In Celtic folklore, faeries would often sneak their children into human households by disguising them as infants. They would steal the baby from the crib and slip their own offspring in its place. The deceiving faerie baby is known as a Changeling. Imagine the horror of those parents. They create …
Read More »Fantasia Film Festival 2020: ‘Clapboard Jungle’ Moviemaking Documentary Review
As a child, I had no idea that movies had creators. I grasped the idea of books and stories being the work of an author, and I could imagine them typing away at a typewriter the way my mom or dad would sit and type for their day jobs, or …
Read More »BHFF 2019: Carlen May-Mann’s ‘The Rat’ (2019) And Its Gnawing Sense of Dread
The horror genre has a fascination with teens. Whether werewolf, ghost, masked killer or clown, the threat always comes for teenagers first if it can. I believe the teen is most often burned on horror’s bier because of their uncertainty. They are children in many ways, but on the cusp …
Read More »BHFF 2019: The Flavorful Fear In ‘Bakemono’ Horror Short Review
With Stranger Things, Tigers Are Not Afraid, (read our reviews here and here) and It (read our reviews here and here), people are rediscovering the terrifying magic of being a child. More than being vulnerable, the willingness in children to believe in the fantastical creates a grounded atmosphere for nightmares to …
Read More »BHFF 2019: Meredith Alloway’s ‘Deep Tissue’ Is a Sensory Dream… Or Nightmare
Presented as part of the Home Invasion Block of shorts at Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2019, Meredith Alloway’s short film, Deep Tissue, is an opulent, charged film about the exploration of sensation and the power of human touch. We open on Liv (Alloway: Mutt 2017) in a motel room, in …
Read More »BHFF 2019: David Marmor’s ‘1BR’ And The Horrors Of Belonging
One of the most propulsive horror trends of modern years has been the resurgence of the Creepy Cult. Perhaps I paint with too broad a brush, but a cult, to me, is any group of people united in a single ideology that subverts commonly held morals. Jordan Peele’s Get Out …
Read More »Fantastic Fest 2019 Review: ‘The Deeper You Dig’ Is A Thrilling Indie Family Affair
You don’t need to believe in the paranormal to feel haunted. Ghosts, by and large, represent the restless, buried things in life, be they personal secrets like the spectral women of Crimson Peak, warning the new young bride lest she suffer the same fate, or larger, societal sins like the …
Read More »Fantastic Fest 2019: Mattie Do’s ‘The Long Walk’ Journeys Deep Into the Broken Heart of Grief
The tagline for Tobe Hooper’s classic horror film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre asks “Who Will Survive, and What Will Be Left of Them?” While the marketers behind the line literally refer to the chainsaw mutilations and slaughterhouse gore of Leatherface’s exploits, they inadvertently got to the central question of all …
Read More »Fantastic Fest 2019 Movie Review: ‘Blood Machines’ Is A Synthy, Feverish Space Adventure
There’s something about synth music… the low, humming electronic tones immediately rocket the listener into the future. Not only the future, but the dreams of people living in the future. The music feels otherworldly, powering the films of John Carpenter, the music of Kielen King, and now the new 50-minute …
Read More »‘The Pining’ (2019) Movie Review
There’s a strong aesthetic connection between horror movies and musicals. Both genres balance the demands of storytelling with the expectations of a certain kind of spectacle. Also, they can only achieve some degree of success by honoring either story or exhibition, rather than both. A good horror movie can have …
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