The Devil in the Details

Edgar Wright’s latest feature is his first attempt at a horror film, and boy did it have me pretty excited. It seemed to promise it all: the sixties, "psychological horror,” Anna-Taylor Joy, and the filmmaker behind such classics as Shaun of the Dead? Surely, this was going to be something special, and in many ways it is. But the first thing you should know is that this is not exactly a traditional genre film. It’s got a little of this, a little of that; a little horror, a little comedy, a little coming-of-age drama, and plenty of supernatural sleuthing, and the result is pure Wright, even if his reach often exceeds his grasp. The premise is bizarre. When young Eloise moves to London to go to one of the country's top art schools, she finds herself coming undone from a mixture of loneliness, stress, the ability to see dead people, oh and an alpha bitch roommate who seeks to make her life hell out of jealousy. Her solution? Off-campus housing! How eerily reminiscent of the pro...

In the light of the November home-video release of Ti West's Pearl, I figured it was about time I go back and cover a few of the horror auteur’s previous works. Now, I’m aware that The Roost and Trigger Man came out before this, and I do intend to cover those eventually, along with 2013’s The Sacrament and that one western he did with Ethan Hawke and John Travolta. But first, let’s talk about his first true cult hit, 2009’s The House of the Devil. Little known outside of true horror hounds, it follows a young college student named Samantha as she struggles to find a way to scrape up the money to pay for a modest apartment in the city while she attends university. Luckily, a mysterious Mr. Ullman has been hanging up flyers in the area, searching desperately for a babysitter. After a series of strange run-ins and cold shoulders, Sam assumes she’s been passed over in favor of someone else, only for Mr. Ullman to suddenly call back, more desperate than ever and offering to pay just...

Jordan Peele is something of an anomaly within the industry, in more ways than one. He creates real films for people who appreciate the art of filmmaking, but strangely enough, he manages to achieve commercial success as well as more accolades than probably any other contemporary horror auteur with each totally original IP. His films are sold on nothing more than the quality of his previous films, and yet the public is more than willing to trust him time and time again. It’s strange but undeniably uplifting in a culture where it seems no one is willing to try anything different, behind the camera or sitting in the audience. I really enjoyed his monumental  Get Out, I appreciated and enjoyed parts of his flawed, but interesting Us, and I’m now here to tell you upfront that I'm outright stricken by his newest masterpiece, a strange mix of western, sci-fi horror, and examination of America’s history of violent bullying and cultural genocide. Oh, sorry: what I meant to say is that it...

About a week ago, we discussed Alex Garland’s infamous A24 folk horror film Men, which is a handy reference that we’ll make ample use of while this week's A24 folk horror film. You see, Men was a film that screamed: “Not for everyone.” It used metaphor, allegory, and postmodern storytelling to take on the patriarchy, itself a contentious thing to address, and it didn’t even have the decency to turn out to all be a dream in the end, so naturally it was hated by most mainstream viewers. For me, though, recognizing that it wasn’t for everyone didn’t harm my own enjoyment of it one bit, and besides it being a little too obviously inspired by another recent A24 folk horror film, Midsommar, I thought its wild ideas and overall nightmarish construction was effective and incredibly intriguing.  So what does any of this have to do with Lamb? The simple answer is that the two are perfect foils of one another. While Men took the arthouse route and did something interesting and entertain...

The year is 2019, and it's been but a scant few years since Jordan Peele made his directorial debut and reminded people of just what was possible in a horror context when the people involved actually cared. Get Out was rightfully hailed as a modern classic the instant it was released, one which elevated the already-beloved character actor and comedy writer Peele to a figure that could stand toe-to-toe with the Hitchcocks, Spielbergs, and Carpenters of the world. For film lovers and cinemaniacs everywhere, they had found a kindred spirit in Peele, a classist in the world of filmmaking and one who could seemingly do no wrong. So yeah, here we are three years later and Peele releases yet another horror film, rich with allegorical meaning and latent thematic content, and it honestly couldn’t be more unlike Get Out. Yes,  Us is more akin to some kind of nightmarish fairy tale scenario, where logic is thrown out the window not just because of subtext, but also because it can be partic...

For those of you who have been with me since I started this blog almost a year ago now, the following shouldn’t sound terribly new and original: a woman struggling in the aftermath of trauma decides to take a nice vacation out in the country to heal, only to get swallowed up in the world of the “old ways” by a bunch of shadowy locals that seem to have very specific plans for her. Usually, this is for the purposes of some ritual (Robin Redbreast) or because the locals wish to make the woman a permanent resident (Midsommar,) but in Alex Garland’s Men, it’s for even more eldritch reasons: the patriarchy simply can’t tolerate a strong independent woman enjoying herself. But hold that thought for now. Yes, Men is the latest in a wave of recent folk horror revival films, and in that sense: it’s got the goods. There is no shortage of breathtaking rural imagery, and a major figure from ancient folklore makes an appearance. Going into the woods is always punished, and the village locals all ...

With the recent home video release of Jordan Peele’s Nope, I’ve decided that the time is ripe to go back and take a closer look at his entire filmography, beginning with the film that first announced the arrival of one of horror’s most unique and interesting voices: 2016’s Get Out. When Chris is asked by his girlfriend Rose to come spend the weekend with her family, he agrees reluctantly, worried about what their reaction to their white daughter dating a black man might be. For her part, Rose reassures him that they won’t mind, and so Chris goes along without resistance. When the two of them arrive at the Armitage’s lavish home, however, things quickly get uncomfortable, with Rose’s brother making odd comments to Chris about his ‘genetic makeup’ and her mother, a hypnotist, insisting that Chris let her put him under so that she can ‘cure’ his nicotine addiction. Her father seems like he means well, but his attempts to seem hip and liberal just come across as strange. Chris believes all...

So, here we are again. A little while back, I covered the film Wendigo and was so impressed by its craft and literary qualities that I immediately pegged Larry Fessenden as a director I could trust. It's no surprise, then, that I've been eagerly awaiting sitting down with another one of his films, and the particular film I've chosen to look at today is The Last Winter, a film that came out several years after Wendigo and sees Fessenden at something of an artistic peak. Here, his storytelling abilities have matured, both his writing and direction, and everything feels a bit more surefooted. True, some of the intimacy of Wendigo is lost, but this is also a totally different beast, if you'll pardon the expression, and a much bleaker experience overall. I guess you could consider it tragic, but only in a cosmic sense, as this film looks straight down the barrel of one of the most pressing issues today and doesn't flinch. You see, this is ecological horror. At first,...