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Posted on November 16, 2025

Sympathy for the Devil: The Carpenter’s Son, Religion, and Horror

Guest Post

Steve A. Wiggins

Religion and horror have been close companions ever since Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968) showed that their relationship could be brought out into the open. Horror movies that feature Jesus directly are somewhat rare. The 2001 parody Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (Lee Demarbre) really doesn’t count. A low-budget comedy-horror, Demarbre’s film attempts no theological statements, just laughs. It has been suggested a time or two that Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004) could be considered a horror film. It certainly goes for the torture porn aesthetic, and it does have some passing similarities with The Carpenter’s Son (Lotfy Nathan, 2025). The two movies take different texts, however.

Posted on November 4, 2025

To Sleep with Demons: A Review of A Muse by Kieran Saint Leonard

Guest Post

by Patrick Zaia

In 1844, the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer penned a curious and somewhat controversial essay titled ‘The Metaphysics of Sexual Love’. With devilish and gloomily elegant prose, Schopenhauer’s essay articulates a theory of sexual love and desire that is negative, irrational, and perilously self-destructive to all those who experience it. In one of the essay’s more bombastic sections, Schopenhauer’ describes the sexual instinct thusly:

“Every day it brews and hatches the worst and most perplexing quarrels and disputes, destroys the most valuable relationships, and breaks the strongest bonds. It demands the sacrifice sometimes of life or health, sometimes of wealth, position, and happiness. Indeed, it robs of all conscience those who were previously loyal and faithful. Accordingly, it appears on the whole as a malevolent demon, striving to pervert, to confuse, and to overthrow everything.”

Posted on June 7, 2025

The Severed Sun – The Blood on Satan’s Claw for Our Time

Dawn Keetley

The Severed Sun (2024) is the first feature film of writer and director Dean Puckett, who has previously directed several documentaries and short films – notably, The Sermon (2017) and Satan’s Bite (2017), both of which explore themes similar to The Severed Sun. Filmed on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, The Severed Sun follows an isolated community led by a religious leader, The Pastor (played brilliantly by Toby Stephens). The group’s way of living and dress at first suggest that this film is set in the past, but there are modern buildings, slag heaps, industrial ruins – and so perhaps this community is surviving in a near and potentially post-apocalyptic moment (something Puckett has confirmed in interviews). It quickly becomes clear that the community is strictly, even violently, hierarchical, with the uncompromising Pastor as unchallenged leader of the community and the men in the community as rulers in the family. The trajectory of the film is driven by the film’s rebellious protagonist (who also happens to be the Pastor’s daughter), Magpie (Emma Appleton, also brilliantly played). For her resistance – and the film begins with her killing her abusive husband – Magpie is ostracized by her community, labeled a witch. She refuses to be a victim, however, fighting back against the familial and group structures that oppress her and others in the community.

Posted on May 15, 2025

‘Everything but people’ – Joshua Erkman’s A Desert

Dawn Keetley

A Desert is the first feature film from director Joshua Erkman (who co-wrote the film with Bossi Baker). It has been described as a neo noir / horror hybrid – although, in every way, this film can certainly stand as pure horror. It is quite self-conscious about its horror lineage, and it evokes all the emotions you expect from horror: it’s unsettling, disturbing, shocking, terrifying, and at times repulsive. Its images and, above all, its central devastating trajectory stay with you long after the credits roll. A Desert is a beautiful and devastating film – and, although watching it is at times difficult, it’s also an important film.

Posted on March 14, 2025

In the Twilight Zone: The After Hours in Severance

Dawn Keetley

In Severance’s latest episode, “The After Hours” (season 2, ep. 9), the show makes its most direct reference yet to another television series. Could it be more appropriate that it’s The Twilight Zone? Specifically, the thirty-fourth episode in season one, “The After Hours,” which aired on June 10, 1960. For those of us who like to look for hidden references, this one isn’t much of a challenge (“The After Hours” = “The After Hours”). The directness of the reference continues near the end of Severance’s episode when Harmony Cobel and Devon are smuggling Mark into the Damona Birthing Retreat, and Harmony seems to be giving some kind of password to the guard: “Marsha White. Ninth floor,” she says, adding “Specialty Department. I’m looking for a gold thimble.” The Twilight Zone’s “The After Hours” begins with Marsha White taking the elevator to the ninth floor – the Specialities Department – looking for a gold thimble.

Now that Severance has directly evoked The Twilight Zone’s “The After Hours,” the similarities are striking and many. The ninth floor of the department store to which Marsha White is whisked does not – as far as the “normal” world is concerned – actually exist. We see multiple shops of the elevator indicator going up only to the eighth floor and then the roof. As several characters say to a bewildered Marsha White who leaves the ninth floor and then tries to get back to it, “There is no ninth floor.”