Disability in Horror Films Lecture by Angela Smith

Professor Angela Marie Smith from the University of Utah is giving a lecture on disability in horror films at the Salt Lake City Public Library Marmalade Branch on Monday, October 26. It runs from 6:30 to 7:30 PM in the Multi-Purpose Room, and it's free to attend.

Smith traces how disability has been portrayed in horror cinema from the 1930s to the present. She starts with the early classics, Frankenstein (1931) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932), and works her way forward to more recent titles like Split (2016), Hush (2016), The Girl with All the Gifts (2016), Hereditary (2018), A Quiet Place (2018), Midsommar (2019), and Run (2020). That's a wide span of nearly a century, so the talk covers both the old-school monsters and the modern psychological thrillers.

Her main point is that horror films often use disability to generate shock and terror, leaning into the very things that make people uncomfortable. But she doesn't stop there; she also looks at the more nuanced representations that can actually affirm the knowledge and experiences of people with disabilities. It's a two-sided conversation—how the genre uses disability as a shorthand for fear, and where it manages to do something more thoughtful.

The lecture is followed by a Q&A session, so there's time to ask questions and keep the conversation going after she finishes. It's at the Marmalade Branch, 280 West 500 North, Salt Lake City, UT 84103, from 6:30 to 7:30 PM on Monday, October 26, and admission is free.