Horror has been analyzed in literature and film endlessly. But in this modern age of surplus, more niche and obscure mediums for horror have been taking the reigns. With so much media at our fingertips and so readily accessible, film and literature are influenced by independent creations. Video games, web Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), music, Internet culture, and international media have led to the development and evolution of American mainstream horror in the past couple of years. More traditional outlets for terror like books and movies have become stale and formulaic due to Capitalism, restricted to producing what is only guaranteed to be profitable, causing the traditional mediums to take note of these newer forms of scary storytelling.

The movie Slender Man was made because of the popularity of its online video game counterpart, which was based on a creepypasta (short stories and legends created from the internet) made in 2009. The recent frightening film phenomenon, Skinamarink, takes heavy influences from the YouTube short film “Hector.” Gaming mechanics from survival horror games like Resident Evil, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and Darkwood have reinvented ways to make players feel immersed and hopeless. Simultaneously, internet ARGs like Gemini HomeEntertainment and The Hypnagogic Archives have crossed multiple mediums such as articles,YouTube videos, social media posts, and blog posts that are posted in real-time to give off the illusion that what one is reading or watching is reality.

This session invites papers wanting to explore the unsung heroes of horror, the less talked about terrors, and why and how they have infiltrated and changed the landscape of petrifying pop culture dominated by film and literature.

The 55th NeMLA Annual Convention will take place in Boston, MA on March 7-10, 2024 

Please submit a 200-300 word abstract and a short bio. The title should not be more than 80 characters.

The deadline to submit abstracts is Sep 30, 2023 (*Note that membership is not required to submit abstracts).

Abstracts must be submitted through the NeMLA online portal and not to the personal emails: https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/CFP

For more information on submitting an abstract online, see http://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention/callforpapers.html

For questions about the session, please contact Jiwon Ohm (jiwonohm@buffalo.edu) or Morgan Koziel (mkoziel20@gmail.com)