English Article Archives

Cosmic Horror: The Scariest Subgenre

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” – H.P. Lovecraft

One cannot discuss H.P. Lovecraft and cosmic horror without showcasing this excerpt from his seminal work, “The Call of Cthulhu” (1926). It is a monologue that doesn’t hold anything back and lays out all the cards that cosmic horror holds. At its core, this [আরো পড়ুন]

Tags: English Section, Soumyajit Kushari, নবম বর্ষ প্রথম সংখ্যা

English Article

A Ghost Can Be a Lot of Things: Mike Flanagan’s Take on Horror and Trauma

“Most times, a Ghost is a Wish”
Steven Crain remarks in The Haunting of Hill House (2018)

The popular American filmmaker known for creating horror flicks, Mike Flanagan doesn’t just use horror for scares—he uses it as a plot device to confront horrifying traumatic events one would rather bury. In Flanagan’s world, the real horror lies not in what we see, but in the pain, we try to escape.

Horror is often associated with darkness and jump scares, ghosts and demons, strategic silence, and screams. Though there is a good chunk of movies that portray horror like that, Mike Flanagan’s work proves how versatile a plot device horror can be—serving not just to terrify, but to tell profound, emotionally charged stories.

Using horror as a narrative tool allows the realistic horrors of trauma to be discussed in a way that provides emotional distance for the audience because of the inclusion [আরো পড়ুন]

Tags: English Section, Rupsha Barman, নবম বর্ষ প্রথম সংখ্যা

English Article

The Slapstick Joy of Speculative Horror Comedy

Mel Brooke’s 1974 work ‘Young Frankenstein’ features the delectable Gene Wilder in the role of the grandson of Dr Frankenstein, also Dr Frankenstein. Shelley’s seminal work (Frankenstein, 1818) laid the groundwork for horror as a genre in the nineteenth century, and when it is adapted to this absurdist comedy set in the atmospheric eeriness of Frankenstein’s Castle, the band of odd characters and their grotesquely comic interactions gives us gems like these: a student asks the junior Dr Frankenstein, “but what about your grandfather’s work, sir?” The ensuing response breaks viewer immersion brilliantly as Dr Frankenstein emphatically responds to the student, “My grandfather’s work was doo-doo!”.

The adolescence of horror-comedy, after skirting around subversive adaptations of classic horror, gets us to the Beetlejuice (with Michael Keaton’s legendary, “It Show [আরো পড়ুন]

Tags: English Section, Stuti Kute, নবম বর্ষ প্রথম সংখ্যা

English Article

Hypnotizing Nature in Hariye Jawa and Pasangmara

The Dilemma Between Science, Nature, and Literature Too

Progress is a corollary to sacrifice. Science has given us rational amusement and partially eclipsed the magical effect of unnatural phenomena. With the invention of scientific gadgets, human intervention in the forbidden territories of nature has increased, significantly leading to the destruction of ecological balance. The recently published article, Ghostly Past and Colonial Uncanny by Tithi Bhattacharya fetches our attention to some narratives of Rabindranath Tagore’s Chelebela (Boyhood, 1940), where Tagore narrates about the bygone days of his supernatural belief about Brahmadaitya (a Brahmin Ghost). Tagore’s narrative juxtaposes the condition of Calcutta with its modern arrival of lights and the childhood faith in supernatural existence associated with the veil of a dark and shabby environment. Science, with its rationality, brought light to remove [আরো পড়ুন]

Tags: Aditya Banerjee, English Section, নবম বর্ষ প্রথম সংখ্যা