Talk to Me tells a familiar story: a group of kids gather around, decide to contact ghosts and then things go wrong. It sounds like a horror cliché, but Talk to Me feels fresh. Directors Danny and Michael Philippoe – known for their YouTube channel – transformed the contacting-ghosts-story into something new. Into something about… Read More What Talk To Me (2022) Reveals About Us
When, in the last scene of Le Bonheur, I saw the couple wear identical sweaters, I couldn’t get over it. I stared at the screen and thought No! Those two yellow sweaters! That’s horror! Horror! To be clear, Le Bonheur is not a horror movie, but elements of the horrific found their way inside. And… Read More Why the End of Varda’s le Bonheur (1965) Feels so Horrible, and about the Sunflower’s Role
Most reviews and articles about Barbie, will, at some point – regardless of whether they are against certain political, moral, or feminist aspects of it, or if they love these aspects – mention that Ken steals the show. And he does. No small feat for someone who is just Ken. How does he do it?… Read More Why Ken Steals the Show in Barbie (2023)
Hitchcock said about Psycho (1960) that the psychiatrist saved the movie. And it did. But not only because of the production code; Hitchcock employed the psychiatrist in a much more interesting way than one usually thinks. The psychiatrist scene makes it possible to experience Psycho as a horror movie. Horror and Protagonists First, we need… Read More Why Psycho’s (1960) Psychiatrist Scene is More Important Than You Think
2022 is almost over, so it’s time for lists! Please note that due to pandemic some of the films were out a year earlier. Best Horror Barbarian, by Zach Eggers Why? It was good fun to watch. It gave space to ponder about some of the situations we are now dealing with, in a light… Read More Best Fantastic Films of 2022!
Carol Clover coined the term ‘final girl’ in her 1992 book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. The final girl in horror is the last one standing and she has to face the murderer (who by that point has already killed a lot, and usually her entire group of friends). Somehow… Read More Barbarian (2022) and Bones and All (2022), What’s up with Today’s Final Girl?
Roger Ebert’s review introduces Detour perfectly: Edgar Ulmer’s Detour is a cult classic. It’s a B movie. It’s a film noir. It’s the film noir with (one of) the highest profit margins of them all. From the start, Detour has been surrounded by unreliable stories. Ulmer said he filmed it within a week on a… Read More Detour (1945), Why Al Roberts is not an Unreliable Narrator
Alex Garland’s Men opens with Harper who wants to get a divorce from James. James threatens to kill himself if she goes through with it. They get into an argument, he hits her, she throws him out and minutes later she sees him fall down through her window fall. Their eyes lock for a moment.… Read More Why Men (2022) is About Men Embodying Femininity
One article describes Ti West’s movie X as a hard movie to watch for anyone with a female body, another spoke of yet another portrayal of older women’s naked bodies as a source of fear and repulsion and more than once I read that X‘s geriatric villains are its weakest link. Dated horror tropes that… Read More ‘X’ (2022) versus the Male Gaze and Seventies’ Feminism
‘So,’ Ella said as she slowly licked the last foam of her cappuccino from the spoon. ‘You can’t come tonight to the party because once again you are going to your dad in his tomb.’ Outside everything is bathed in dark gray, but she glows golden in the lights of the coffee place. It made… Read More Image, a short horror story
A star cast, a big budget, and a very willing audience member because I was excited to enjoy some old fashioned entertainment after what seemed like an endless stream of gloomy scenario’s and lockdowns. I was ready to be taken away on a cruise on the Nile with Hercule Poirot as my guide and I… Read More Death on the Nile (2022, 1937), or Death of a Detective
Fantastic Focus 