What is Jewish Horror?
For decades, if not centuries, the central imagery and ideals of the horror genre has been tied to one religion: Christianity. Whether it’s priests chanting ‘The power of Christ compels you!’ or superhuman mass-murderers slicing up promiscuous teens, mainstream horror fare rarely ventures into other religions’ rich cultures and theology.
This project, Jewish Horror Review, started as an MA dissertation and grew into something of an obsession. Now, I’m trying to catalogue and write about as many novels, films, and plays as possible to begin to define what a new sub-genre could look like: Jewish horror.
Our posts are divided into Case Studies, which review works of Jewish horror, and Jewish Horror Theory, which begins to outline a framework for the sub-genre. Explore our latest posts below!
Case Studies
If you’re looking for deep-dives into individual works of Jewish horror, as well as recommendations of various trash and treasures from over the years, here is where to start.
Case Studies reviews and analyses the works you know as well as lesser-known gems to try and shed light on the hidden niche that is Jewish horror
Jewish Horror Theory
This section is where we try to get into the bones of what makes horror uniquely Jewish, and take a look at the possibilities and problems of carving out a new sub-genre.
Guest Posts
Occasionally we like to visit other publications or host guest writers here. Whenever that happens, you can find the articles here, under Guest Posts
“For horror fiction to be properly Jewish in a similar way, films and literature can’t just have characters of the faith, nor would superficially drawing from Ashkenazic folk culture necessarily signify that a work is Jewish horror. Rather, by definition, Jewish horror has to explicitly explore those dark themes from a uniquely Jewish philosophical perspective.”
Ed Simon via Tablet Magazine
Jewish Horror Review 