Still reeling from last week's calamitous "Thing-off!" double-feature, the dialogic duo dare to stare into the abyss once more in their continuation of the "Astrophobia" unit for this "Communicating Fears in Film" season of Special Topics. Crossing the mid-point of season 7, cohosts Garret Castleberry and Scott McMurry examine another key fixture of 1950s science fiction cinema, director Jack Arnold's It Came from Outer Space (1953). Their examination includes a close reading of the text (12:18) mixed with a sprinkling of this season's analytic focal points, including Hollywood's experimental 3D phase (19:43), the return of the theramin (20:21), and a conversation about dualistic tensions on display within the film's narrative (22:20) as well as presence versus absence in conversation with the film's subject matter (43:14). Ultimately, the hosts consider the ways in which It Came from Outer Space communicates fear (46:00).

Hosts: Garret Castleberry, Scott McMurry

Producers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurry (Audio Engineer), Alli Garner (Cover Art), Austin Foster (Music)

Recommended readings paired with Season Seven "Communicating Fears in Film":
Kendall Phillips. Projected Fears: Horror Films and American Culture. Praeger, 2006.

Stephen Prince. Apocalypse Cinema. Rutgers University Press, 2021.

Murray Leeder. Horror Film: A Critical Introduction. Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2018.

Jack Arnold. (Director). It Came from Outer Space. California, USA: Universal International Pictures, 1953.

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