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Dental Horror!

Teeth are hard, calcified structures in the mouth that are essential for breaking down food through chewing, forming words for speech, and maintaining overall oral health. They are also dreadful sources of pain, an object for torture and things that can get smashed out of your skull in a bloody instant. One starry friday night, a night of icy gusts of wind and of gerenal unrest in the populus, the Rookies at the  Horror Rookie Academy  decided to dive into the topic of dental horror: the portrayal of teeth in horror films. We decided to limit the topic to mainly human teeth, but since the sphere of horror is a transcendant and messy one, we of course welcomed other types of teeth in horror as well. Tusks, for example. Or simply messed up tooth-related stuff.  The films listed below either centers around the topic of teeth or has predominant scenes portraying teeth in them. It is a creepy collection of films, this.  Films that make your molars ice and throb just by th...
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Automotive horror!

The term automotive horror , also referred to as "car horror" or "highway horror," refers to horror fiction where the primary source of dread, isolation, or violence is directly linked to vehicles and the culture of the open road. It essentially exploits the psychological terror of a machine turning malevolent or the vulnerability of being isolated on a desolate road. Automotive horror utilizes several distinct concepts to create terror: The Sentient/Evil Vehicle: The car itself is the monster. Christine (1983), anyone? It's often possessed, cursed, or supernaturally alive, acting with malevolent intent to kill, terrorize, or corrupt its owner. The topic of evil cars represents Technophobia , an underlying theme where technology, which is supposed to represent freedom and convenience, instead betrays you. Turns on you like a dirty street whore in the night.   The Highway Hunter: The vehicle is simply a tool used by a human serial killer or psychopath who us...

The origin of the Horror Rookie Academy

The Horror Rookie Academy has been operational for 15 straight years now! Good heavens, it's almost unbelievable. It's time for a little look back at the origin of the Academy. When I was little, my dad worked as a captain in foreign trade, and my brother and I used to join the boat during the summer holidays. (It was a simpler time, before the age of HSE...) Norwegian seafarers are so lucky to have the Norwegian Sailor's Church (Sjømannskirken) which works for their well-being. The Sailor's Church used to run a library service on Norwegian ships, providing books and films for the sailors. Either someone responsible for such things at the Sailor's Church was a horror and sci-fi lover, or their insight into the contents of the films of the time was so-so: the library cabinet onboard the boat was filled with the VHS tapes that basically made me the horror fanatic I am today. Jaws, Frankenstein, The Shining, Poltergeist, Rosemary's Baby, The Thing... All of which w...

Body horror!

A truly unsettling and fascinating subgenre indeed, body horror (also known as biological or organic horror) is a type of horror fiction where the primary source of terror comes from the grotesque or psychologically disturbing violation, transformation, degeneration, or destruction of the physical body. It often plays on deep-seated anxieties about physical vulnerability and loss of control over one's own body. A key element is that the body's violation is usually not the result of immediate or initial violence, but rather a loss of conscious control over the body due to mutation, invasion, decay or scientific interference. The horror often centers on an individual watching their own body betray them, change, or collapse, rather than being hunted by an external creature. Guillermo del Toro famously described body horror as the "betrayal of the flesh." The genre intentionally invokes intense feelings of physical and psychological disgust, pushing the limits of what the...