Critical Mass Sept. 17th: In Deadly Earnest

Played by five different actors in each of the mainland States over the course of this nineteen-year period, the host was used to introduce horror films and brought an element of comedy to them during a time when Australia had an unofficial ban on importing horror.
This thesis argues the hosts were in part a mechanism to sanitise the genre by pairing horror with comedy, and part branding to establish the films as a homogenous identity or product. Their case is contrasted with the challenges comic books faced in the same era.