Playing the Fool
|Doug Carmody| Bong Joon-ho’s The Host opens to scenes of tension and tragedy. First, in a politically overt sequence, an American doctor forces a Korean doctor to dump formaldehyde… Continue reading
Tag: horror
Race-Revenge Films: the Psychodrama of Clearcut
|Chelli Riddough| I first saw it embroidered on my coworker’s hat: “You are on Native land.” Then I noticed it emblazoned in neon signage at Owamni, the indigenous restaurant. Those five words: are they a fact? A reminder? Are they meant to spark remorse? Continue reading
Pacifism Ain’t No Panacea: Vengeance and Desperation in Ryszard Bugajski’s Clearcut
|Chris Polley| Ugly injustice and righteous anger fill the frames of nearly every fantasy revenge flick, but the best of the genre go beyond the emotion. They consider their targets and punishments carefully as well as provide a convincing argument as to why pacifism… Continue reading
The Thin Veil Between Comedy and Horror in Coward’s Blithe Spirit (1945)
|Allison Vincent| A foundational memory of mine is sitting in Dr. Doug Julien’s “Comedy Text and Theory” course at the University of Minnesota and realizing the slender thin line that separates a scream from a laugh. Dr. Doug, as he liked to be addressed, told the class he was… Continue reading
POM! One Cut of the Dead & the Sanctity of Surprise
|Chris Ryba-Tures| If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you already know something about One Cut of the Dead. If you’ve seen it, you don’t need me to tell you how special it is, nor would you want me spoiling it. An unassuming genre-bender like this, packed to the gills… Continue reading
A Postmodern Roadmap for a Gag
|Cole Seidl| Shinichiro Ueda’s One Cut of the Dead has been incredibly, yet quietly, influential since its initial release in Japan in 2017. It has spawned a small independent film movement in Japan known as “nagamawashi” films (or “long take” films) which aim to exploit the… Continue reading
Coming Back to Life to the End of the World
|Caitlyn Speier| 2016, the year I turned 16, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States of America, and more importantly, 10 Cloverfield Lane was released to a nearly unanimous “meh, not terrible” from audiences and critics alike. Everything was perfect… Continue reading
Arica, mi Amor: Cine Chileno y La casa lobo
|Finn Odum| I. Gringos en Arica. The first of my three weeks in Arica, a city on the Chilean-Peruvian border, was spent in a beachside hotel. We had free breakfast in the mornings, a pool overlooking the ocean, and most importantly, a bar just a five-minute walk away. Many of us were… Continue reading
When I’m Bad, I’m Better: Legend and Tim Curry’s Legacy of Villainy
|Courtney Kowalke| What is the first movie you remember seeing Tim Curry in? It is a question of when you first saw him in something, not if you have ever seen him in something. The British actor has been an inescapable presence on the silver screen since 1975. Incidentally, Continue reading
The Museum of Home Video’s Ring, Ring: a Doorbell Cam Fantasia is Coming to Town! Some Context on Bret Berg’s MOHV from a Fellow Los Angeleno Who Witnessed its Inception
|Penny Folger| The Museum of Home Video is an online streaming show that took flight during the pandemic and seems to have created an empire. Started by Los Angeleno film programmer/distributor Brett Berg, it takes place at museumofhomevideo.com at 7:30 pm PST most Tuesday evenings. Since its inception in July… Continue reading