[Editorial] Hearts of Darkness: A Love Letter to… Monika in Nekromantik 2
Leibe Monika,
There are times in life when you think that you will never fully be understood by those around you, and unfortunately for you Monika, that is always how you’re going to be perceived by those closest to you. Ever since I first perused you across the vivid and visceral scenes on my television screen, you felt admirable and I felt beholden to your wicked charms and displays of sheer depravity. You made me feel like I was trapped in captivity by your wondrous sense of weirdness, swallowing me with a feeling of adoration laced with confusion as to how the intricacies of your mind work.
For your whole life you have been searching for what you believed to be love or lust, never fully understanding the difference between the two and why neither of these sensations fill you with the emotions you so deeply seek. You have found yourself fluttering like a broken butterfly from one male stem to the next, never really tasting the nectar that would burst your tastebuds and allow honey to seep from your innermost fantasies. Being a woman in a man’s world is never going to be easy, and even when you have the most dedicated and sweet man on your arm, you know that deep down there is something else to be desired to satisfy what you really crave.
Yes, necrophilia is a taboo within the modern landscape and most likely that will never change, and perhaps that should never change. But I understand your frustrations regardless of the fact that I don’t share the same erotic desires as you. All you have ever wanted is to have and hold the most perfect male specimen between your legs, however, with your morals in the right place and having a humanity about your soul, it’s easier said than done to exhibit these feelings and let them come into full bloom.
Even with your disturbing need to seduce yourself with salacious gore, you are still a human woman with the need to reach her climax and find what truly makes her happy in life. Digging up graves and exhuming bodies isn’t the classiest of acts for a woman like yourself, but I empathise that needs must be met and sometimes that has to be done in a somewhat less glamorous fashion. Your opportunity to finally abide in a place of freedom and happiness lies ahead of you, but you will need guts in order to break the chains of morality and blossom into your sexuality.
Everyone in the world deserves to have the most amazing orgasm of their life, and to have their deepest most inner fantasies fuelled by the sensual filth that sweats through their pores at any moment of the day. What you need to do is wrong and will shock society like nothing else, but this is my letter to you - to let you know that even though I do not completely condone the behaviours you must undertake in order to reach nirvana, I can understand your plight and want you to set yourself free.
By taking that boyfriend of yours and hacking his head off with a rusty saw, watching his tinted blood soak through your bedsheets and stain your porcelain skin forever, you will finally find the peace you have been searching for. You will no longer have to compromise yourself by having to fuck rotten bodies you took from the earth, instead you will see the essence drain from his eyes as you revel ion the power of taking the life from someone so easily. Your mind and body will feel connected with one, joined by the feminine pleasure of making love to the corpse that was breathing and alive just mere seconds ago.
You will find yourself abandoned by those you love eventually, but this way you are in control of that and can experience a stimulation of sexual satisfaction whilst it happens. I’m not saying I agree with your fetish for necrophilia, but dear Monika, I believe that every woman deserves to feel liberated and reach their sexual paramount, and therefore you will take that man’s head and you will smother yourself in his blood whilst you have the most intense, mind-blowing orgasm of your life.
Mit freundlichem Gruß,
Zoë xxx
When people think of horror films, slashers are often the first thing that comes to mind. The sub-genres also spawned a wealth of horror icons: Freddy, Jason, Michael, Chucky - characters so recognisable we’re on first name terms with them. In many ways the slasher distills the genre down to some of its fundamental parts - fear, violence and murder.
Throughout September we were looking at slasher films, and therefore we decided to cover a slasher film that could be considered as an underrated gem in the horror genre. And the perfect film for this was Franck Khalfoun’s 2012 remake of MANIAC.
In the late seventies and early eighties, one man was considered the curator of all things gore in America. During the lovingly named splatter decade, Tom Savini worked on masterpieces of blood and viscera like Dawn of the Dead (1978), a film which gained the attention of hopeful director William Lustig, a man only known for making pornography before his step into horror.
Looking for some different slasher film recommendations? Then look no fruther as Ariel Powers-Schaub has 13 non-typical slasher horror films for you to watch.
Even though they are not to my personal liking, there is no denying that slasher films have been an important basis for the horror genre, and helped to build the foundations for other sub-genres throughout the years.
But some of the most terrifying horrors are those that take place entirely under the skin, where the mind is the location of the fear. Psychological horror has the power to unsettle by calling into question the basis of the self - one's own brain.
On Saturday, 17th June 2023, I sat down with two friends to watch The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009) and The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence) (2012). I was nervous to be grossed out (I can’t really handle the idea of eating shit) but excited to cross these two films off my list.
Many of the most effective horror films involve blurring the lines between waking life and a nightmare. When women in horror are emotionally and psychologically manipulated – whether by other people or more malicious supernatural forces – viewers are pulled into their inner worlds, often left with a chilling unease and the question of where reality ends and the horror begins.
Body horror is one of the fundamental pillars of the horror genre and crops up in some form or another in a huge variety of works. There's straightforward gore - the inherent horror of seeing the body mutilated, and also more nuanced fears.
In the sweaty summer of 1989, emerging like a monochrome migraine from the encroaching shadow of Japan’s economic crash, Shin’ya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man shocked and disgusted the (very few) audiences originally in attendance.
Whether it's the havoc wreaked on the human body during pregnancy, emotional turmoil producing tiny murderous humans or simply a body turning on its owner, body horror films tend to be shocking. But while they're full of grotesque imagery, they're also full of thoughtful premises and commentary, especially when it comes to women, trauma, and power.
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Now it’s time for Soho’s main 2023 event, which is presented over two weekends: a live film festival at the Whirled Cinema in Brixton, London, and an online festival a week later. Both have very rich and varied programmes (with no overlap this year), with something for every horror fan.
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If you like cults, sacrificial parties, and lesbian undertones then Mona Awad’s Bunny is the book for you. Samantha, a student at a prestigious art university, feels isolated from her cliquey classmates, ‘the bunnies’.
The slasher sub genre has always been huge in the world of horror, but after the ‘70s and ‘80s introduced classic characters like Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Leatherface, and Jason, it’s not harsh to say that the ‘90s was slightly lacking in the icon department.
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