28. The Dawn of Post-Roe Horror

Last week, we started a two part series exploring the way horror films in 2024 seem to feature significant overlap, often manifesting through a woman losing control in a malicious world full of corrupt institutions and family structures imposing their will on her in uniquely horrific ways, from Immaculate to The First Omen to Longlegs, and more. The critic Vern calls this a strand of "post-Roe" horror. He means Roe v. Wade, but we saw another meaning in there in the fact that nearly every film exploring these ideas is doing so under the long shadow of 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby. The convergence of feminocentric body horror, folk horror, and Satan as a manifestation of the corrupt institutions preying on women, is, of course, nothing new in the genre. But our relationship with these ideas as viewers may be shifting in the Post-Roe world.

To get into all of this on today’s show, we have two guests, Faith Horror: Cinematic Visions of Satanism, Paganism, and Witchcraft author LMK Sheppard describing the trends from Rosemary, The Omen, and The Wicker Man leading up to today's shifts, and, later in the show, Film Streams programmer Taylor Eagan describes what she sees as a subgenre within both pre- and -post Roe horror that she calls "postpartum horror," as seen in recent films like Baby Ruby, Birth/Rebirth, and the upcoming Nightbitch.

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