Browsing Tag

Archives

two girls hug
Posted on December 9, 2022

“Bodies Bodies Bodies” pile up in a trenchant tale of affluent anxiety

Guest Post

Privileged paranoia is rarely as enjoyable as in Halina Reijn’s English language feature film debut – a sharp, sarcastic slasher stabbing away at the elite’s self-obsession and self-loathing. A devastating lack of meaning serves both as the origin and outcome of a hilarious horror that is simultaneously physical, psychological and parodistic. The Danish director’s genre gem cunningly mimics mainstream cinema’s detachment from lower-class reality by zooming in on a prototypical group of upper-class kids. Their hurricane party set in a friend’s mansion is crashed by their estranged friend Sophie (Amandla Stenberg).

The recently recovered addict brings her new girlfriend, eastern European Bee (Maria Bakalova), the only one unfamiliar with the affluent apathy of the spoiled sextette she’s to stay with. Belligerent host David (Pete Davidson), his theatrical girlfriend Emma (Chase Sui Wonders), self-righteous Jordan (Herrold), pretentious podcaster Alice (Rachel Sennott), her older Tinder date Greg (Lee Pace) and Sophie are, as Emma puts it, “rich” or “rich rich.” They scoff at Bee trying to contribute to the expenses by bringing food, spill expensive champagne, toy with antique armor and play the titular game. Read more

Posted on November 27, 2020

Courses in Horror from Borderlines Open School

Guest Post

Borderlines Open School for Advanced Cross-Cultural Studies is offering some courses in the new year that will definitely be of interest to horror fans:

Why Lovecraft? Why Now?

(January 4–February 1, 2021)

Instructor: Rebekah Sheldon

https://borderlinesopenschool.org/courses/p/whylovecraft

In this course we will focus on the New Weird, a group of 21st-century authors who are rewriting Lovecraft’s oeuvre and taking his images in dramatically new directions.  
The Politics of Horror
(February 17–March 10, 2021)
Instructor: Bethany Doane
https://borderlinesopenschool.org/courses/p/horrorpolitics

In this course we will approach horror as an inherently (politically) ambiguous genre, situating its representational politics and ideological subtext alongside its aesthetic effects, and thereby complicating simple readings to think through a range of possible interpretations.  
For more information on Borderlines Open School for Advanced Cross-Cultural Studies, feel free to visit: https://borderlinesopenschool.org/.

Read more

Without Name
Posted on March 16, 2019

7 Exceptional Recent Irish Horror Films Ranked

Dawn Keetley

Irish horror film has definitely been undergoing a renaissance recently and so, for this St. Patrick’s Day weekend, I’ve created a list of the best recent Irish horror, ranked. They are all excellent, though. Click on the “Read more” link to get the full review and the trailer.

The Hallow

Bojana Novakovic as besieged mother in The Hallow

  1. The Hallow (Corin Hardy, 2015). Irish folk horror film, The Hallow follows a couple, Adam and Claire Hitchens (Joseph Mawle and Bojana Novakovic), along with their baby, Finn, who go to stay in a house deep in the Irish forest, which has just been sold for development. They discover there is a frightening truth to local folklore about “the hallow”—fairies and other supernatural creatures who want humans to stay out of their woods. Read more.

Read more

Posted on September 23, 2017

Thoroughbreds

Dawn Keetley

Thoroughbreds (USA; 2017) is written and directed by Cory Finley, his first feature film. It began life as a play, but, as Finley was writing it, he told the audience at Fantastic Fest, he realized that he was seeing parts of his story cinematically. So Thoroughbreds became a film starring Anya Taylor-Joy, who plays Lily, and Olivia Cooke, who plays Amanda.

Lily and Amanda are two wealthy former friends (sort of) finishing up high school in Connecticut. They are thrust together when Amanda’s mother pays Lily to tutor her. From beginning to end, the film is about the two girls’ relationship, which flourishes under Amanda’s relentless unconventionality and honesty, as she pushes Lily to be more honest about herself. It doesn’t take long for Amanda to learn that Lily hates her stepfather (Paul Sparks). Does she have reason to hate him as much as she does? Maybe. The film goes to the brink of portraying him as abusive, possibly to Lily, possibly to Lily’s mother, but it stops short and we wonder if maybe he’s just a rather run-of-the-mill jerk. Either way, the amoral Amanda suggests an unthinkable plan to Lily, and the plot then takes a dark turn, wending its way into increasingly unexpected terrain.

Read more

Posted on September 20, 2017

Where to Start with Silent Horror Films

Guest Post

Everyone knows the image: a bald, pale figure with impossibly long fingers rises out of his coffin. That’s of course Nosferatu, one of cinema’s great horror icons. Silent films are such a part of our culture that we can recognize so many moments from them, even if we haven’t seen a single movie. If you’ve ever wanted to check out silent horror films but were unsure of where to start, this is a list of the ten most representative films of the era. Made across two continents and two decades, these touch on everything from slashers, to the supernatural, to body horror.

As of this writing, most of these films are easily available on YouTube, but the best place to watch them is through one of their many DVD reissues. Silent films often get a bad rap simply because people don’t have access to prints that aren’t fuzzy, jumpy, and incomplete. That said, you really should watch these movies any way you can. They’re not just an educational look at how horror cinema started. They’re also scary as hell.

Read more

Back to top