Erin HarringtonErin Harrington

Erin Harrington is an academic and critic who works as senior lecturer at University of Canterbury Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha. Her arts criticism has appeared in print and on air in a variety of academic and popular spaces, including Theatreview, The Pantograph Punch, RNZ National, Stuff and The Playmarket Annual. She appears regularly as a speaker and panelist, and is the author of Women, Monstrosity and Horror Film: Gynaehorror (Routledge, 2017).

Review: When a City Rises is a celebration of a fallen city and its people

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The follow-up to When A City Falls celebrates the people of Christchurch and the wins of the rebuild, but loses some nuance in the edit, writes Erin Harrington. I’ve lived in Ōtautahi Christchurch all my life, but it took me until this week to watch Gerard Smyth’s 2011 film When A City Falls. This award-winning, … Read more

Into the wild: A review of Carl Nixon’s astonishing novel, The Tally Stick

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Deep in the wops, three children are caught in a pastoral New Zealand nightmare. The Tally Stick begins like a waking dream, a horrifying free fall where time stretches out before snapping sickeningly back into place. The car containing the four sleeping children left the earth … It’s April 1978. It’s dark, and the weather … Read more

Review: Imaginary Friend, a blood-soaked novel that recalls Stranger Things

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Twenty years ago Stephen Chbosky had a massive hit with coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Now the director/producer/scriptwriter is back with an epic, kid-centric horror.  Early on in Stephen Chbosky’s frustrating new horror novel, Imaginary Friend, its seven-year-old protagonist Christopher is sitting down to watch his favourite cartoon, Bad Cat. Christopher is … Read more

A new horror: Thomas Harris’s Cari Mora, reviewed

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Crocodiles, gold bars, birds of prey… and boobs. Erin Harrington, an academic specialising in horror and film, reviews the much-hyped new novel by the man who gave us Dr Hannibal Lecter.  Cari Mora is Thomas Harris’s first novel in 13 years, and the first since his 1975 debut Black Sunday that doesn’t feature his most … Read more