Episode 009: Hush (2016)

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Poster for Hush displaying the left half of a woman’s face, her eye wide open and mouth slightly parted in an expression of fear or surprise. Next to her, the reflection of a man’s head with a creepy white mask. Between them are the words Silence Can Be Killer.

AnDread and Lauren Strand dive into Mike Flanagan’s Hush. We discuss deafness, social isolation, and disabled female protagonists. Also reviews of the Night of the Horrorphile and Joe Hill’s Locke & Key comic book series. Show Notes available at freaksandpsychospodcast.com/episode009

  1. Intro
    • Our discussion is spoiler-free up until 38:30
    • Check out Lauren’s general thoughts on disability and horror in Episode 1
    • Overlap between true crime, thriller, and horror genres
    • Lauren’s thoughts on disability and horror
      • Horror as playful genre
      • Horror as reflection of / exaggeration of reality – “a funhouse mirror”
  2. Hush and Overview of D/deafness  11:45
    • Synopsis: Hush is a 2016 home invasion horror film directed by Mike Flanagan and written by Flanagan and Kate Siegel, who also stars as protagonist Maddie Young, an author living in a rural area. She matches wits with a masked killer who thinks he can take advantage of her deafness, but quickly finds that she is a more formidable opponent than he at first assumes. It is streaming on Netflix, and it does have audio description available (which I found to be well-done).
    • Deafness has complex meanings
      • Deaf as “small d” deaf is a spectrum of hearing ability from some hearing impairment to total loss of hearing
      • “Big D” Deaf refers to being part of a Deaf community, identified as a linguistic minority group rather than a disability group – identity surrounds common use of sign language and being part of a culture of shared practices and values rather than sharing a “deficit”
      • Hush represents “small d” deafness as a disability – not part of a Deaf community though she does use ASL
    • Horror movies generally include a single disabled person rather than multiple disabled people or represent disability communities – one exception is Deafula (1975), a Deaf version of Dracula
  3. Hush Discussion  25:41
    • Overall thoughts without spoilers – both of us recommend checking it out!
      • Subgenre classification: home invasion? slasher? thriller? horror?
      • Elements of slasher but not enough to fully qualify as slasher
      • Our consensus: home invasion horror/thriller
      • Depiction of strong female protagonist (similar to a slasher final girl)
      • Maddie as character is well-developed, deafness important but not sole defining aspect
      • Engaging despite limited setting (Maddie’s house)
      • Well-paced and complete story despite simplicity
    • SPOILER discussion 38:30
    • Hush as title
      • Tongue-in-cheek – Maddie is nonverbal but not silent
      • Allusion to societal pressure on women to be quiet
      • Directed at killer rather than Maddie
    • Maddie as a character
      • As isolated / social outcast – “Isolation happened to me, I didn’t choose it.”
      • Lauren: Maddie as passive / lacking in agency until events of the film
      • AnDread: Maddie as frustrated and isolated but self-determined
      • Maddie’s sense of humor
      • As author who uses creativity to strategize against killer
    • Representation of deafness
      • Use of ASL – corrects others who use it incorrectly (kisser vs. storyteller)
      • Ironically, d/Deaf people have criticized the film for its inaccurate use of ASL
      • Criticism of deaf role being played by a hearing actor
      • Kristen Lopez’s article in IndieWire “How Deafness in Horror Evolved Beyond Damsels in Distress”– actress Kate Siegel acknowledges the criticisms over not casting deaf actress, would do differently if made now
      • Lip-reading stereotype – in reality, lip reading has low accuracy and reliability
      • Inconsistent use of ability to detect vibrations
      • Plays into but also subverts trope of killer terrorizing disabled female protagonist (usually blind women)
    • Ending
      • Too neatly tidied up – lacks ambiguity, strains believability
      • Choice of ordinary household item as weapon was nice touch
    • Audio description
      • Available on Netflix – helpful for visually impaired viewers (like AnDread)
      • Very dark film (in terms of lighting) so description reveals easily missed details
      • Lack of dialogue makes Hush a perfect film for audio description (overlap with dialogue is frequent issue w/audio description)
  4. Psycho Sounds  1:51:26
    • Night of the Horrorphile, a Podcast for Outcasts!
    • DESCRIPTION: Night of the Horrorphile is a weekly podcast released every Monday in which horror fan Leigh teaches his wife Brittany all the things she never wanted to know about horror. They cover a particular horror movie each episode. Brittany goes through a detailed scene-by-scene summary while Leigh interrupts her with behind-the-scenes facts and inappropriate jokes.
    • Fun fact: their theme song is done by John Brennan, the musician who does the theme for Joe Bob Briggs’ The Last Drive-In!
    • LENGTH: Typically an hour and a half to two hours long
    • SPOILERS: Yes
    • WEBSITE: nightofthehorrorphile.com
    • TWITTER: @NHorrorphile
    • FACEBOOK: NOTHPodcast
    • INSTAGRAM at nightofthehorrorphile
  5. Freaky Fic  1:54:41
    • Locke & Key comic book series written by Joe Hill, art by Gabriel Rodriguez, released by IDW Publishing
    • PREMISE: The story follows the exploits of the Locke family, a mother and her three children as they move into Keyhouse, an old family mansion, after their father is killed. The mansion is filled with keys with magical powers which they get a lot of amusement from until they confront a malevolent being from another dimension that wants to use the keys for its own purposes.
    • STRENGTHS:
      • Beautiful, detailed artwork that has emotional resonance
      • Strong, layered characterization
      • Heavy adult themes and horror elements that transcend YA/fantasy tropes
    • WEAKNESSES:
      • Heavy on dialogue
      • Different fonts are used that can be hard to read (especially for the visually impaired)
      • Does veer into YA/teen angst tropes at times
      • Representation of intellectually disabled character Rufus does veer into stereotypes while not totally beholden to them
    • RECOMMENDED FOR: fans of horror/fantasy comics and the work of Joe Hill
  6. Plugs and Wrap-Up  2:03:53

There will be a transcript for this show in the future. Please contact freaksandpsychospodcast@gmail.com for any accessibility concerns.

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