“Take, Eat”— Redeeming Consumption in The Platform
The Platform is the English title of Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s 2019 Spanish science fiction-horror film, El Hoyo. Its original title poses “the hole” or “the pit” as the film’s controlling image, whereas the version American audiences have recently become exposed to…
Aliens Just Like Us: The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) & Under the Skin (2013)
“Every village and small country place is full of people who’ve just come and settled there without any ties to bring them. The big houses have been sold, and the cottages have been converted and changed. And people just come…
A Deluge of Dark Water(s): The Dark Waters of Dark Waters (1944), Dark Waters (1993), Dark Water (2002), and Dark Waters (2019)
When I was a child, I thought I was surrounded by bad guys. This is not a metaphor. I had the creeping suspicion that everyone I knew—my grandma, the dentist, the children’s pastor at my church, my pre-school teachers, everybody—was…
The Monsters Have Arrived and We are Them: The Soska Sisters’ RABID
In the history of cinema, several filmmakers have stuck out as memorable, those who left a mark on the industry and have, in some way, influenced generations of filmmakers after them. In the world of horror cinema, in particular, one…
Review| After Midnight (2020)
Jeremy Gardner is one of those actors that is instantly recognizable and yet many may not know—unless, like me, you are entrenched in the larger horror community—that he is a triple threat when it comes to films. After Midnight is…
Review| Gretel & Hansel (2020)
Osgood Perkins (director of I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House and The Blackcoat’s Daughter) has done it again with his slow-burn retelling of this fairy tale. The structure of the story remains the same from the…
Review| Color Out of Space (2020)
I have written elsewhere about the troubles that surround the legacy of H.P. Lovecraft and the shadow his oeuvre casts over the horror community, for both good and ill. His stories continue to inspire literature, film, television, and even music…
The Bright Abysses of The Lighthouse (2019) & Sunshine (2007)
“And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.” Exodus 3:6 (NKJV) The story of Moses and the burning bush has rattled my being since I was old enough to understand its nuances. An all-consuming fire…
Review| Underwater (2020)
Everything about the description and trailer of this film screams “This is like Alien, but, like, in the less vast reaches of the ocean floor!!” Even the title on the trailer calls back to the titling on Alien. Kristen Stewart’s…
Review| The Grudge (2020)
After Nicolas Pesce’s moody arthouse debut in 2016 with The Eyes of My Mother and his follow-up, Piercing—an adaptation of Japanese author Ryû Murakami’s novel, another American adaptation of the 2002 Japanese horror film, Ju-On: The Grudge seemed like an…