Discourse of the damned: On Canadian horror cinema

Canadian horror film is one of those strange phenomena that seem incongruent with the cultural sensibilities from which it emerged, and has remained veritably hidden beneath the dominant American horror cinema industry that it mimics and infiltrates. Much to the surprise of many horror aficionados, however, it not only exists, but maintains a canon of celebrated cinematic texts and its own set of critical concerns. Typically, in the context of its ostensible ‘Canadianness’, it has been interpreted in terms of its nationalist sensibilities and its subversion of American conventions. But is there a set of anxieties hidden within these narratives that are peculiar to the nebulous concept of Canadian culture? This question might be answered in part through an examination of popular Canadian horror films and the critical literature that forms the discourse surrounding them. However, while Canadian horror film is astonishingly prolific beyond the expectations of the layman cinema fanatic, and the otherwise strange nature of its existence, the academic discourse surrounding Canadian horror cinema is embarrassingly scant, although refreshingly intelligent and accessible. This survey of some of the more salient texts proffers a strong case for the entertainment value-added with intelligent enquiry and analysis with its own critical taxonomy of the texts. Combining fascinating cinema with good reading, the survey inherently encourages readers from a range of lifestyles and disciplines to discover an intertextual entertainment within both the frequently under-appreciated films they discuss, and the entertainingly intelligent and revelatory texts themselves.