The very oldest stories are, sooner or later, about blood.1 A guest post by Clair Hutchings-Budd. In recognition of the spooky season, and looking ahead to winter festivities, in this blog post I’ll be talking about Tim Burton’s 1993 stop-frame animation musical fantasy film The Nightmare Before Christmas (Nightmare) and Terry Pratchett’s 1996 novel Hogfather. … Continue reading The Nightmare before Hogswatch
Category: Holidays
The Dead Days: Epilogue
Happy New Year’s Eve! Thank you for joining us once again, at the end of the Dead Days, the end of the year. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading our posts this week, and that your own Dead Days have been pleasant (if a little uncanny). Whatever your plans for tonight, whether you stay up to … Continue reading The Dead Days: Epilogue
A Ghost Story For Christmas
There is probably a smell of roasted chestnuts and other good comfortable things all the time, for we are telling Winter Stories— Ghost Stories, or more shame for us—round the Christmas fire Charles Dickens, ‘A Christmas Tree’, Household Words (1850) The association between Yuletide cheer and seasonal fear emerged from the Victorian era’s appetite for … Continue reading A Ghost Story For Christmas
Halloween and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Part Three
Kicking off our Buffy Blog Series this week, in our exploration of Season Six, we have a previously unpublished Halloween post exploring third and final Halloween episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is the third part of Sheffield Gothic’s 2014 Buffy Halloween Series by co-organiser Mary Going (you can read part one here and part two here): yes, our … Continue reading Halloween and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Part Three
We Wish You a Scary Christmas
If we were to read aloud some of the lyrics of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” slowly, and without the feel-good music and images of food and gifts, the words quickly become ambiguous. Why must we watch out? Why mustn’t we cry? Unless, of course, Santa Claus is not all that he seems. If … Continue reading We Wish You a Scary Christmas
Samhain in the Great South Land
It is commonly believed that the celebration of Halloween is a uniquely American practice, and, in a certain sense, this is true: it is highly unlikely that the celebration, as we know it today, with its canon of costumes, colours, and commercial impact, would have grown to its cultural reach and significance anywhere else.When we … Continue reading Samhain in the Great South Land
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