Apocalypse Now Is My Cinema Addiction: Lessons In Physiological Film Experience and Coppola’s Choreography of Death  

|Casey Jarrin| Every morning in tenth grade, I’d press PLAY on my Panasonic VCR, the opening sequence of Apocalypse Now cued up and ready to explode into orange-red-pink pyrotechnics of helicopter-war-as-cinema-painting, soundtracked by Jim Morrison’s… Continue reading

Never Get Out of the Boat

A man rises from a bog, his face covered in mud and substances this editor cannot determine.

|Lucas Hardwick| High school…shit; I was still only in high school. Every day I thought I was gonna wake up and that book report would be done. I’d wake up and there’d be nothing written, and not much read. I hardly said a word to my sophomore English teacher until I said… Continue reading

Turn Your Gaze Upon This Wretched Thing: The Schismatic Spectacle of Brian DePalma’s Hi, Mom!

A white man waving at the camera, with the image cut off horizontally and mirrored at the middle

|Courtney Kowalke| I cannot escape the reach of Ancient Greek theater. The last piece I wrote for Perisphere was about Mai Zetterling’s The Girls and a fictional production of Aristophanes’ comedy Lysistrata. It turns out a large part of director Brian DePalma’s inspiration for… Continue reading

A Farewell to Horses

An extreme closeup of the face of Buffalo Bill (played by Ted Levine), focused on his eye as he applies makeup to his eyebrow. Just to the side of the frame, the flaking edges of a woman's scalp that he's wearing are visible.

|Natalie Marlin| Hearing it solely on its own terms, “Goodbye Horses” is an achingly beautiful song. Q Lazzarus’ voice quavers but never loses its assuredness. She makes the most of her low resonance, embracing her voice’s androgynous qualities. William Garvey’s gorgeously cryptic lyricism is just as crucial to the song’s mystique… Continue reading

From Sundance to Box Office Gold: The Story of The Blair Witch Project

The iconic close up confessional of the doomed filmmaker

|Kevin Maher| The pitch for The Blair Witch Project, the 1999 summer box office phenomenon and viral marketing sensation, is as simple as the finished movie actually turned out to be. “Student filmmakers go into the woods to make a documentary, disappear, and their footage is found,” certainly relays the basic tenants of the story… Continue reading

Horror without Borders: My Blair Witch Project

A dilapidated cabin stands alone in the woods.

|Chris Ryba-Tures| Somewhere between Planet Hollywood and Hooters, on the top floor of the Mall of America, I was stopped dead in my tracks. It was 1998. I was seventeen, sporting a bleach-blonde Eminem haircut, a brand-new Marilyn Manson “Antichrist Superstar” ringer tee from Hot Topic, and black leather 8-hole Doc Marten’s that were finally getting that perfect mosh pit scuff… Continue reading

Double Exposures, Love, and Magic: Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula

The Coppolas employed vintage effects to gorgeous ends: in this case model train + giant book

|Penny Folger| Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a novel that was originally published in 1897, was later adapted to film over 200 times. What led Francis Ford Coppola to make it again in 1992, on the heels of his Godfather III? The answer can be found in then 19-year-old Winona Ryder. After dropping out of Godfather III due to nervous exhaustion… Continue reading

Bram Stoker’s Dracula as the Center of the Universe: A Mini-Memoir of Cultural Consumption 

Mina Murray wears a high-collared light green floral dress and Jonathan Harker wears a dark plaid suit as they converse in a sunlit garden

|Hannah Baxter| It’s November 1992, and a new movie with Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves has just come out. As someone born at the tail end of Gen X, that’s all you need to know. You’ve never heard of Francis Ford Coppola or the male lead, someone unmemorably named Gary Oldman. You have, however, watched Heathers, Edward Scissorhands, … Continue reading