By Addison Chrivia, Editor
Death is something we all have to face someday; learning to cope with the constantly approaching figure of death is something we all have to learn. This month’s faculty lecture was all about death throughout geologic history, covering largescale events like mass extinctions and their parallels in the horror movie genre.
The Splattercore faculty lecture was a masterful work in connecting two things I had never considered having any crossover while delivering an incredible presentation that left the audience eagerly anticipating Halloween and pondering Earth’s great past. Professor Jeepers, the event speaker, is otherwise known as Professor Mincy, a biology and occasional geology professor here at Pellissippi State Community College. He began the show with a grand entrance, theatrically killing Professor Eades and cutting off his flowery and tedious speech.
From there, he kept the audience engaged with witty commentary and clear passion for both geology and splattercore films, creating direct parallels between specific eons and their matching horror movies. For example, comparing the original Frankenstein to the Archaeon Eon, where we see the first signs of life and our last universal common ancestor, as well as the Phanerozoic Era to Humanoids from the Deep, an eco-horror creature feature that parallels the Great Cambrian Explosion in creating weird, confusing, and downright horrifying creatures.
It was a masterful showcasing of his knowledge of not only the Earth’s history, but also horror movie cinematography. Professor Jeepers’ love for horror movies is clear, explaining terms like exploitation films and touting the work of directors and their cinegraphic styles.
The students who attended the lecture enjoyed themselves, as one student stated that she, “Thought it was awesome. I love Halloween, so I was really excited to be able to see it, and it was really interesting to be able to compare the two.” She particularly enjoyed the comparison between Midsommar and the Neogene Era, and said that she would definitely be watching some of the movies he recommended.
People who aren’t students loved attending the faculty lectures as well. A group behind me, hearing about the event from a professor, attended as a family. Past lectures have even brought in retirement home residents to attend. Faculty lectures are a great way to bring together the community, offering a chance to have fun, learn something new, and get a snack at no cost!
Dr. Julie Sichler, an Anthropology Professor here at Pellissippi, said that “As a professor, seeing colleagues and their passions and interests outside of the classroom allows you to connect with them on another level, and support who they are and what they do.”
One of his final slides compares the movie House to the Holocene Eon, which is the time we live in now. We have a stable climate and agriculture, and humans move more rocks than any natural force combined. We have built our house, just like the characters in the movie, and it is our own actions that have created this house that kills us. It is a beautiful house, until it’s hungry. The film functions as an allegory for the way we take advantage of the Earth and twist it to our own design, which is what will lead to our downfall. Climate change is killing in bizarre ways and will keep escalating unless we take action, a real danger much scarier than any horror movie Professor Jeepers spoke about.
Professor Jeepers ended the presentation with a heartfelt message, comparing our reconciliation with Earth’s history and being faced with global warming to John Carpenter’s Halloween. There’s the connection within the movie to another film he covered, Devil’s Rain, in which William Shatner wears the Captain Kirk mask which was later painted in Halloween to make the Michael Myers Mask. As the title suggests, Devil’s Rain features acid rain, much like the environmental disasters we face today as a result of pollution. However, in Halloween, “final girl” Laurie Strode is able to stay alive due to her vigilance and connection with her community, just like how we as a civilization will be able to survive our own struggles, as long as we are determined and count on one another.
Halloween is a time of year for the community, where we all come together to make great memories, share treats, and overall have a good time. It also helps us safely explore the concept of death, allowing us to face this unthinkable thing that’s going to happen with awareness and without fear. Understanding the history of the Earth and past extinctions shows us that death isn’t the end for everything. By connecting two seemingly unrelated topics, like geologic history and horror movies, Splattercore revealed our connection to one another through death, showing how we’re all a part of something vast and infinite that will keep going after us. These events, whether enormous mass extinctions or just having fun on Halloween, make life worth living.
