Media releases

• Brock men’s lacrosse begins quest for national championship Sunday

  Wednesday, October 25, 2017 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: 25 October 2017 – R00195

  After going undefeated through the regular season, the Brock Badgers men’s lacrosse team wants to make history repeat itself.

  The Badgers will open the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association playoffs Sunday, Oct. 29 at 1 p.m. when the team hosts the Laurier Golden Hawks on Brock’s Alumni Field in the first round.

  Brock heads into the playoffs with a perfect 12-0 regular season record, an achievement the men’s lacrosse program hasn’t pulled off since 2009, when it last won a Baggataway Cup national championship. The University has one of the most decorated lacrosse programs in the country with 18 CUFLA titles in its 31-year history.

  In addition to the perfect record, this year’s Badgers squad set both a team and CUFLA single-season record with 232 goals scored.

  “We’re happy with the season we’ve had to date,” said first-year head coach Tim Luey. “Finishing 12-0 is no small feat, but going into the season our team goal was not just to go undefeated or finish first place. We have a group of veteran players that are excited to get back into the playoffs and compete for our real goal of a national championship.”

  The Badgers had five players in the Top 25 of CUFLA scoring led by Brandon Slade who registered a career-high 86 points (28 goals, 58 assists) in 12 games. He became just the second player in school history to record 300 points in a career.

  Tyrus Rehanek finished 12th in league with 46 points, Kurtis Woodland had 39 points, Connor Ham had 34 points and rookie Connor Brown added 33.

  The Badgers also have one of the top defensive units in the league led by two-time CUFLA Defensive Player of the Year, Parker Baile, along with Joshua Harris, Adam Kirchmayer, Adam Mackinnon and rookie standout Latrell Harris, who also plays in the National Lacrosse League.

   

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

  * Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970

  Brock University Marketing and Communications has a full-service studio where we can provide high definition video and broadcast-quality audio.

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  Categories: Media releases

• New book explores the monsters of cinema

  Tuesday, October 24, 2017 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: 24 October 2017  – R00194

  As you dust off your Freddie Krueger claws or get your Frankenstein costume ready for Halloween, Brock University film expert Barry Grant is shedding some light on why we love — or love to hate — movie monsters.

  In Monster Cinema, the 35th book written by the Communication, Popular Culture and Film professor, Grant examines the vast menagerie of monsters in the movies and describes how they help to define and affirm human civilization.

  This is especially noticeable around Halloween, when people dress up like monsters to try and scare each other for the sake of amusement.

  “Halloween allows us to become monsters by role playing,” says Grant. “Watching monster movies and donning a monster suit for a costume party are both socially sanctioned ways of expressing our inner demons and anxieties.”

  Part of the Quick Takes series from Rutgers University Press, Monster Cinema is a small book that packs a big punch, examining human, natural and supernatural monsters in cinema, from crazed killers to malevolent trees to vampires.

  “The classic monsters embody our timeless fears and anxieties, and are able to adapt to concerns of a given historical moment,” Grant says.

  Grant is headed to the University of Wisconsin next week to speak at a conference celebrating the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In his new book, the professor writes about a Frankenstein megatext — some 80 films based on the novel since 1910 and more than 200 films with Frankenstein in the title.

  “The belief that ‘science is dangerous’ is as central to the horror movie as is the existence of supernatural creatures like werewolves,” Grant says. “Dr. Frankenstein stands as the archetypal mad scientist, a general figure of scientific hubris. Such a character can only be viewed as increasingly relevant given the pace of scientific advances in recent years.”

  Indeed, monster movies often have a foot in two camps — horror and science fiction. People tend to think of sci-fi movies as having a premise involving science, and horror movies as involving something frightening, but Grant says it’s not that simple. 

  “Science fiction movies often present their science as horrifying, while horror films sometimes depict their monsters as sympathetic — more sympathetic than the humans.”

  So why do we love monster movies so much?

  “Bad special effects are fun because they are usually unintentionally bad. The sense of monstrous threat is dispelled when you can see the zipper on the creature’s suit,” Grant explains. “But if the effects succeed in convincing us when we see them, then it goes right to the core of the complex experience of monster narratives.

  “We’ve all had the experience at some point of covering our eyes to avoid seeing something we thought too frightening in a horror movie, but then peeking through our fingers just a little anyway. We enjoy monster movies because they offer controlled thrills and we can temporarily suspend our disbelief.”

  In spite of the vast array of monsters described in Grant’s book, his personal favourite monster movie is still Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. 

  “It established most of the elements of the modern horror film — a human monster, the monstrous hiding within the normal — in a masterfully constructed film.”

  Monster Cinema will be available in bookstores this winter. 

  
  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:

  * Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970

  Brock University Marketing and Communications has a full-service studio where we can provide high definition video and broadcast-quality audio.

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  Categories: Media releases