Hey, everyone, I'm thelitcritguy. I co-host the horror movie podcast Horror Vanguard, have been a regular guest on Revolutionary Left Radio, and make Youtube videos on culture and aesthetics. I write on horror, capitalism, and cultural criticism (you can read my last piece here https://readpassage.com/the-horror-of-capitalism-squid-game-and-the-gothic-trap-of-debt/)
Ask Me Anything!
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First off, thank you for being here today! One of the first episodes from RevLeft that I heard was your interview on Gothic Marxism and it opened up a new worldview for me.
If I may ask, what got you into gothic horror and how did you come into radical politics?
Radical politics -- a key moment was Occupy! -- it retrospect there's a lot to critique around Occupy (ready Jodi Dean lmao) but the response from the police was a big moment. There were also protests around ten years back in the UK when tuition fees were increased and watching people I know get kettled and charged by police was a radicalizing moment.
Spooky stuff: I remember talking to Andy Sharp (the writer behind the English heretic project) who said that we didn't get into horror because we wanted to do in-depth political discourse but because horror is cool. I remember watching Alien when I was a teenager, but I've been into the dark and macabre for as long as I can remember.
I think a lot about capitalism as cosmic horror and about how just a glimpse of the true shape of this globe spanning monstrosity drives people insane (e.g. Qanon). Are there any anti-capitalist cosmic horror works you would recommend?
I mean, just read Lovecraft obviously, but from a theoretical perspective, you should absolutely read Eugene Thacker's In The Dust of This Planet, and whilst not being explicitly about cosmic horror Mark Steven's Splatter Capital is exceptionally useful for theorizing anti-capitalist horror criticism. Beyond that, read Lovecraft and read Lovecraft against himself (also check out his letters to see how he changed his political views pretty drastically)
I've read a fair bit of lovecraft including his letter where he talks about understanding the mind of reactionaries having been one himself, definitely a weird dude but not quite the caricature that he often gets portrayed as.
In The Dust of This Planet sounds really cool and I'm definitely gonna check that out that sounds like exactly the sort of concept I was grasping at.
In many ways, Lovecraft stories are about semantic collapse. Everything slips into being indescribable even as we can't help but try and explain what we are seeing. I guess you need to read Lovecraft against the grain (he's not inherent leftist obviously) but in the age of the internet, when consciousness can become global and language is something that seems exhausted, why wouldn't we all be turning into the protagonists of a Lovecraft story, babbling away to ourselves
This is getting at the root of what I mentioned in my first comment on cosmic horror, the internet has become a Necronomicon of sorts, containing all recorded human knowledge and containing vast and powerful truths, but it's all adrift in an ocean of ramblings of madmen.
This sounds like a bit of internal monologue from Disco Elysium (I say sounds because I could hear it as I read it lol).
I need to get on playing that again shit.
I'm also thinking Thomas Ligotti's "The Conspiracy Against The Human Race", which is not primarily anticapitalist, but gives a very good account of the psychology of cosmic horror. I'll have to check out " In The Dust Of This Planet"
Ligotti is a self-described socialist which makes for an interesting tension with his philosophical pessimism but I absolutely love "My Work Is Not Yet Done"
It's because horror is extremely good at affective intensity. On HV we say all the time that 'horror wants to do things to your body' and a lot of horror's impact comes from the fact it can in a way bypass the rational part of our mind and evoke those deeper reactions that are physical as much as mental. We might know there's nothing in the house, but if we have been made into what horror academics call corporeal viewers then those feelings don't disappear quickly....
I really, really appreciate this -- it means a lot when people online take the time to let you know that the work you put out isn't just falling into a void.
Start with the classics! Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Matthew Lewis's The Monk The ghost stories of Charles Dickens and Dracula by Bram Stoker from the nineteenth century
For more contemporary stuff it does depend on what you are into but early Stephen King has some good stuff and you have to read Clive Barker, Shirley Jackson, and Victor LaValle. That should set you off!
Do you have any tips for how cowards can enjoy horror? Asking for a friend.
Oh man, this is a super interesting question. I guess the deeper issue is what you feel your own relationship to horror (and maybe fear as an emotion is) -- some people really enjoy the rush of a good horror movie and for some people, horror can be a way to explore and work through our own fears. I guess I would suggest starting with the classics -- try something like the 1931 Frankenstein and see what you think and fuck anyone who tells you that you aren't a real fan if you don't like or won't watch a certain film or style of film (I personally don't enjoy films which feature a lot of violence toward animals which in some cases is real) Hope this helps!
Interesting, I don't have any big problems with gore and such. It's usually the paranormal stuff that gets to me, because you never know what to expect or what the limits are. Body horror is awful but at least there's a hard limit in that you have some idea of how e.g. skin and flesh interact with sharp metal tools, while paranormal stuff could conceivably be hallucinated by my own brain at any time or place.
I'm not fond of the paranormal stuff either. I don't like it when you can't even count on basic natural laws.
Do you think what type of horror is made is a cyclical process? I definitely think that Haunted Houses made a resurgence during the financial crisis.
Yeah, we go through cycles -- horror reflects the fears of a given social totality and like any cultural practice it tends to be iterative. Yes, haunted houses had a big moment post-2008 (I've written about this before too!)
When do you think we'll see a good encapsulation of the horrors of social media, does one already exist? I've seen a couple of movies where the teenagers are basically glued to the screens. Come and Play used tech but it was mostly about domestic horror.
I honestly don't think we have had a good internet/social media horror yet -- we had some attempts in the early 2000s but nothing that really understood why the internet is such a horrifying space. Host (the pandemic horror movie) was pretty good but limited. I guess culture is still too close to social media (horror marketing is very invested in getting something to get that social media virality). Pretty sure in the pivot to the metaverse we'll get some good horror out of it...
I think Black Mirror was definitely trying to do something along these lines but kinda fell flat for me. The whole Metaverse thing is almost too horrifying on its face to even come up with fiction that could top the implications of such an evolution of social media without veering into absurd parody.
I'm still surprised there's not much more of a Gothic horror tradition on the left when Marx's Capital is positively seeped in horror allusions and explanations of how capital is the True Horror that sucks the life out of everything including our own. Do you have any theory recommendations that also lean heavy on this gothic imagery?
Likewise, I've always thought the ground is fertile for horror stores like Lovecraft where you descend into madness at seeing the true face of the world, but in this case that true face is that our world of late capitalism is built and predicated on the death and exploitation of millions and the destruction of the planet. Are there any fiction stories you think capture that vibe?
Theory stuff: Mark Steven's Splatter Capital and David McNally's Monsters of the Market are both ESSENTIAL. As for the fiction vibes, maybe check out something like China Mieville's Looking for Jake, and of course, Children of Men.
Thanks so much for the recommendations, I'll check them out!
Wow, this is a pleasant surprise! I really enjoy your work, glad you're finding time to hang here.
Because this is an AMA, here's my shoddy attempt at a question:
If recommendation systems (The Algorithm) were a monster, which one?Oh man, the closest thing I can think of is perhaps my favorite monster from Gothic writing, which is the Slake Moths from Perdido Street Station by China Mieville.
I had to look that up, but:
a horrifying predator, it unfolds hypnotic wings that transfix a victim in place, allowing the larger-than-man-sized moth to slip forward and feed on the victim's thoughts, draining the psyche through a long slobbering tongue until the victim is a mindless vegetable.
yea, that sounds... that sounds about accurate :agony-minion:
I will continue banging the drum for the Bas Lag novels as some of the best fantasy writing of the last twenty years.
Aight, follow-up question, if you don't mind: I can totally see a Slake Moth being a fitting representation of The Algorithm from a content consumer pov. And while I realize that content creators are also, usually, content consumers, wouldn't you agree that content creators face a different monster in ''The Algorithm''? I know you aren't big on click bait and tactics like that, but on some level you too must try to... infer the gaze of The Algorithm, right? Any other monster(s) come to mind with that perspective?
In which case (and yeah, you are right) perhaps it's best to think of the algorithm as a kind of swarm, a consciousness that is not limited to the singular subject. You can reason with it on some level, but god help you if you catch the swarm in the wrong mood...
Hi! No question to ask, I just wanted to say that as a leftist elder Goth, Horror Vanguard is my favorite podcast. Oh, maybe a question; have you looked at horror comics? I'm catching up on the 80s-90s run of Hellblazer from Vertigo, and it seems like its very HV in terms of subject matter - Thatcherite Br*tain as a horror story. Any possibility of a non-film review, maybe of one 4-6 issue arc?
Thank you! And yes, I'd LOVE to look at early Hellblazer. I've just written something on Alan Moore's From Hell which should be coming out next year, so maybe we will do a special bonus episode for patrons!
Thats the problem, i have been looking and i havent found any yet, maybe those topics just dont mesh well
So what is your favourite low budget horror movie? Like dawn of the dead or basket case? Or what is your favorite horror movie in general?
Oh mannnnnnnn what a question. Two amazing low-budget horrors are John Smith's The Black Tower and the utter WEIRDNESS of Neil Breen's Pass Thru.
And my favorite horror movie of all time is The Exorcist -- for me, a perfect film.
Thank you a lot for the answer i love watching low budget productions. I also like your podcast. Another question: how do you think modern horror as a genre is different from the classical horror ? If there is a difference.
If there is a difference I think it is in terms of technology -- we can represent much more than we used to be able to but horror doesn't depend upon strict representational fidelity. A good horror movie uses similar techniques as classic horror literature. In terms of theme and style, horror is a form deeply aware of its history so it has a dialectical relation to its own historical continuity which means that all new ideas get incorporated into a longer genealogy that becomes fuel for future innovation
Omg Neel Breen is my favorite director. Have you seen fateful findings???
Not yet! Pass Thru was my first Breen but it won't be the last :)))
What was your first experience with horror? For me, I think it was local old stories, where the protag literally sells his soul to the devil for money(and lets his mother get ripped apart by dogs) and lumberjacks get cursed for cutting down the oldest trees.
Okay, when I was like 12/13 I was allowed to read anything I wanted at the school library. However I found it, I picked up a copy of an old paperback, which showed a deserted cabin on the front. The title was "Misery" and I was absolutely hooked. Not the best Stephen King novel but I think that's almost certainly were it all started.
Thanks for the answer. What is, for you, the best king novel? I read a few, but found that none of them really stood out. The only ones i remember clearly are Cujo, Salem and the one where the guy gets thinner.
This is a very personal answer and probably wouldn't be one that lots of King experts would agree with, but I think Carrie is very different from the (excellent!) film version but is both very terrifying, and like much of the best horror, deeply almost painfully sad.
