Born on a Meat Hook: On André Øvredal’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
“We grow up, but do we ever forget how afraid of ourselves we are?” * * * The books parents protest about are the best at converting children into bookworms.[…]
Tagged: horror
African American · Horror · Race
Color-Blind in Black and White: How Suture Wants Us to Ignore Race
As it stands, Suture’s bold attempt at cultural effacement never drives home any type of allegory, just as Clay is only a passenger in a narrative with barely any causal[…]
Absurdism · Comedy · Drama · Eastern European · Horror
The Cremator (1969): In Love with Death
The Cremator, only Juraj Herz’s second film, was adapted from a novel by Ladislav Fuks. It was well received, won a few awards, and was promptly banned for two decades[…]
Activist & Political · Disease and Epidemics · Economy · Horror · Pandemic
“Don’t Let It Touch You”: Watching It Follows in the Age of Coronavirus
What the decade’s scariest film can tell us about pandemics, poverty, and the web of financial risk that ensnares us all * * * It comes for you when you’re[…]
Designers · Horror · Interviews
In the Mütterhaus: A Conversation with Suspiria’s Production Designer, Inbal Weinberg
“We need guilt, Doctor. And shame.” * * * Luca Guadagnino follows up 2016’s A Bigger Splash and 2017’s Call Me by Your Name with 2018’s Suspiria, a remake of[…]
Galactic Angst: Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy Swallows the Cosmos
The demon-summoning, LED laser-lens flares, medieval weaponry-fetishizing, churning synth and axe rhythms, and the overall simmer of curdling darkness are collective flickers of a recurrent, suffocatingly inescapable nightmare, one fueled[…]
Design for Killing: Function Follows Form into the Megalomania of Giallo
Filmmakers like Argento have no interest in sex per se. Suffering seems inessential, but terror and death are key, photographed with the same clinical absorption and aesthetic gloss as giallo-maestros[…]
Directors · Horror · SF & Fantasy
Weird and Pissed Off: Field Notes on John Carpenter’s First Fifteen Years
“It’s better to be a human being than an imitation.”- John Carpenter, on The Thing * * * 1. Begin with sound. Begin with Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). A[…]
Experimental & Underground · Horror · Philosophy · Religion & Spirituality · Romance
Cosmic Melodrama: Darren Aronofsky’s mother!
Whatever else it is, mother! is ultimately a woman’s anxious nightmare about what it feels like to put your heart and soul into creating something only for people to take[…]
Horror · Philosophy · Romance
Lonely, but Not Alone: Death as a Collective Experience in David Lowery’s A Ghost Story
Regardless of whether it is worth doing or not, people will continue to rely on memory as a way to create legacy and heritage. People will always leave things behind,[…]
Horror · LGBT & Queer · Writers & Critics
Have I Seen the Real World Yet? Thomas Tryon’s The Other (1972)
One of the few indelible images in director Robert Mulligan’s 1972 film of The Other is that of Niles in the freaks’ tent at the 4th of July fair, gazing[…]
Franchises & Series · Horror · SF & Fantasy
Alien: Covenant: Ridley Scott’s Myth of Creation Science
The people we care most about in Alien: Covenant are those we most delight in seeing eviscerated. David gives us his own flair for the ghoulish, cultivating with us his garden of monsters[…]
Without Permission: Three Contemporary Feminist Films and One Classic (Suffragette, Mustang, Under the Shadow, Woman on the Run)
The women in these feminist films have power, but they’re more complex than fatale. * * * In the ultra-buoyant realms of badass, the femme fatale is equal to any[…]
God Is Dead but the Shadow Is Long: Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant
Like Prometheus, Alien: Covenant refuses to allow either the religious or materialist viewer to remain comfortable in their own belief or unbelief: for every Christian and Darwinian horror there is seared[…]
Blank Like a Panther: Cat People (1982) blu-ray review
“Even if Schrader would like to completely eliminate any ‘magic’ or dream-into-reality bleeding, it’s still there – the boundaries of his material threaten to swamp him at every turn, so kudos to him for at least not running in fear back behind the phallic bars of patriarchal condescension that was such an annoyance in the original. “
AMERICAN MARY (2012) and the Female-Centered Horror Film
Watching the season premiere of American Horror Story Coven and the Soska Sisters’ American Mary back-to-back, I couldn’t help but notice certain … recurrences. Both works feature a scene in[…]
Future Recall: 10 Cage-Free Horror Films on the Web (Netflix, AMC, youtube) that span time…
The discriminating October film enthusiast knows that sometimes bad is better… unless there’s something great you still haven’t seen, and sometimes you can see too much, like the dispiriting amount of torture porn titles on Netflix… Well, HEY! Here’s ten films either free on youtube, AMC, or Netflix Streaming that are MIND-bending, not pliers-bending
DVD & Blu-ray · Exploitation & Erotica
“Rated R for Retro” Scream Factory Loves the 80s
With Scream! it’s now possible to realize that the 80s as the best decade ever for schlock movies; grindhouses and drive-ins still lured us in like evil aunts. And best of all, we could still be genuinely scared.
DVD & Blu-ray · Horror · Noir
A Stranger Arrives in Town: Francis Coppola’s TWIXT (2011)
How do you begin a story? If I told you a story begins with the arrival of a stranger in town, you would probably think I was talking about a[…]
Michael Curtiz, Part 2 – Weird Scenes Inside the Wax Museum
The directorial personality of Michael Curtiz remains elusive, but his visual talent is indisputable. Look closely at the lighting and composition of these images from Mystery of the Wax Museum[…]
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