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Posted on August 30, 2018

Summer of 84 and Cinematic Nostalgia

If you’ve heard anything about Sundance’s much buzzed about Summer of 84, it likely revolves around its soul crushing ending. And while the last act of the movie does deliver a gut punch you won’t be able to stop thinking about, its impact ultimately stems from its very subtle but highly effective deconstruction of cinematic nostalgia. Directed by the trio RKSS (François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell), Summer of 84 is, on the surface, a coming of age movie about a quartet of boys who become convinced that their neighbor Wayne Mackey (Rich Sommer), a local cop, is a serial killer. Most reviews have drawn parallels with Neflix’s Stranger Things and given the movie’s focus on adolescent friendships, it’s an apt comparison. But I suspect that the filmmakers are actually referencing- very specifically- another rite of passage movie: Rob Reiner’s 1986 classic Stand by Me. Read more

Posted on July 22, 2018

Unfriended: Dark Web (2018) Review

Elizabeth Erwin

Given my tepid at best reaction to the original Unfriended (2014) and my overall disinterest in most found footage films, I went into Unfriended: Dark Web just hoping not to fall asleep. What I got instead was a fascinating reinterpretation of the home invasion conceit fueled by an intriguing premise that I hope more modern horror will tackle. Tapping into the same technology fueled paranoia of the dystopian breakout hit Black Mirror, Unfriended: Dark Web creates a compelling sense of unease that will leave you wanting to toss all of your devices and become a Luddite. But unlike the majority of the episodes in the Channel 4/Netflix stalwart, this Stephen Susko helmed production is situated squarely in the present. Whether it is the case of child porn appearing on the computer of a 16 year old after he accessed a Yahoo account or hackers taking control of personal computers’ recording and camera capabilities via malware, the casting of known technology as the gateway for the horror that descends upon 6 unsuspecting people in Dark Web works precisely because it is a fear based in reality.

Like its predecessor, the story is a relatively simply one. After swiping a laptop that has languished in the coffee house where he works, Matias (Colin Woodell) and his friends gather for a virtual game night only to discover that the laptop’s previous owner is a person for hire on the dark web who specializes in extreme torture. As the group goes through files depicting one atrocity after another, their shock turns to fear when they realize that opening the cache of hidden files has now given the killer remote access to all of their devices. Read more

Posted on July 5, 2018

The First Purge (2018) Review

Elizabeth Erwin

For as much as I enjoy so-called “prestige horror” such as The Invitation (2015), Get Out (2017) and Hereditary (2018), there is something to be said for the value of what I call “popcorn horror,” those movies that eschew all nuance for explicit depictions of carnage and social commentary. And if there is one horror movie this season that fits that bill it’s The First Purge (2018), the fourth film in the franchise that serves as its de facto origin story and explains how an America of the very near future turned to a yearly program of intentional lawlessness in order to combat cultural aggression. Directed by Gerard McMurray, the movie is a direct frontal attack on Trump’s America that pulls no punches in its depiction of class warfare. From pointedly associating the NRA with the villainous political party in power to a devious Spicer-like mouthpiece of the administration to a character literally being “grabbed by the pussy,” there is no question that this movie is designed to be a searing indictment of Donald Trump and those who support him.

How a viewer receives The First Purge is likely to depend upon where he/she falls on the political spectrum, and I suspect Rotten Tomatoes will be awash in both one star and five-star reviews. As a horror flick, the movie is slightly above average. Given that it is a prequel, it spends a good deal of the time situating and developing the characters—so much so that the actual Purge doesn’t begin until the movie’s midway point. One of the criticisms of the franchise has always been that the films advocate non-violence while simultaneously depicting in graphic fashion the spectacle of violence. But here, the opposite is true. While there are scenes of graphic brutality, it feels underplayed, especially in comparison to the other films. We’re also given heroes who understand that part of resisting is being prepared to fight back. Read more

Posted on May 4, 2018

10 Tales from the Crypt Episodes Every Horror Fan Should See

Elizabeth Erwin

Ask any horror fan of a certain age their favorite scary anthology series and odds are they are going to reference Tales from the Crypt. Because the show originally ran on HBO, no content was off the table which meant that gore, nudity, and profanity was in ample supply. This led to varied storytelling that incorporated all the major subgenres of horror while also providing a running through line of satire, largely courtesy of the show’s sarcastic mascot Cryptkeeper (voiced brilliantly by John Kassir).

Awhile back, I started a rewatch of the series in anticipation of M. Night Shyamalan’s expected reboot for TNT. And while, sadly, that revival never got off the ground, it did provide me a perfect excuse to revisit a childhood favorite. All seasons of Tales from the Crypt are now streaming on Amazon – and specific links are below. Read more

Posted on March 27, 2018

Fortress and Classroom Horror

Elizabeth Erwin

When people ask me what’s the scariest film I remember from my misspent youth, they’re always surprised when I reference Fortress (1985), a little seen Australian thriller that inexplicably became an HBO mainstay in the late 1980s. Based on a novel of the same name by Gabrielle Lord, the movie centers on a classroom of children and their young teacher, Sally Jones (Rachel Ward), who are taken hostage by a band of homicidal, mask wearing men. With moments of pronounced violence, the film is worth another look by horror fans for the way it leverages its classroom setting to instill fear.

Because horror grapples with the collective anxieties of the time, how a space is viewed by an audience is contingent largely upon the events of the day. For instance, to an audience in the 1930s watching The Lady Vanishes (1938) for the first time, the claustrophobic setting of a train car reads very differently than it does to a millennial audience who may lack a real world understanding for how it feels to travel by train. As a space, the classroom historically represents not only a place of learning, but also a place of security. While this perception has altered radically in the wake of Columbine and Sandy Hook, in the 1980s the classroom did not instantly connote a sense of fear. Read more