The Trouble With “Elevated Horror”

Starting some time in the last decade or so, we’ve all run into the dreaded phrase “elevated horror.” Sometimes it meant A24. Sometimes it meant horror movies too-obvious in their treatment of grief, trauma, race, motherhood, or family dysfunction. Sometimes it just meant horror movies that critics decided to gush about after looking down on horror for … This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gutterstudies.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to Sweet Sweet Suffering: A Three-Part Video Essay on Hellraiser! In part one, I argue Hellraiser is not about demons. It's about desire, and best understood as mapping to a specific theory of desire from Jacques Lacan, one of the twentieth century’s most provocative and influential thinkers.Over three video essays, I'll go deep into the Hellraiser franchise — not just as horror films, but as a surprisingly coherent philosophical argument about what it means to be a human being.Each part focuses on a different entry (parts 1, 2, and 4). (I skip Hell on Earth because I don’t have anything interesting to say about that one.) In my reading, Hellraiser, Hellbound, and Bloodline each elaborates its own Lacanian concept.Hellraiser is about desire.Hellbound is about the Real.Bloodline is about the role of fantasy.The first talks about desire as a certain paradox: what happens when you actually get what you want? The second descends into the psychological system that produces desire. The third reveals the fragile illusion that allows us to live with desire at all. The framework is Lacanian psychoanalysis — one of the twentieth century's most challenging and rewarding bodies of thought. But no prior knowledge required. If you love Hellraiser and want to go deeper, this is for you. And if you've always been curious about Lacan but didn't know where to start, it turns out Hellraiser is a fantastic entry point. 🧠Takes this as an opportunity to revisit one of the most interesting horror films of all time. Part two, covering Hellbound, drops in two weeks. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gutterstudies.substack.com/subscribe

This is one of the last videos I’ve had in the vault from my Youtube days. It started as a silly idea for a kind of audacious clickbait project. I didn’t realize how wildly time-consuming it’d end up being. And it was kind of a maddening project too. Many times along the way, I felt uncomfortably deranged for even attempting such an obscene exercise. But it ended up being good practice for me as a video editor, since it involved wrangling and sequencing a huge number of clips in specific order. I can’t say I’m necessarily proud of making this. But I did make it, so here it is for your sick enjoyment. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gutterstudies.substack.com/subscribe

In this audio-only episode, I’m joined again by Cynthia to count down the best horror movies of 2025. The conversation is 100% spoiler free—and I think also free of pretentious jargon! WDYT - was 2024 or 2025 a better year for horror? Many are asking. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gutterstudies.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to VOLUPTUOUS MELANCHOLIA: A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE FILMS OF JEAN ROLLIN! Our first installment provides a thorough introduction to Jean Rollin, and is appropriate for both beginners and those already familiar with Rollin’s work. The video introduces some biographical background on Rollin, as well as a discussion of the French film culture that he emerged from in the 1960s. As we’ll see, a confluence of influences resulted in his distinctive style, which we can identify with the term poetic surrealism. Lastly, the video provides some tips and caveats on Rollin’s work. Nobody made films like Rollin, before or since, and it’s best to understand that going in.Timesamps: 0:00 - introduction and personal note 2:09 - biographical background 3:15 - French New Wave, poetic realism, and surrealism 6:35 - is it horror?7:45 - contextualizing the erotic dimension9:10 - narrative style, or lack thereof9:54 - emotional viewing and interpretation This was a challenging series to research and assemble, not least because of the inherently enigmatic and remote nature of Rollin’s work. His movies are sometimes challenging, and it can be even harder to write about them, let alone understand. The series is a humble attempt at doing all of the above, and I hope you’ll join me and offer your own perspectives on this remarkable, odd, fraught, and painfully unique filmmaker. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gutterstudies.substack.com/subscribe

This is the first video in a planned series on nunsploitation cinema. One of the most notorious and mischaracterized subgenres of exploitation film, nunsploitation movies offer complex and provocative treatments of themes like desire, taboo, and transgression.For many years I was not a fan of these movies. The reason for this, I discovered a few years ago, was that I just wasn’t digging deep enough. Once I expanded my research, I discovered that these are some of the most fascinating exploitation films ever made.This first video introduces nunsploitation film generally, identifying its key themes and characteristics, and also discussing the genre’s literary tradition and emergence in the late 1960s.The remainder of this video provides an analysis of Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971).Timestamps:0:00 - Definitions, key themes, and essential features2:24 - Cultural history of the naughty nun as medieval trope4:39 - connections to the Marquis de Sade6:16 - proto-nunsploitation in film history: Angels of Sin (1943); Black Narcissus (1947); The Nun (1966)8:22 - conditions for the emergence of nunsploitation proper: Vatican II, Italian film industry, and The Lady of Monza aka The Awful Story of the Nun of Monza (1969)11:03 - Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971) as the foundation and epitome of nunsploitation21:22 - Conclusion Future entries in this series will explore individual films in more depth. For those that would like to “read ahead,” the next part of the series will cover the following, which are four movies that I think represent some of the very best of the genre:Story of a Cloistered Nun (1973)Satanic Pandemonium (1975)Alucarda (1977)Killer Nun (1979) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gutterstudies.substack.com/subscribe

For the holiday season, I’m reposting my Christmas horror video from last year. I’m glad to do so, because when I first tried posting to Youtube, the platform’s capricious AI copyright monitoring wouldn’t let me include the segment on Christmas Evil. That’s perhaps the strongest part of the video, and the most popular film analyzed here, so it was a shame.I’m delighted now to present my full analysis of three overlooked Christmas horror movies!0:00 - Introduction0:25 - Silent Night, Bloody Night aka Night of the Dark Full Moon (1972)4:08 - Elves (1989)7:22 - Christmas Evil (1980)I’m already thinking about what to cover next year. Maybe a full analysis of the entire Silent Night Deadly Night franchise? A comparison of three generations of Black Christmas iterations? More obscure Santa slashers? Supernatural Christmas horror?Let me know in comments email etc what you’d like to see!Thank you as always for your support, and happy holidays to you and your inner circle. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gutterstudies.substack.com/subscribe

In this second episode of GUTTER TALK, I chat with lifelong horror fan Cynthia Rzucidlo about the year in horror. Cynthia counts down a top 13 horror movies on the year, and we compare notes along the way. At the end, we also talk about the horror movies we’re still looking forward to as the year comes to a close.Follow Cynthia on Instagram. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gutterstudies.substack.com/subscribe

GUTTER TALK is an audio-podcast supplement featuring casual, freewheeling discussion on subject matter covered on Gutter Studies.On this episode, I talk to writer, collector, and pop-culture obsessive Mark Ambrose about Mario Bava’s foundational Black Sunday (1960), as well as other early Italian gothics Lust of the Vampire (1957) and The Vampire and the Ballerina (1960), and later Italian horror in general.The conversation here can be listened to on its own, or alongside episodes one and two of the GOTH RENAISSANCE video series.Follow Mark on his new Twitter/X account.Follow Gutter Studies on Instagram. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gutterstudies.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to the first installment of GOTH RENAISSANCE: A Critical Introduction to Italian Gothic Horror.The series will run biweekly for a total of five installments. For a full watchlist of the films covered, see the series announcement page.In this first installment, I discuss the context in which Italian gothic horror emerged, including the unique conditions of the Italian film industry, as well as the evolution of horror movies internationally since the silent era. With that foundation, I discuss in detail three of the earliest and most important examples of the genre. Read together, we’ll see how these first Italian gothics set the stage not only for the gothic horror craze of the 1960s, but also for the thing that horror movies would become from the 1970s forward: an exploitation film genre centered around graphic sex and violence.Timestamps:0:00 - Introduction and context5:49 - I Vampiri aka Lust of the Vampire (dir. Ricardo Freda, 1957) 11:40 - The Vampire and the Ballerina (dir. Renato Polselli, 1960)15:58 - Mill of the Stone Women (dir. Giorgio Ferroni, 1960)21:05 - Concluding observations: commonalities, themes, and key characteristics 24:35 - Up nextFinally, I must acknowledge that in creating this series, I stand on the shoulders of giants. More than anyone, I am indebted to the work of Tim Lucas, whose magisterial tome Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark furnished me with not only endless factual information and technical observations, but also a tremendous amount of inspiration. Nobody has done more to give this genre its due. I also relied heavily on Roberto Curti’s Italian Gothic Horror Films (1957-1969) for its comprehensive coverage of this moment in horror history, as well as Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell’s textbook Film History: An Introduction (3rd Ed.) for crucial background on Italian film history in general. On the off-chance that any of these scholars happen across this page, please know that this series is dedicated to you.Note: Subtitles are auto-generated and may have inaccuracies. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gutterstudies.substack.com/subscribe