The physical body – its desired appearance, how you care for it, what it needs, the stages it has to go through in life, the pains it should or should not endure, the amount of exercise and sleep it needs – is an expression of social cultural categories, according to anthropologists Marcel Mauss and Mary… Read More Titane (2021), Why it’s not Queer, but the Horrific Reversal of a Romantic Comedy
Elenit, by Euripides Laskaridis // Osmosis, promised architectural modes of light and space, creative costumes, and to be a ‘comedy of the absurd’. This lured me into buying a ticket. It did not disappoint on all these points, but something else happened: I was a lot more touched by this absurd comedy dance theatre than… Read More [Modern Dance] Elenit (2019), Community in a Fantastic Absurd
The key fit. She opened the door of her new apartment and ran through the rooms. The high ceilings, the tall windows, the original wooden floors, the elegant spaciousness. She loved it. She loved old buildings. Close to the park, close to the center. All hers. All hers! Who would have thought? Finally, the universe… Read More Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, a short horror story
Stephen King was pleased to find out about Stanley Kubrick’ plans to adapt The Shining. But this happiness was short-lived: King thoroughly disliked Kubrick’s film and hasn’t stopped since to express his intense disapproval. King: “He’s kind of a dyspeptic filmmaker, a Type A filmmaker, worrying and wanting to edit right up to the end.… Read More The Shining: King versus Kubrick on Horror
The Invisible Man is a science fiction novel from 1897, written by H. G. Wells, and since then it has turned into movies and television shows multiple times, including spin-offs and sequels. What changed between the first and the last movie? Both are tales of a mad scientist, but the same story has sparked different… Read More The Invisible Man (1933) versus (2020), Horrific Changes in Science and Love
She barely recognized him.‘Hey you,’ her professor said.His white skin touched her couch. He smiled, the same smile she had seen a thousand times before in class. His clothes lay arranged in a bundle next to him, neatly folded. The wool sweater, the jacket, the corduroy pants, belt on top, leather boots on the floor.… Read More Tick Tock, a short horror story
Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) follows protagonists like a relay race. We start with Marion, until the iconic shower scene. We take over with Arbogast, until the stairs-shot-from-above scene. We continue with Lila and Sam, until the basement (reveal) scene. And then something strange happens. We find ourselves with a psychiatrist who explains it all to us,… Read More Why Psycho’s (1960) psychiatrist scene is more important than you think
Swallow, written and directed by Carlo Mirabella-Davis, is a beautifully stylized movie, about Hunter, a young, rich, beautiful married woman whose life looks Instagram perfect. On the outside. It is also a movie that brought me very close to understanding the attraction to want to ingest uneatable objects. Cold, smooth objects. And sharp, dangerous objects.… Read More Swallow (2019), horror and the bathroom scene
Joker in Joker dances frequently, at work and at home, but two dance scenes are key. The first one is the bathroom scene, right after Joker kills for the first time, having been taunted too much for too long. Initially this scene was not written as a dance scene. The dancing was improvised by Joaquin… Read More Joker (2019), Two Dance Scenes Compared
Sartre describes in his oeuvre emotional responses that could easily be recognized as horrific reactions, the emotions the horror genre wants to evoke. Our sudden irrational fear of an unexpected face against the window (in Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions), Roquentin’s nauseating experience when the entire world seems to collapse from its determined… Read More Sartre about Horror, human existence symbolized or an escape?
