ellie zayas

The first thing someone thinks of when they think “witch” is most likely broomstick, green, pointy nose, warts. I think we have the Wizard of Oz to thank for that. But you have to take into account Galinda to compare the good and the bad. What do all witches have in common? They seem to all have a purpose to being a witch. Whether it be to manipulate someone with their spells or to just live in the forest and hunt little children forever. Sort of an outcast life to be honest. It’s like all the stories about witches, they’re a big minority. It’s either lucky, rare, or extremely frowned upon to be a witch in those stories. In Akata Witch, Sunny seems to have a tough time in general before she discovers her witch-hood. This could be a metaphor for womanhood like we talked about in class about Kiki’s Delivery Service. There’s an awkwardness beforehand, and then a sudden surprising realization about being a witch, and the slow progression on getting a hold of it. Su...

The new “Weird” I wanted to compare the two films Annihilation and Under the Skin. Both successful movies with high ratings but for different reasons. These movies are not exactly horror, but horror-science fiction and take into account something alien coming into the already existing earth. Annihilation is all based around this place called the “shimmer”. As the viewer, we don’t have to be skeptical as to what in the world is going on to these four girls. Under the Skin is quite the contrary and doesn’t exactly give us any visuals except for ominous and eerie scenes that just leave more questions. Its not only until the end you seem to get a taste of Annihilation’s visuals when you see the alien’s true form in Under the Skin.

J-Horror and Vengeful Spirits After finishing Haruki Murakami's  A Wild Sheep Chas e, it makes me realize how different our western horror culture is. I feel like because we’re so exposed to western horror stereotypes of slashers, monsters, etc, we always assume that the spirit is evil. There just always seems to be bad blood with ghosts and humans. I think this is due to our lack of culture with the passed compared to Asian culture. Western culture is all about shock value. They don’t normally leave you feeling dread or a huge disturbance. Most of the time it’s high descriptions of how someone is tortured, or how detailed the killer looks. J-horror contrasts this by making contemplate the story and the reality all together. In the story of Yuki-onna, she is seeming to be a very dangerous spirit but then spares the life of the younger lumberjack. Throughout you then wonder if she’s changed and can actually live a human life. However, it is shown that she r...