Death by Sex
Sarah Kendric
Horror movies have always reflected the fears of society, and one threat has persisted throughout American history: female desire. “Death by Sex” is an editorial website that pairs research on this horror trope with film stills, video clips, and a video archive. Other horror archives present video with a purely utilitarian design and without context. My website creates a sequenced experience by guiding readers between text and media with a vertically scrolling layout. Details like jagged typeforms, rounded video borders, and tone-on-tone image treatments evoke the style of B-movie posters to draw readers in and ground them in the visual sensibilities of horror. This stylization bleeds into the site’s annotated archive, which illustrates the evolution of the trope by allowing viewers to scroll through clips chronologically. Pairing this feature with the visual essay improves on existing horror archives by framing clips within the context of historical research, which creates a richer viewing experience.