SCREAM QUEEN! PREMIERES AT FANTASTIC FEST
The queer horror documentary Scream Queen!: My Nightmare on Elm Street made its official world premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. Fantastic Fest is the largest genre film festival in the world specializing in horror, fantasy, and sci-fi premieres. The weekend featured a sold-out premiere for the film and drag celebration with an astounding rainbow Freddy Kreuger cake by world-renowned Sideserk Cake Studio. The film, by directors Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen, exp
INTERVIEW: WHAT HORROR REVEALS ABOUT US
Dr. Scahill was recently approached by the University of Colorado's "City Stories" desk to speak to his specialization in horror cinema and social history. City Stories asks professors to address contemporary issues through the lens of their research, and in this edition Dr. Scahill examines the history of the horror genre, its potential for social change, and the postcolonial politics of the two Colorado-set horror films, The Shining and Dr. Sleep. Read the full interview he
HORROR DOC PREVIEWS IN SF, LA, DENVER
Making the film festival circuit this summer is the documentary Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street, which features Prof. Scahill as an authority on horror cinema and queer audiences. Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street opened in June at San Francisco's Frameline Film Festival, the world's first and largest queer film festival, now in its 43rd year. The film then made its Denver debut as the offical opening night film at CinemaQ Film Festival at SIE FilmCenter, a
INTERVIEW: HORROR MOVIES AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Dr. Scahill was interviewed for a second time by VICE magazine to give his thoughts on the current slate of horror films and what they might reveal about contemporary cultural anxieties. Last August, Dr. Scahill was contected to give his thoughts of the shark attack film The Meg and the retrun of revenge-of-nature films like Jaws. In this follow-up interview about the alligator attack film Crawl, Scahill talks with Miles Howard about the film's use of home invasion and slashe
INTERVIEW: BLACK HORROR & SOCIAL CRITIQUE
Dr. Scahill was interviewed recently by Voice of America to give his thoughts on the movie US and the future of minority filmmakers using the genre of horror to wage social critique. VOA correspondant Penelope Poulou asked Dr. Scahill to provide historical context for genre and what the success of films like Get Out and Us might mean for forecasting genre trends. As Scahill notes, the horror genre has traditionally been antagonistic to minorities, as often "monsters" like Nos
INTERVIEW: HORROR MOVIES AT THE BOX OFFICE
Dr. Scahill was quoted recently in a piece about the long-range box office success of recent horror films like Get Out, A Quiet Place, It, and the recent Jordan Peele project Us. As Sarah Shevenlock notes, 2017 was the first year that the horror genre made over $1 billion collectively. Weekend box office returns for Us show a record-breaking $70 million opening, doubling Peele's previous film Get Out, and ranking as the third-largest ever opening for an R-rated film. Contribu
EVENT: FEMINIST HORROR SCREENING AND Q&A
This week, the makers of the psychological horror film CAM visited UC Denver's campus to screen their breathrough film and hold an exclusive Q&A with our students. Screenwriter Isa Mazzei and director Daniel Goldhaber are Colorado natives, and were excited to talk to young Denver filmmmakers about the contemporary film landscape and how to bring their ideas to the screen. From the producers of Get Out and BlackKklansman, CAM offers a modern perspective on the tech thriller as
2018 FILM STUDENT SYMPOSIUM
Students in Dr. Scahill's upper division "Film Theory" class presented their original research in a conference-style setting on the theme of "Cinema Paranoia" in the Auraria Library. By presenting their works-in-progress in a public forum, students considering graduate study were able to experience a conference format in a supportive environment.
An abbreviated version of their final paper, the students were asked to take an intersectional approach to the study of film by c
DR. SCAHILL PRESENTS ON QUEER HORROR
This semester Dr. Scahill presented a talk on queer horror cinema before a screening of Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge. This sequel to the original 1984 film is considered to be "the gayest horror film ever made," with its narrative of a young man struggling with an inner monster that emerges when he's aroused by male classmates. In his pre-screening talk, Dr. Scahill examined the place of queer panic in horror cinema and offered insights into the film's curious
HORROR FILM FESTIVAL AT TELLURIDE
Dr. Scahill was in attendance as a member of the press at this year's Telluride Horror Show, now celebrating its ninth year. Following his work writing on both the horror genre and on the role of the film festival in subcultural communities, Dr. Scahill was excited to take part in the festival's energy and excitement for genre cinema. Telluride provided a beautiful backdrop for the macabre festival, which extended over three days at three separate screening venues. In additio
INTERVIEW: 'THE MEG' AND REVENGE OF NATURE
​Andrew Scahill was interviewed this week by VICE for an article on the upcoming sci-fi horror film The Meg, which features a 75-foot megalodon shark wreaking havoc on a beach community after being disturbed by deep-sea divers. Given his expertise in horror cinema, Dr. Scahill was contacted by VICE to provide some genre history for the revenge-of-nature film, which took over the box office in 1975 following the release of Stephen Spielberg's summer blockbuster Jaws. Recent fr
GUEST LECTURE: SIE FILMCENTER SCREENS 'IT'
As part of the SIE FilmCenter's series on "Great Adaptations," CU Denver English professors Colleen Donnelly, Sarah Hagelin, and Andrew Scahill took center stage to contextualize major cinema blockbusters that have been adapted from literary sources. Before screenings of Blade Runner (1982), The Thin Man (1934), and IT (2017) this summer, the English professors delivered multimedia lectures for audiences of nearly 200 attendees. For the SIE FilmCenter's screening of 2017's hi
PROFILED IN CU DENVER TODAY!
In the most recent issue of CU Denver Today, Dr. Scahill was asked to take part in a new faculty profile. In the article, Prof. Scahill talks about his work on horror cinema, his current class on film censorship, the field of academia, and his Instagram-famous dog Otto. The piece begins: "An expert on horror, Scahill describes himself as a 'film historian' who considers how a movie’s successes are both deeply idiosyncratic and indelibly linked to larger cultural forces. At th
INTERVIEW: CREEPY KID'S DRAWINGS
Andrew Scahill was interviewed this week by SLATE magazine for an article on the pop culture trope of children making violent doodles and thus revealing their inner demonic self. In his book The Revolting Child in Horror Cinema, Dr. Scahill examined the child-as-monster, whose origins in the Cold War spoke to societal anxieties about a burgeoning and uncontrollable youth culture and the perceived susceptibility of children to alternative political ideologies. In "The Devil is
INTERVIEW: TV'S STRANGER THINGS
Dr. Scahill was interviewed for the Winter 2016 issue of the British magazine Dazed and Confused as part of their special feature on the immensely popular Netflix series Stranger Things. In the article, Susanne Madsen considers the impact of the series on nostalgia-hungry adult fans, and what this turn to the 1980s might say about 2016. Dr. Scahill was called upon due to his unique work on childhood and monstrosity, as well as his more recent scholarship on reboots and remak
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