The Devil in the Details

Often called "the Citizen Kane of horror films," The Wicker Man is yet another horror classic facing an uphill struggle thanks to decades and decades of hype. It's easy to forget, then, that it's kind of a rough-hewn production; its variety of divisive edits are certainly proof of that. Cut up by censors and then cut up again to jive with foreign markets, the original release is often seen as inferior to later cuts, such as the 'final cut,' which is the one I'll be looking at today. Only thing is, Robin Hardy isn't immune to that unfortunate impulse to keep fiddling with his masterpiece until it begins to barely resemble the original, and so those popular later cuts are also full of the kind of stuff that probably should have stayed on the cutting room floor. In addition, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this film would struggle to shock and awe a modern audience raised on countless films and TV shows inspired by it, only you'd be dead wron...

Midsommar was one of my very favorite films of 2019, and in the years since its release, I've heard plenty of complaints lodged against it. While the arguments for and against it are pretty set in stone at this point, I still feel the urge to set the record straight after my most recent viewing, which by the way, happened to be the director's cut; not the preferred way to view the film by any means, but as a fan, I couldn't help but be curious about what was cut and why. So without further ado, let's dive in. The film opens with a mundane tragedy so raw and upsetting that we simply must be watching an Ari Aster film. He is no stranger to melodrama, and this film sports plenty of it in its opening moments. It tears open a wound and displays it proudly, as it will repeatedly come back to haunt both us and our protagonist, Dani, periodically through the narrative. Once it gets going as a horror film, it becomes much easier to actively enjoy, but the opening half-hour is t...

Remember a few years back when we had yet another 'dark fairy tale' revival? And everyone and their brother was out there writing novels and shooting films where Hansel and Gretel are really violent vampire hunters, or where Red Riding Hood ends up murdering her grandmother over a cookie-related dispute? Well, we owe all of that to Angela Carter, and today I have before me her seminal collection of short stories entitled The Bloody Chamber,  so-named for its first and longest tale. Nearly every story within is a subversive, twisted-up take on classic fairy tales. Carter doesn't limit herself though, and at times we see her pulling from obscure variants of popular tales or, indeed, film adaptions that were mostly original works to create a sumptuous buffet of perverted innocence, carnal obligation, and subverted sex.   We frequently see Carter using the fairy tale format to explore dramatic situations that arise between married couples in a heightened fashion that blurs t...

Ravenous is an odd duck all around: a rare horror film that's set on the American frontier circa the mid-nineteenth century and which references native American folklore despite being made in an era where big-budget Hollywood horror was especially loud and obnoxious (looking at you, 1999's remake of The Haunting,) and yet mostly manages to completely avoid falling into that trap. No, this looks like a seventies horror film through and through, and the concept certainly feels a bit old-fashioned as well, seeing as it's rooted in actual indigenous beliefs and legend. It's a solid take on the wendigo lore, though it's certainly not without its issues. At first, you assume the film is going to be some kind of Carpenter-esque horror film where our characters are trapped and besieged by forces outside that want to do them harm, but then it resets itself halfway through and goes in a completely different direction. The plot doesn't follow traditional structure, but i...