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Posted on March 9, 2020

The Lodge and the Cyclical Nature of Trauma

Guest Post

Severin Fiala and Veronik Franz’s The Lodge (2019) has been praised as one of the best horror films of 2020. Somehow, it still feels like it fell through the cracks.

Given the spectacular failure of The Turning (2020), it’s no surprise that a horror film featuring a woman and two children in isolation would be passed over. However, The Lodge is a gripping, slow-burn horror that pays homage to The Shining (1980), The Thing (1982), and Hereditary (2018), while also artfully creating its own space within the genre. One of the most innovative aspects of the film is its focus on the importance of understanding and respecting traumatic experiences.

Posted on March 6, 2020

Beneath Us & Immigration Horror

Guest Post

Much like Jordan Peele’s Us, Max Pachman’s deliberately provocative debut feature Beneath Us presents the viewer with the subaltern- the dispossessed, those without power or a voice and forces us to question who we identify with. The title functions both literally and metaphorically. Four undocumented immigrants, Hector, Alejandro, Homero and Memo (Roberto Sanchez, Rigo Sanchez, Nicholas Gonzalez and Josue Aguirre) are hired by a rich couple, Liz and Ben Rhodes (Lynn Collins and James Tupper) as construction workers on their palatial home. What seems a comfortable job paid in cash soon turns nightmarish as they are treated like slaves at gunpoint, beaten, humiliated and forced to beg for their lives alongside being imprisoned underground. Then the tables appear to turn. Read more

Posted on February 28, 2020

The Invisible Man – But His Victim Steals the Show

Guest Post

The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell, 2020) was almost a very different movie. When Universal’s Dark Universe was still a possibility, the plan was to have Johnny Depp star as the unseen entity and overlap it Marvel-style with movies like Tom Cruise’s The Mummy. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Dark Universe producer and The Mummy director Alex Kurtzman explained that Universal’s original monster movies were “beautiful because the monsters are broken characters, and we see ourselves in them” (Goldberg). It is likely that, with Depp starring and driven by this idea of the monsters as beautiful broken characters, The Invisible Man we almost got would have centered on the scientist who discovers a way to make himself invisible only to find it damaging to his mental stability.

There’s nothing wrong with that story. We’ve seen plenty of examples of it, from the original Universal version of The Invisible Man in 1933 to the sleazy Hollow Man in 2000, starring Kevin Bacon and directed by Paul Verhoeven. It is, however, a version of the story that we are very familiar with: A man’s ability to exist unseen enables him to enact his base desires. Even though he becomes the villain, it is only after audiences identify with him as the protagonist that his peeping tom (or worse) side comes out. Although Alex Kurtzman may see this shift as exposing man’s beautiful brokenness, and may indeed see some of himself in such a character, it is a story that ultimately asks audiences to understand how taboo desires and lack of accountability might lead a man to do what he was unable to do when he was visible. I’m tired of that story, and, luckily, writer-director Leigh Whannell was tired of it too. Read more

Posted on February 23, 2020

Religion and Sex in The Lighthouse & The Witch

Guest Post

Horror understands that what is most desired is the same as what is most feared. Scholars of religion often overlook this while the makers of horror films bank on it. Consider the critically acclaimed oeuvre of Robert Eggers, both his 2015 film, The Witch, and his more recent The Lighthouse (2019).

If you’ve ever been isolated from other people—say, in solitary confinement, or even in a room with a medical device so dangerous that the operators have to leave while you’re left alone with its buzzing and clanging—you will understand The Lighthouse. Horror has long recognized the psychological power of isolation. Ripley and crew aboard the Nostromo, Wendy, Danny and Jack at the Overlook, a handful of scientists at an Antarctic research base, the list could go on and on. Showcasing Roger Eggers’ trademark verisimilitude, The Lighthouse traps two wickies—lighthouse keepers—both with secrets, far from the reach of the rest of civilization. They’re trapped between a deity and sexuality. Read more

Posted on February 6, 2020

Mirroring Identity in Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963)

Guest Post

The terror of Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House (1959) resides in the struggle of its protagonist to procure and maintain a stable sense of self. Eleanor Vance’s desperation to establish a collective and an individual identity is palpable in her continual self-affirmations that she both “belongs” to the group of guests in Hill House and exists as a separate entity. Identifying herself in relation to Theodora, the house’s other female inhabitant, is particularly crucial, given Eleanor’s history of dysfunctional relationships with other women. In Robert Wise’s 1963 film adaptation, The Haunting, Eleanor’s identity crisis is brilliantly conveyed through the use of mirrors in the cinematography and mise-en-scène. Throughout the film, mirrors function to trace Eleanor’s attempts and eventual failure to establish an identity in relation to Theodora.

From her arrival at Hill House, Eleanor is painfully aware of her “self,” or, rather, lack thereof. Bending down to pick up her suitcase, Eleanor notices her reflection in the freshly waxed floors (19:30) and is prompted to quickly catch up with the house’s caretaker, commenting, “I gather I’m the first one here, Mrs. Dudley” (19:40). On the way up the stairs, she is startled less by the ominous-looking gargoyles decorating the stairwell than she is by her reflection in a wall mirror (19:50). This is just the first of the excessive number of mirrors she will encounter in the house. Read more