Next Level Horror, Exploitation and Cult Discussion
By Eli LaChance Toho took Hollywood to school on long-running franchise movies with a fraction of the budget. After a long year of Blockbuster duds, Godzilla Minus One proves the problem isn't inherent to franchises or genre, it's Hollywood's cookie-cutter approach. https://youtu.be/d79dUsPZKL0 Credit: Toho With Godzilla Minus One, writer/director Takashi Yamazaki delivers a deeply emotional... Continue Reading →
By Ethan Tarantella For a film as schlocky and tasteless as Herschell Gordon Lewis’s Two Thousand Maniacs!, there are some interesting themes going on throughout it. Beyond the violence, the low-budget special effects, and the dark sense of humor, it is interesting how it takes place in a Confederate town ironically named Pleasant Valley that’s... Continue Reading →
By Eli LaChance If I might borrow from the bard to tempt you, “hell is empty and all the devils are here,” and by here, I mean writer David Pepose(SAVAGE AVENGERS, SPENCER & LOCKE) and artist Alex Cormac’s(BREATH OF SHADOWS, SEA OF SORROWS) new comic The Devil that Wears my Face, due October 4th from... Continue Reading →
Every good deal begins with a handshake. Talk to Me, the new A24 distributed indie from the land down under, seeks to provide gothic horror for the 21st century. And while the first act mostly delivers on the marketing promise, we don't spend long in the film's clutches before it becomes clear that YouTube's RackaRacka creators turned directors, Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou, are working with a more timeless metaphor.
What does it mean to have a body, and what does it mean to be mortal? How do we factor sense pleasures into a bodily experience that is unpredictable, into a body that will eventually wither and that will invariably experience agony? What do we do when we find out that dignity is an illusion that only holds if circumstance and luck hold as well?
Wes Craven’s films often pay homage to horror. The conventions and themes utilized in a Craven film are playfully aware of the confines of both their genre and the medium of film at large. Looking at three of his most reflective films, this metanarrative commentary can be broken down and understood as both horrifying and creatively boundary breaking. I will examine, in order of release, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994), Scream (1996), and Scream 3 (2000), looking at both the evolution of Craven’s metanarrative commentary and the function it serves in adding to the fright in each film, and how this narrative reflection has affected horror as a whole.
By Eli LaChance Maniac Harry isn't the scariest thing in NYC It’s impossible to discuss Elliott Kalan & Andrea Mutti’s new Aftershock horror comic, Maniac of New York, without mentioning the film that inspired it. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan begins with panning shots of New York City in decay. The goal... Continue Reading →
THE HUMAN SUBPLOT IS THE PLOT “Monsters are tragic beings,” Godzilla co-creator Ishiro Honda was onto something when he observed, “They are born too tall, too strong, too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy.” Humanity is at the heart of the best monster stories. It’s not by accident that... Continue Reading →
By Charles Evans There exists a form of received wisdom in popular culture which can be deadly for a work of art or entertainment. Essentially, if enough people decide in advance that something is true, it becomes the de facto truth, and little can be done until a reevaluation occurs. If one occurs at all.... Continue Reading →
By Sarah Winkler Classicism is defined as a bias toward, or against persons of given social classes. In the films The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), and Frankenstein (1931), there are underlying, or otherwise distinctly presented elements of classism that surround the characters depicted in each film. These are currents of social bias which become highlighted... Continue Reading →
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