{"id":47090,"date":"2025-03-31T20:00:41","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T00:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=47090"},"modified":"2025-04-01T01:16:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T05:16:40","slug":"freelance-film-critic-nadine-whitney-interview-women-in-horror-month-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/31\/freelance-film-critic-nadine-whitney-interview-women-in-horror-month-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Freelance Film Critic Nadine Whitney Interview [Women in Horror Month 2025]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Meet Freelance Film Critic Nadine Whitney:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To start, please introduce yourself:<\/strong>
\nMy name is Nadine Whitney and I\u2019m a freelance film critic from Melbourne, Australia \u2013 although I\u2019ve lived on the East Coast of Australia from near Brisbane, Sydney, and Canberra. I\u2019m a RT accredited reviewer, the co-chair of the Australian Film Critics Association, part of the governing board of OFCS, and a Golden Globes voter.<\/p>\n

What is horror to you, what makes a work of art one in the horror genre?<\/strong>
\nHorror is a broad church and is hard to define but easy to spot. For me it is a distinct sense of unease that goes beyond the boundaries of social acceptance and reason. It is the unreason that makes something horrifying. Anxieties that become obsessions.<\/p>\n

What made you want to work in horror?<\/strong>
\nFairy tales. The first book I was gifted (on the day of my birth) was a huge compendium of folk and fairy tales. I\u2019d read them obsessively taking note of how many had to do with girls and women. I\u2019d get stuck on certain cruelties in them. The severed head of a loyal horse hung above the gate to the town square in \u2018The Goose Girl\u2019 or the shards of glass or ice piercing skin in Hans Christian Anderson. Sliced feet in \u2018Cinderella\u2019 or vipers, toads and insects pouring from the mouth of a sister in a Perrault tale. That kind of thing seared into my understanding of the world. Horror came as a natural extension of that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Where do you get your inspiration?<\/strong>
\nOther than possibly illegal amounts of caffeine? My inspiration was originally literary works and visual art. I\u2019m fascinated with the uncanny, the gothic, the carnivalesque, the grotesque, doppelg\u00e4ngers, automatons, dolls, puppets, and chimerical creatures. I\u2019m interested in redefining the hysteric \u2014 or reclaiming her; especially the \u2018proto-hysteric\u2019 of the wild girl.<\/p>\n

What would you like your legacy to be in the genre (or elsewhere)?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m working on a tome at the moment that will hopefully add to the conversation about the coming-of-age \u2018horror\u2019. If I can get that done and out into the world that will be part of my written legacy.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, I\u2019d like my legacy to be that I shared what I learned with enthusiasm that hopefully helped someone else become passionate about the beautiful dark.<\/p>\n

What is Women in Horror Month to you and why is it still important this many years later?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m not sure it\u2019s anything out of the ordinary for me in that I see horror as predominantly being created by, or about and for, women. That\u2019s a centuries-old fact. But, with so much culture it\u2019s often a matter of having to highlight that over and over. Do we need to start hexing or what?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Who are some of the Women in Horror who you look up to and who do you want to bring attention to in your field or others?<\/strong>
\nI feel that women are the best when it comes to horror criticism. Does anyone need to be told about Kat Ellinger, Alexandra West, Lindsay Hallam, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Kier-la Janisse? Alison Taylor is great especially her work on Possession.<\/p>\n

Broader cultural criticism luminaries include Mary Ann Caws, Rosalind Krauss, Emily Apter, Elizabeth Bronfen, Whitney Chadwick, Maria Tartar, and Marina Warner.<\/p>\n

What are you currently working on that you can tell us about?<\/strong>
\nOther than the book in progress, I have some horror related essays and disc extras coming up. I\u2019ve just done some work on a Catherine Breillat release on Umbrella Entertainment\u2019s first New Extremity boxset. There are many releases in the pipeline but I\u2019m not sure any can be announced.<\/p>\n

Where can readers keep up with you?<\/strong>
\nInsta @nadine13am
\nBlueSky https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/nadinewhitney.bsky.social
\nRT: https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/critics\/nadine-whitney\/movies?critic=self<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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