Activist horror film: the genre as tool for change

ABSTRACT

It is increasingly common for scholars and journalists to make claims of horror cinema’s potential to engage with socio-political realities and, in so doing, identify grave social injustices. This article argues that, if one is to make a true assessment of the extent to which horror films might effect social change, one needs to look towards activist communities within which filmmakers are using the genre as part of a broader effort to do precisely that. In so doing, the article theorizes ‘Activist Horror Film’ in relation to a British short film, The Herd, a work cultivated as part of the vegan-feminist protest movement. The article begins by situating The Herd within the context of scholarship about socially charged horror films, before considering the film’s broader activist context and that of its production, the crowd-funding campaign that led to its completion, the film’s content, its presence at festivals and online and its afterlife within circles of vegan/animal welfare activism. This article contends that The Herd is easily distinguished from other socially aware horror films of the contemporary moment, for the activism of its makers is what drives it and is the context that birthed it and within which it continues to be shown.

KEYWORDS:

• Activism
• British horror cinema
• veganism
• feminism
• short film

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. ‘Speciesism’ is a term used by vegans/activists to refer to what they see as human discrimination towards non-human animals, through entrapment, butchery, and so on, in the same way that ‘racism’ is used to characterize the actions of those who discriminate against those of a different cultural heritage (Singer 2002, 1–23).

2. Trump is not referred to by name, yet the film takes place after Obama’s second term, and thus, one can logically conclude, during Trump’s first term in office.

3. This remains a contentious issue within feminist discourse, where some find the comparisons made between ‘cows’ and (human) ‘rape victims’ abhorrent. See, for example, a damning response to the aforementioned PETA campaign: Shapiro (2016). It should, however, be made clear, that, per vegan philosophy, to distinguish between a ‘rape victim’ and a ‘cow’ is in itself a speciesist (false) dichotomy, in that it implies that a woman’s suffering is of superior importance to that endured by non-human animals (in this context, a cow).

4. Romero’s film is widely regarded as ‘a crucial benchmark in the development of the modern horror film and its engagement with social history’ (Lowenstein 2005, 154).

5. As Wyatt (1994, 13) argues: a ‘high concept’ narrative is ‘striking’ and ‘easily reducible’, and ‘offers a high degree of marketability’ (13). The print marketing for a high concept film, he goes on to explain (112–33), is central to its reducibility in the eyes of consumers.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Johnny Walker

Johnny Walker is Associate Professor in the Department of Arts at Northumbria University. He is the author of Rewind, Replay: Britain and the Video Boom, 1978-92 (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), Contemporary British Horror Cinema: Industry, Genre and Society (Edinburgh University Press, 2015), and the co-editor of, among other volumes, Grindhouse: Cultural Exchange on 42^nd Street, and Beyond (Bloomsbury, 2016). He is an elected member of the Executive Committee of the British Association of Film, Television, and Screen Studies (BAFTSS).