SICK rises above a lot of other modern slasher horror by pulling many of our real lives into the foreground. Best of all, the film crystallises so much social rage about inequality without having to drench the screenplay in moralising dialogue, hiding most of its critique behind beloved slasher cliches and tropes.
full essay: fathersonholygore.com/2023/02/12/pandemic-privilege-the-modern-gothic-in-sick/
Attachment is a Gothic love story, in the original literary sense of the word: a tale full of love, both romantic and familial, and just as shrouded with shadowy terrors. The film is also a very compelling queer story because of the lesbian relationship between Leah and Maja, and also due to the fact the dybbuk who terrorises Leah comes to represent a patriarchal force gripping her body and her life—a force that two queer women, along with the help…
Skinamarink is a slow, nightmarish walk through a vivid sensation of nostalgia, reminding adults what it felt like to be afraid of the dark, even in the comfort of one’s own home. It’s a tale told mostly relying on visuals, peppered with bits of dialogue here and there, along with other audio, to create a strange yet interesting experience that feels like watching a memory on a worn out VHS tape. The supernatural invades the everyday in Ball’s film while…
SCREENED @ FANTASTIC FEST 2021
This is the first Peter Brunner film I’ve experienced. To say I’ll be diving into the rest of his work now is an understatement. Luzifer is the most powerful film I screened during Fantastic Fest, among a bunch of other great titles. It hasn’t left me since I watched it. The plot is a familiar one in a few ways, involving isolation and religious madness, as well as people in a rural area contending with…
