Household Horror: Cinematic Fear and the Secret Life of Everyday Objects

by Marc Olivier

Take a tour of the house where a microwave killed a gremlin, a typewriter made Jack a dull boy, a sewing machine fashioned Carrie's prom dress, and houseplants might kill you while you sleep. In Household Cinematic Fear and the Secret Life of Everyday Objects, Marc Olivier highlights the wonder, fear, and terrifying dimension of objects in horror cinema. Inspired by object-oriented ontology and the nonhuman turn in philosophy, Olivier places objects in film on par with humans, arguing, for example, that a sleeper sofa is as much the star of Sisters as Margot Kidder, that The Exorcist is about a possessed bed, and that Rosemary's Baby is a conflict between herbal shakes and prenatal vitamins. Household Horror reinvigorates horror film criticism by investigating the unfathomable being of objects as seemingly benign as remotes, radiators, refrigerators, and dining tables. Olivier questions what Hitchcock's Psycho tells us about shower curtains. What can we learn from Freddie Krueger's greatest accomplice, the mattress? Room by room, Olivier considers the dark side of fourteen household objects to demonstrate how the objects in these films manifest their own power and connect with specific cultural fears and concerns.

Genres: Horror, Nonfiction, Film, Pop Culture

350 pages, Paperback

Published February 11, 2020

Reviews

[Zachary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Olivier's premise is really straightforward and fun: let's talk about horror films from the perspective of the objects that form the central focus of death and fear within those films. From this emerges a really entertaining, interesting, and honestly impressive object-oriented analysis of film and horror, combining anthropology, history, and film criticism in a series of immersive chapters that take you through the layout and rooms of a house. What's most impressive is the depth and scope of Olivier's research. You'll learn a ton here about the history of sewing machines, typewriters, and shower curtains, histories which show that these objects aren't merely props in horror films, but, rightly considered, act as characters with some significance in each of the films analyzed here. I loved learning these stories and seeing them deftly incorporated into film analysis, and was thoroughly blown away by the scope of the research that must have been needed to piece all of this together. Very entertaining, interesting read!

[Jay Newman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was excited about this book. I love horror and weird non fiction books, and this could have been the best of both worlds. The concept was fantastic, the execution lacking. The psychology or science behind these household items was somewhat touched on, but mainly it's really long winded philosophical ramblings.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Too bad the only other rating of this book looks like a bot. I thought it was a clever take on the objects found in horror movies. The writing makes it a good academic crossover to a more general audience.

[Shelfish Reader(Leaving GR in '26) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This book! I have no doubt I'll be coming back to read Household Horror again! An absolute delight for a philomath like myself!

[Jack Markman · Rating 5 out of 5]

In some respects, this book is an exercise in futility. An approach to horror from on object-oriented perspective must grapple with the supposed fundamental irreducability and inaccessibility of objects. That's not really conducive to descriptive elaborations, but Olivier doesn't let that stop him. The perverse brilliance of this book is that it's elucidations are perfectly calibrated to reveal their own insufficiency, and thus the aggressive independence of the objects under consideration. In giving them this agency, Oliver arrives at his stated goal indirectly, bringing wonder back into "dead" objects, and, in the case, tinge the wonder with dread.

All that is nonsense talk to say that this book is too smart for it's own good. It's a little obscene how it can be so magnetically interesting, witty, and tongue-in-cheek, while casually instilling object-oriented perspectives into the reader. Shower curtains have never been so mutli-layered.

As a sleeper unacquainted with insomnia, this book is not written for me, but I'll be damned if I didn't lose sleep staying up late into the night reading it. For fans of horror movies, or for those grappling with the horror in the quiet voices in a dark room, this book is a must read.