PERF #7 is now available! The theme is Costume Design in Horror in honor of the event series we’re hosting October 28-30 to celebrate the release of The Oxford Handbook of Black Horror Film, co-edited by the BFCA’s own Dr. Novotny Lawrence and Dr. Robin R. Means Coleman. “What’s Your Relationship with Horror?” is one of many features you’ll find in the the issue, where PERF editors speak with two horror lovers, Jessica Lanay and Ashley Hayes. We had more questions to ask and more room to stretch out here on the blog. Enjoy, and support their work too! Their bios and social media info are below.
If you found this blog post before finding the zine, stop by the Black Film Center & Archive to pick up your copy.
PERF: Tell us about your relationship with horror film.
JESSICA LANAY: It is long, lol. I find that people and things that happen in everyday life are more terrifying, more concerning, than what happens in horror films. I come from complicated environments that are very heightened in their psychological, emotional, and sometimes physical elements. Those environments are also made of overlapping worldviews and spiritualities—you have to think plurally and quickly to understand. One person’s duppy or cucuy is another person’s angel or ancestor. All this means that horror films can meet me at my baseline and also use a visual world to show emotions that are sometimes difficult to explain. Good horror films are composites of different timespaces mashing together. And perhaps neutral ways of living become particularly troubled when they come into contact.
PERF: What’s your favorite horror title to date?
JL: Book or film? For prose, especially now, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether.” My favorites switch around depending on the context. I am thinking of “Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether,” now because, while the story is ableist, our political and social reality does kind of feel like the “patients” are running the “hospital.” People are so smug in their common sense or assumption of what is “right” that they can’t come together to secure basic needs for themselves or anyone else. When I was in my teens, I spent a lot of time at the library and I found some books by a woman named Tanith Lee, The Secret Books of Paradys I & II. The books, at that time, were amazing. Like horror noir in an alternate universe. . . a giant creaturely bird hunting down young Victorian people. I forgot about those books and literally went searching for them. There are things I classify as horror that others wouldn’t, Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon is horror to me. I actually think that Sula and Song of Solomon are more horror stories than anything else. Flannery O’Connor. . . phew. . . definitely horror. I wrote and published a horror-slasher short story called “Good Country People Are Hard to Find,” which is a play on both of her short stories, “Good Country People,” and “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” This woman that is extremely anti-social puts herself through the paces of trying to achieve normalcy, and ends up axe murdering her family in a barn. LOL!
For film—I grew up on Vincent Price. Lots of celebrities frequented Key West when I was growing up, I have a photo of my great grandmother and Vincent Price together: the Poe adaptations from prose to film he is in are close to me. Frankenstein, the original from 1931, is really magical for me. Nosferatu from 1922 is also incredible. I think it has to do with texture, the texture of the film that you can sense and how those actors had to expend raw energy for early film to capture the tension of the scene. In those early experiments in horror, there is usually some scene at the beginning that shows Egyptian ancient art or some randomly inserted aspect of African Art and that is interesting for me to contemplate. Thinking about the American horror film as this continued treatise on race whether intentional or not. How we characterize a haunting, or death, has a lot to do with how we construct monsters and code them around various aspects of “the other.” But right now—I am obsessed with Junji Ito’s Uzumaki, I generally love his horror genre manga and anime. But my favorite horror titles to date in film. . . what will I say. . . Tarantino’s Death Proof and Hellraiser.
PERF: How do you believe costume design contributes to the films’ ranking among your personal faves?
JL: I think my favorite kind of horror is horror that is the result of people being people. Or horror films where the tragically normal becomes shredded by the disembodied, like Skinamarink. I don’t believe that humans are inherently anything—we’re mostly reflections of our environments and the situations we are compelled to live in for various reasons. Stories that break that down and explore that are usually focusing on costumes that are evocative of an era, a moment, a zeitgeist. I notice things like that. I was watching a thriller-horror recently and I could tell that the director wasn’t very fluent in American culture and society in the late 70s and early 80s. There was some CCTV in cities at that time, but the film treated it as if it was this pervasive thing that was fluidly used to solve a crime and it was really out of place. These details matter. My favorite horror films rely quite a bit on subtlety and gradual changes, so whoever is doing the makeup and costuming has to do their best with limited resources. And that gradual change in environment and costuming helps me immerse myself. I love an actor that can contort their face—Toni Collete in Hereditary was. . . wow. . . incredible. Her face alone.
TLDR: it is always a mixture of brilliant actors with brilliant facial expressions and subtle shifts in makeup and costume that seem to mark the horror I enjoy. Oh! HELLRAISER—Hellraiser I and II are two of my favorite horror movies of all time. I will watch them perpetually and randomly. The makeup for the cenobites has so much story, so much artistry, and so much vulnerability in terms of revealing something about the desires that led those individuals to their transformations. LOVE HELLRAISER.
PERF: You have an interest in filmmaking. If you were to direct a horror feature, who would you cast as protagonist and as antagonist?
JL: Another thing I love about horror films is that they have this tradition of debuting young actors, and I love the idea of providing real opportunities for young grinding artists. If it was up to me, I would choose a fresh face with a gritty approach to their acting technique, someone that can act towards the real holes within humanity rather than rest on what will solely scare the audience. The first horror film I direct will probably have my friend Oceana James in it—when she performs, she just gives in completely. She does so much with her facial expressions and her body. Considering the kinds of stories I like, the antagonist would most likely be a situation, a memory, a habit taken on by a mark made on someone they can’t remember: something disembodied pursuing the protagonist. With that being said, if you’re like, you have to choose. . . then I would say. . . Michaela Coel. . . or Naomie Harris for the protagonist. . . maybe John Boyega or LaKeith Stanfield. . . . If I was filming my short story, “Good Country People Are Hard to Find,” then the wife would be Coel or Harris and the husband would be Boyega, Stanfield, or Jeffrey Wright. They can all tow the braided line of sincerity, sarcasm, and dark humor and I think that short film would need it.
PERF: Tell us about your relationship with horror film.
Ashley Hayes: Prior to 2023, the idea of horror films made me very uncomfortable. I grew up in a household where we weren’t allowed to watch things like that and associated the genre with evil and inappropriateness. It wasn’t until I took a class with Dr. Joan Hawkins, titled The History of Horror—which was highly recommended because Dr. Hawkins is *that girl*—that my relationship to horror film evolved. I loved reading texts and reading/watching films for what they were saying, how were they saying it, and why. It was terrifying yet thrilling and enthralling to challenge myself to be open to something I was taught to think of negatively, but I found enjoyment, community, and a greater sense of what I am capable of doing academically, professionally, and personally because I allowed my relationship with horror film to evolve.
PERF: What’s your favorite horror title to date?
AH: Get Out. Easily. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie when it came out in theaters. From the subject matter it addressed to the comedic relief woven throughout that was catered toward Black audiences, each part of the story connected with the other so strongly. Most importantly, seeing the Black man fight to survive and ride away at the end with his friend that rescued him gave me a fulfilling sense of closure that I did not expect but desperately needed.
PERF: How do you believe costume design contributes to the film’s ranking in your personal faves?
AH: I did not pay much attention to the influence of costume design on my interest in the film itself. But one of the reasons why I enjoyed it so much is because of the way I easily connected to it: the subject matter and the delivery of the dialogue feeling natural and situated well within the context of the time in which it was released, specifically, gave me a sense of familiarity and connection to it. Looking back, I can say that the costume design had the same effect, but more subconsciously. the most significant costume design that stood out to me was that of the missing Black man identified by the main character, Chris, prior to the silent auction: his attire signaled to the audience that he was out of place and belonged elsewhere, further affirmed by his inability to greet Chris the way he expected him to as a fellow “brotha.” I also recall how Chris’ girlfriend’s outfit changed completely after he had been subdued from street clothes to an all white, form fitting costume. After thinking through this, I see how costume design plays a role and is important to be attentive to how it influences my interest (or lack thereof) in a film!
PERF: You have an interest in working as a film consultant. If you held that role on your favorite film’s crew, how do you think your expertise would come into play?
AH: First of all, this question made my heart do a somersault! I could see my expertise coming into play in a few ways, many of which being ways that the film already did very well.
Ultimately, I’d ensure that the film is culturally accurate. I could see myself ensuring the film is accurately contextualized by the time period it is in, specifically concerning the Black experience of that era regarding the language/use of African-American Vernacular and interactions between characters. I’d also ensure that the film’s context is reflective of the history up until that point as well as the present state of the culture surrounding its subject matter at that time.
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Jessica Lanay is an interdisciplinary writer, poet, and art journalist currently based in Chicago. In 2020, she won the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Prize for her debut poetry collection, am•phib•ian. Her poetry can be found in the University of Arizona Press anthology When Language Broke Open: An Anthology of Queer and Trans Black Writers of Latin American Descent(2023), Poiesis, Poet Lore, and [PANK], among others. In 2020 and 2021, her poetry was commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Her essays can be found in Black Warrior Review, Electric Literature, and others. Her art writing can be found in Nona Faustine’s monograph White Shoes from MACK Books, the Andy Warhol Museum’s exhibition catalogue Fantasy America, and more recently in Art Review. She is a proud, frequent contributor to BOMB; for more information, visit lanay.me.
Ashley Hayes, socially known as Dr. Homegirl, is a current Doctoral Student from Southfield-Detroit, MI. She is passionate about the Black community’s holistic prosperity and creating opportunities to thrive, reflective of her academic pursuits in African American and African Diaspora Studies (AAADS) and Media Arts and Sciences. Her work centers on cultural consulting and Black cultural criticism, leveraging her research skills and knowledge of African American and African Diasporic culture in the development of media productions on screen and stage. An artist and filmmaker herself, she empowers other artists, creators, and all people to see themselves and their work as being made for more than what they may think was possible.
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