Are you missing the experience of watching a horror movie in a crowd but do not want to travel off campus to get your fix? The Hamline English and Communications Studies Department has you covered. Throughout the spring semester, horror films will be shown weekly on Sunday nights at 6:30 p.m. in Giddens Learning Center (GLC), courtesy of English Department chair Mike Reynolds’s Intro to English Studies: Horror Films class, with the films now open to the public.
Reynolds said that when he taught the same class last semester, students wished the films could be viewed by all Hamline students on a big screen, and this semester, Reynolds made it a reality.
“The last semester when I talked about doing it, people said ‘Oh, I wish I could see that.’ So it’s partly I know people like seeing horror movies,” Reynolds said “There’s something about being in a crowd and watching [a horror movie], it’s very very different, even just two or three people. Partly, it’s to kinda, create a little bit of that sense. The social experience of watching a horror movie. People laughed at all the right moments. Like, I feel like again there’s something really different about being in a room with a lot of other folks.”
The first film of eleven was “The Babadook” by Jennifer Kent, shown to a generous crowd of horror fans on the evening of Feb 2.
“The Babadook,” a film famously known from a viral meme in 2017 in which people labeled the titular monster as a “queer icon” after the film was accidentally added to the LGBTQ+ section of Netflix. While in reality, it is a story about the difficulties of grief.
The film follows a widowed mother, Amelia (played by Essie Davis), and her son, Samuel (played by Noah Wiseman), a troubled six-year-old often plagued with nightmares of monsters. When a pop-up book appears in their house titled “Mister Babadook,” mother and son must battle a real monster, and tackle their grief over the death of Oskar (played by Ben Winspear), Amelia’s husband and Samuel’s father.
Reynolds felt “The Babadook” was the right film for the first showing due to its clear themes and metaphors, as well as its impressive actors and cinematography.
“I think the metaphors are obvious. Monsters are kind of … there’s nothing subtle about a monster. This film does a lovely job of kind of allowing you to have your cake and eat it too. It has a metaphor, and it’s over the top, but then that performance, actually both performances by the mom and son are amazing,” Reynolds said. “The way it’s shot, it’s really visceral. The use of sound, the way it edits together, the scenes, is something I just think is an incredible bit of filmmaking.”
First-year Ellie Carson also enjoyed the blatant nature of the themes within the film.
“I think the metaphors in the movie are definitely more in your face so you don’t have to think about it too much. Which is kinda nice during a horror movie, you don’t really have the time to think that much, you’re busy being scared,” Carson said.
Carson also enjoyed the atmosphere of the event as a whole.
“I loved the vibe. Everyone was respectful there, everyone was quiet during the film. They were all very gracious. It had all the good parts of a movie theatre. It’s so much better to watch a horror movie with people there with you.”
Horror movies will continue to be shown for the rest of the semester. Future films include Jordan Peele’s “Nope” on Feb. 16, Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin” on Feb. 23, George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” on March 2, Grace Lee’s “American Zombie” on Mar 9. and many more after to come.
Grab a bag of popcorn and a friend, and get ready to cap off your weekend with a good scare.
