the novella, Morrissey subverts numerous Gothic staples, from curative maternity and reproductive futurity to monstrously fragmented subjectivity to condemnations of Catholicism – the latter of which he retains, though to entirely different ends to his Protestant literary ancestors. Through such devices, Morrissey participates in Teresa Goddu’s concept of ‘haunting back,’ turning hostile Gothic tropes on their head to carve out a new space for queer experience within the mode – historically conservative as often as it is transgressive – and reveals the true specter of socie...

It’s summer and the beer keeps flowing down our throats, the music echoes from a club and every now and then we walk out on the terrace to catch a breath of air free of smoke, to meet someone and start something new, and if it doesn’t happen, we go back inside and shake at the dance floor, at the bar. And when we get bored, we walk out again and look from someone.We give up before the end, before sunrise, because we cannot stand the dawn that will reveal our impotence, we stumble and laugh along as if we’ve won a trip to the heavens in which no one lives, we give everything we’ve got to remain in this good trance, we imagine what we’d do if she weren’t such a cow that got hooked on that good-for-nothing, and, after all, don’t you think good girls always end up with the likes of him, we’ll never understand it. Comfort is good, but not good enough to put an end to this night, to peacefully collapse into our bed next to the open window and fall asleep as if love exists, and tonight we jus...

Analiza horor žanra ukazuje prije svega na njegovu fluidnost, ekstremnost i nepresušnu inovativnost, kao i na posebnost ovog žanra da usmjeri pažnju na različite kulturne fenomene i društvene anksioznosti, pritom kritizirajući i dekonstruirajući dominantne ideološke konstrukte i paradigme. Unutar ovako široko postavljenog konteksta zanimljivo je promatrati moguću razlikovnost između ideje „uobičajenog” i „neuobičajenog” užasa, odnosno sklonosti pojedinih autora prema problematiziranju elemenata svakodnevice pojedinog društva te posljedično formiranju određenog kritičkog diskurza, naspram onih autora čiji je fokus usmjeren isključivo na imaginarno. Predložena analiza stoga pristupa promatranju kinematografije dvaju autora – Davida Lyncha i Jordana Peelea, čiji osebujni filmski izričaj žanrovskim jezikom horora artikulira spektar međusobno isprepletenih subjektivnih i društvenih traumi. Vodeći se klasičnim psihoanalitičkim čitanjima Sigmunda Freuda, zajedno sa suvremenim teorijskim propi...