Horror
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The Clash of Fundamentalisms in ‘The Witch’
There’s a lot at stake in the final scene of The Witch, the terrifying feature film debut from writer/director Robert Eggers, and it’s not as unambiguous as it may seem. As Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) descends into the woods, ostensibly joining the coven which has been terrorizing her family, Eggers appears to validate the concerns voiced throughout the film: Witches are real, and they can entice former Christians to join them. But Thomasin very well may just have an active imagination, one fueled by her anger towards the patriarchal Christianity her father attempts to impose on her, and no one other than Black Phillip is around to confirm the reality of Thomasin’s experience. Either way, the ending depicts Thomasin’s clear rejection of one system in favor of another, and it therefore captures the true conflict at the movie’s core. More
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‘The Witch’ – a film finely tuned for horror aficionados with a preference for old-fashioned psychological terror
Robert Egger’s feature film debut The Witch, is a terrifying exploration of a puritanical family’s descent into hysteria. Eggers is stingy with the film’s supernatural elements, preferring to force the audience to decide what is real versus what is a manifestation of the character’s anxieties. The result is a film finely tuned for horror aficionados with a preference for old-fashioned psychological terror. More
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‘The Darkness’ Trailer – Kevin Bacon Battles Uncomfortable Racism
By this point, the practice of basing a horror movie around some distorted, not-in-the-slightest-bit-authentic riff on the practices and mythologies of other cultures really shouldn’t be a thing anymore. I mean, it’s 2015 for crimminy’s sake, movies about supernatural bogymen erroneously identified as “Native American spirits” should be viewed as outdated and offensive by Hollywood […] More
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‘Pandemic’ Trailer Takes Another Crack at First-Person Cinema
Filming an entire movie in the First Person perspective, where you actually see through the eyes of a character, is something people keep trying to pull off to varying degrees of success. The earliest example is Lady in the Lake, a 1947 adaptation of the Raymond Chandler novel of the same name. Since then it’s been tried […] More
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Sundance 2016: Zombie’s latest is ’31’ flavors of terrible
Zombie’s ’31’ is a thoroughly dispensable gore-fest. More
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Sundance 2016: ‘The Lure’ is a fevered masterpiece
‘The Lure’ is a singular cinematic vision of perversity and beauty that demands to be seen. More
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Hive of Scum #3: ‘Midnight Menagerie’ Part 2
At long last, we come to the writing portion. Still with me? Not bored by my great wall o’ words? Good! As I said before, Midnight Menagrie is a horror comic for a teenage audience. I mean, hint-hint at the PG-13 rating. The comic starts off by introducing Shawn, the main protagonist. He’s the son […] More
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The UK Trailer for ‘The Green Inferno’ Is Big on Environmentalism and Screaming
Say what you will about cult horror director Eli Roth, when he wants to make and release a film he bloody well does it, come hell or high water. His latest film, The Green Inferno, has seen its fair share of stumbling blocks. From the beginning, accusations of racial insensitivity have plagued the film, which is […] More
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Catching up: Ten essential episodes of The X-Files
A guide to the very best of one of TV’s most definitive genre series. More
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Swamp Thing #1 Embraces Classic Horror Fun
Swamp Thing is one of the very best series from DC Comics in the past five years, from Scott Snyder’s revival of the character in 2011 to Charles Soule’s grandiose world-building years later. More
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Quentin Tarantino’s Descent Into Sadism
Quentin Tarantino’s newest feature, The Hateful Eight (“The 8th Film From Quentin Tarantino,” as the opening credits remind viewers), is his most violent film ever. Every act of violence is similar to something from his previous films, but never has Tarantino devoted so much of a single film to non-stop carnage. It wasn’t always like […] More
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The “Last” Walking Dead Podcast Episode 77: “Start to Finish”
This is it, folks. Kate and Rick call it quits after six years and 77 episodes of The Walking Dead podcast. It’s been a lot of fun but with our busy schedules we’ve decided to end the show with the appropriately titled episode, “Start to Finish.” Joining us one last time is PopOptiq contributor Felix Vasquez. […] More
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