tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86159510809364231142024-03-04T17:12:06.482-05:00Razor AppleUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-89957747672605742522022-12-29T13:57:00.003-05:002022-12-29T14:10:31.934-05:00Favorite Films of 2022<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5zlTLvik6n6EQc0f_AaU3CsUp4ku1WLuJ_5xl7FSS8ecQQ9M1XrHxBzm5Ta4jJLBqgseOlNRKrXNA_XmBRcnNPfTGaKFxJ0MVQtSHesJzuBE2tXRc5HChvgrHyKit-U2UBqB35sABKiskJBnsetaHz0lg6_n_mYatxkXgndCmpAsZviXf-XzlZ4TWnA/s1280/FaveFilms2022.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1216" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5zlTLvik6n6EQc0f_AaU3CsUp4ku1WLuJ_5xl7FSS8ecQQ9M1XrHxBzm5Ta4jJLBqgseOlNRKrXNA_XmBRcnNPfTGaKFxJ0MVQtSHesJzuBE2tXRc5HChvgrHyKit-U2UBqB35sABKiskJBnsetaHz0lg6_n_mYatxkXgndCmpAsZviXf-XzlZ4TWnA/w608-h640/FaveFilms2022.JPG" width="608" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><b>Dinner in America. </b>Pure, anarchist joy wrapped in a romance with great chemistry; Emily Skeggs and Kyle Gallner make a brilliant duo. I’m not sure I enjoyed any movie more than this one in 2022.</div><br /><b>
Dual. </b>Strange, unsettling, and thought-provoking. An imaginative and darkly funny exploration of the ways we live and relate to one another in a capitalist, image-obsessed society.<br /><br /><b>
Everything Everywhere All At Once. </b>If you watch this movie and you don’t feel something… I feel sad for you. And a little scared of you.<br /><br /><b>
Fresh. </b>Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan are perfect in this zany, often queasy, horror comedy. One of the more unique things I watched this year, and I’ve seen a lot.<br /><br /><b>
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. </b>About a middle-aged divorcee and the sex worker she hires to help tick off the items on her sexual bucket list, Leo Grande is chock full of necessary, stigma-busting conversations about sex, without ever feeling preachy or dry. An antidote to our society’s rampant and far-reaching issues with sex – or a start, at least.<br /><br /><b>
Nope.</b> A Western, an adventure film, and a horror movie all rolled into one, this movie wears its influences on its sleeve in the best way possible. This was the movie of the summer for me.<br /><br /><b>
Resurrection.</b> I love few things more than an intense Rebecca Hall film, and this movie is surely one of her most intense yet. She is fantastic.<br /><br /><b>
Watcher. </b>Cleverly subverts old tropes while remaining wildly suspenseful and entertaining. Maika Monroe is excellent as always.<br /><br /><b>
Windfall. </b>Funny and acerbic, a sharp little gem. If you haven’t seen The One I Love, also directed by Charlie McDowell, I highly recommend it as well.<br /><br /><b>
X.</b> I said everything I have to say about this movie – like, literally everything – in <a href="http://dailygrindhouse.com/thewire/ti-wests-x-sex-wont-kill-you-but-something-surely-will/" target="_blank">this piece at Daily Grindhouse</a>. Needless to say, I loved it.<br /><br /><b>
Honorable mentions: </b>Barbarian, The Batman, Glorious, Nanny, Sharp Stick, Speak No Evil, We Need to Talk About Cosby (docuseries).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-41608725810118100182022-06-02T12:30:00.000-04:002022-06-02T12:30:13.644-04:00 A Feminine Manifesto, or, What I’ve Been Up to Lately<div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRV8jf5EHFtjD43NI-QFSdNyPuCHmVd3JPDgVsmHL62ep5ZbL5J5sLoRiej0mdi3S1_D_MIGVuwzubvGDHUNfkG8c3M6XJWeMTZC0cCoOiF71tbl6qVrQ7MCqNyTsYHbGA4XH4dOErAhC_PY8Cin4tWKCMKCUMTNYteJsLJBwqpCG3EnI6dDkS2-FOGQ/s531/pinkspotlight2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRV8jf5EHFtjD43NI-QFSdNyPuCHmVd3JPDgVsmHL62ep5ZbL5J5sLoRiej0mdi3S1_D_MIGVuwzubvGDHUNfkG8c3M6XJWeMTZC0cCoOiF71tbl6qVrQ7MCqNyTsYHbGA4XH4dOErAhC_PY8Cin4tWKCMKCUMTNYteJsLJBwqpCG3EnI6dDkS2-FOGQ/s16000/pinkspotlight2.jpg" /></a></div>It’s been four whole years since I self-published <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Am-Not-Your-Final-Girl-ebook/dp/B0798XK4MC/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1519851312&sr=8-2" target="_blank">I Am Not Your Final Girl</a></i>. </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">Four years that feel like a lifetime and a blink simultaneously. Four years that I look back on with a lot of pride and, occasionally, in my more insecure moments, some embarrassment.</span></div></span></div><div><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><br /></span>Especially when I hear the dreaded question, “So, what have you been up to lately?” frequently followed by, “When is your next book coming out?”<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>My younger self—the five-years-ago self who sometimes feels much, much farther away than that—would probably be terrified for current me. The me now, who has three or four different books in the works and none of them anywhere near completion. The me who spends perhaps too much time thinking and worrying about and planning for a podcast that only comes out every few months, has not many (but dedicated, wonderful, the best actually) listeners, and makes no money at all. The me with few concrete plans about the future, just a vague sense that things will be okay, somehow, maybe. Or they won’t.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p><i>(*Insert a shrug emoji here with your mind.*)<br /></i><o:p><br /></o:p>The last few years have been hard for me, for the same reasons they’ve been hard for everyone and for reasons specific to my own circumstances... just like everyone else. Doesn’t it feel as though we’ve all been suffering from the same sickness for ages? And yet I feel alone often. Don’t we all? (Really, I’m asking: Do we all??)<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>Every day, the world seems to get worse. It’s been one long, agonizingly slow ride towards the bottom ever since Trump, but each day, somehow, we lose more. Each day we’re robbed of yet another something. Our rights, our pleasures. Community. Safety. It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance to feel good about much of anything these days.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>And yet.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>Two things:<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>1) I never wanted children; thankfully, I preferred the company of animals over kids even when I was a kid myself, and so I never had to grapple with the fact that I was pretty much born assuming the planet was doomed and that people were inherently too selfish to save it.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>2) When I was sixteen one of my best friends and I discovered the meaning of life, or so we believed, with all the certainty that comes attached to teenagehood: To do some good in the world, and <i>just as importantly</i>, to have as much fun as possible in the process.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>It all felt startlingly simple then, especially because I didn’t plan on leaving anyone behind to worry about. I’d do my part and get out, scot-free. Life without strings attached.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p><i>(*Insert a laughing-with-tears emoji here, you sweet, silly thing.*)<br /></i><o:p><br /></o:p>I turned 34 last month and have joked several times since that I should only be considered 32 at this point, because the last two years were such a wash. That’s not really the truth, though. Although they’ve been spent in a strange sort of almost-limbo, the last few years have been invaluable to me, maybe more than any of the years that came before. But it’s difficult to explain why, and exactly how. Most people asking the passing question, “What have you been up to?” aren’t looking for real answers anyway. They want headlines, and frankly, there aren’t that many studding my timeline for the past few years—at least, not ones that a lot of people seem to care about.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>But you’ve made it this far, so maybe you do.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>Sporadically, sometimes in great bursts of inspiration, I’ve been writing. <a href="http://dailygrindhouse.com/thewire/ti-wests-x-sex-wont-kill-you-but-something-surely-will/" target="_blank">Things that I love.</a> But not nearly as often as I know it takes to keep the machine of a writing career going with any sort of momentum. I feel the pressure to <i>produce </i>constantly, but I also know myself, and I know that giving in to that feeling is the surest way to sabotage my writing. I’ve tried to force things… but when it comes to poetry, it simply doesn’t work for me.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>And yet, I am a writer. I’ve always known this about myself, and I don’t think it’s something I could change if I tried. I’m crying on and off as I write this, because I always cry when I write something I need to write. I worry about what would happen if I never wrote again, that all the thoughts and feelings left clutched tight and withering inside might turn into something poisonous, like a cancer. Writing is some of the truest catharsis I’ve ever known, and I love it more than most people. But the last few years have made me wonder, am I a <i>career</i> writer? Do I <i>want</i> to be?<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>I’ve never known what I wanted “<i>to do</i>.” Not in a way that would satisfy a college counselor, or an interview board. I’ve never been ambitious about jobs or wanted a career, except for a short stint believing I should “go into publishing” in some vague way informed purely by television shows. And now I’m at a phase in my life where the specific ways that I make money seem even less important, less relevant, than ever. “<i>What do you do?”</i> seems an archaic question. Is this little livelihood that I’ve cobbled together out of freelance work and passion projects – is that a career? Or is it just another part of life? Not even the most important part, maybe.</div><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div>I’ve been having a lot of sex. That’s the kind of thing you really can’t say when someone asks, “What have you been up to lately?” But it’s the truth.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>The last few years have been all about losing the shame I’ve carried around sex and other parts of myself for my whole life, mostly without even realizing it. <a href="https://www.clairecholland.com/podcast" target="_blank">The Sexy Books Podcast</a> has existed, slow but steady and a constant bright spot for me, for over two years now. We don’t have a huge audience, and perhaps only an even smaller group get what my co-host Blythe and I are going for, but nonetheless it’s been one of the most personally affirming projects I’ve ever worked on. Through frank and nonjudgmental conversations about our sex lives, fantasies, pleasure, and much, much more, I’ve deepened my knowledge of myself by leaps and bounds. I also have it on good authority, from folks who have spoken to or written us, that the podcast has helped some people, whether it be with their own shame around sex and masturbation, or with other wellness issues. I’ve made friendships that mean everything to me.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>If you listen to the podcast at all, you may know that sex didn’t come easy to me. I’ve dealt with a plethora of chronic gynecological issues ever since puberty, including hormonal imbalances, endless bleeding, and worst of all, excruciatingly painful sex—secrets that I hid from almost everyone in my life. Secrets that became my partner’s to bear as well, because I couldn’t stand the humiliation of explaining these problems that I couldn’t face or put a name to. It took me years to find help. Far too many, plus a lot of terrible doctors and a couple of good ones, two specialists and a pelvic floor physical therapist, to get where I am now.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>(There’s surely another whole essay inside of me regarding the tragedy that is the U.S. healthcare system, but that’s for another day. For now, just remember to put it on the list of reasons for the impending apocalypse. For posterity.)<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>Now, I have incredible sex, as much as possible, and I shout about it from the rooftops because I fucking <i>deserve</i> to, I <i>worked</i> for it, and because life is too short for all this embarrassment, these rules we pile on ourselves and each other. I want people to know that these problems are not uncommon, even though almost no one ever talks about them. I want people to know that their sexuality is beautiful, transformative even, and it isn’t something to fear but to embrace wholeheartedly.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>I have a newfound reverence for my body; for what it looks like, sure—I feel comfortable in my skin in my 30s in a way that seemed impossible earlier—but mostly for what it can <i>do</i>. This body may be riddled with issues, but it’s also pretty damn amazing. This body <i>moves</i>, it hikes and skateboards and fucks. It loves, and it <i>enjoys</i>. It seeks out and revels in pleasure without guilt. Sometimes this body even dances, when I let it. Not often enough, but just like my idol-in-anxiety Kristen Stewart, I’m working on it.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>When I feel good about myself, I take the photo I want to take, because I know this body is mortal and if I’m lucky enough to live to be old I’ll want to look back on it and think, “Hell, we had some fun, didn’t we?” Sometimes I blow off entire days of freelance work for pleasure, for fun, for sex, knowing I’ll have to scramble later and not caring, just to feel good for a while, to feel <i>alive</i>. And then sometimes, afterwards, I write.</div><div><o:p><br /></o:p>That’s what I’ve been doing. More than anything else these last several years, I’ve been living. I know it may seem like a luxury, but it was hard-won, and I won't apologize for it. For any of it. On the one hand, I feel like I have the next fifty years to write another book, and on the other life feels shorter than any of us can truly comprehend. When I’m on my deathbed looking back at things, will I regret my wanton years spent screwing more than writing poetry? Maybe. It’s possible. But I doubt it. Anyway, it’s my life to live. You have yours.<br /><o:p> <br /><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div></o:p>It’s a millennial cliché at this point, the fantasy of running away and thriving off the grid somewhere. To forage for berries and do nothing else but read and fuck and enjoy every last day in the sunlight. To never worry about money or <i>productivity</i> again. It’s a cliché because in a country where capitalism is king, it feels laughably impossible.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>I’ve been working mostly on poems about sex and death – and of course, innately, life. But it’s hard not to focus on death in a world where there’s so much of it everywhere, where a pandemic and a war are raging on and yet the world keeps turning, the grind keeps grinding, and we all keep on pretending this is normal. Or salvageable. It’s that cognitive dissonance thing, the instinct to strive on no matter how hopeless the future looks. It’s how we can still go to the park, or make breakfast in the morning, or laugh with friends.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>I always thought that not having kids would save me, but with each passing year, another friend or relative gives birth. Beautiful, perfect boys and girls, as yet untouched by any pain or trauma. Their innocence overwhelms me, and the love I feel for them, the painful yearning for a better outlook, reminds me that none of us make it out of here unscathed. I can't be an island, even though sometimes I wish to be.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>What is my point here? I’m not even sure that I know, I’m digging it out as we speak, but I think it has something to do with appreciating the moment? But god, how cliché is that. That can’t possibly be the whole point, can it?<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>And yet.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>There are things that can’t be taken away from us, ever. They may seem obvious, but I think they’re worth enumerating regularly: Our ability to love, and to create community. To give empathy and acceptance to others. To find beauty even in an ugly world, or to create it ourselves. And to hold onto whatever scraps of joy we can, to wear them out and wave them as flags, beacons of hope to keep us all going.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>I think it’s possible I had it right at sixteen, and I’ve just spent too many of the years since worrying—about whether or not I was doing what I was “supposed” to do, about what other people thought of who I was. I still feel compelled at times, even now, to reassure people that yes, I am still a Very Serious Person, a poet, a feminist, someone you should regard highly despite the fact that I spend much of my time talking and writing about sex now. Please, validate me.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p><i>(*Insert an eye-roll emoji here, because really.*)<br /></i><o:p><br /></o:p>To care for this world, we must be a part of it. Maybe that’s obvious, but then again, maybe it isn’t. It wasn’t to me, I never found an easy place in it. I still feel alien at times, like humans are completely incomprehensible creatures… but less and less. These days, I feel all too human. Aware of my fallibility, and more accepting when I see it in others.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>But I had to find my own way in, and now that I have, even just a little bit, I’m not willing to change or give anything up. To conform or fall in line for a government, or for the great god capitalism. My life now feels unpolished, a little feral, freer, if not free. I still have no idea what I’m doing, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt more useful, more like I’m contributing something to better this screwed up society, which is desperately sick and in need of some open conversation. Maybe only in small ways, one person at a time, but maybe that’s also the best most of us can hope for. Maybe small is actually the way to go.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>(It feels so very millennial, doesn’t it, to wish for a small life.)<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>I’m still terrified, but it makes me realize that I care. It makes me recognize that I haven’t lost hope yet.<br /><o:p> <br /><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div></o:p>When someone asks me when my next book is coming out, I know they mean well. And honestly, I’m shocked and humbled that anyone still gives a damn. The answer is: it’s coming. And the answer is also: I don’t know. When I have enough to say, I suppose.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>The world is so uncertain. The future is ephemeral, something that may never come at all, and I am so very tired of worrying about it. That’s not to say I won’t, because I will. Of course I will. I’ll also continue to fight for it, because I can’t not. But I’m committed to loving the present more than ever—and I mean loving, in every sense of the word. I want to carve out a life that gives <i>and</i> receives, one that is replenishable as well as benevolent. I want gentleness. Truthfully, don’t we all?<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>I want to speak and write honestly about the realities of the world, albeit at my own pace, so hopefully more of us can feel less alone. I want to create better, smaller worlds within this big, scary one.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>Honesty. Community. Empathy. This is the only way I know forward.</div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh39LIjtozR8FGqJPCVzFLdYVai2rmpCpTIZbpmQYqB-G5TM5MdllwTehzHZn_DsapLVQOVbKaatE3MjmTr-ViovzFxaM1EEstOd-v1JLexg4vVfW3v9YZ6p3bPEExADQ5SsOfcG036CcdPX980nmIvy3t01fMjrM14kkQ2giE6HjuHxhakvBOTC82wcQ/s465/pinkspotlight1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh39LIjtozR8FGqJPCVzFLdYVai2rmpCpTIZbpmQYqB-G5TM5MdllwTehzHZn_DsapLVQOVbKaatE3MjmTr-ViovzFxaM1EEstOd-v1JLexg4vVfW3v9YZ6p3bPEExADQ5SsOfcG036CcdPX980nmIvy3t01fMjrM14kkQ2giE6HjuHxhakvBOTC82wcQ/s16000/pinkspotlight1.jpg" /></a></div>I don't know your circumstances, but I hope you can find some version of happiness here, too.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Universe<br /><br /></b>I want everything.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>Kisses strung between my hipbones, dropped<br />from your tender mouth like flowers,<br />purple blossom bruises,<br />the smudged jacaranda petals<br />on sidewalks in the spring<br />in L.A., when heat is already a mirage<br />over the asphalt rising in steamy waves,<br />pricking at your nose like sweat,<br />the smell of something vital and alive.<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>What I want is every contradiction<br />pressed between our bodies like flowers,<br /><o:p><br /></o:p>empyrean<br />and so fragile.</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; 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margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-25441130503505353592020-12-26T20:33:00.006-05:002021-01-04T16:32:11.952-05:00My Favorite Movies of 2020Presented in no particular order except the order I saw them in, maybe. 2020 has been ten thousand years long, and a couple of these movies might have actually come out at the end of 2019, but I <i>saw</i> them in 2020 and we’re not going to be perfectionists now, alright? Not so close to the end of the year.<br /><br />
Due to the pandemic and being on lockdown for basically the last nine months, I watched what must be a personal record number of movies this year (over 90 new-to-me horror movies, mostly from 2020). It was practically impossible to narrow it down to my favorite favorites, but I decided to go with the movies I felt most inspired to talk about afterwards. I think these are the films I’ll remember and want to rewatch years from now, but who knows. Some of these I didn’t even like until a second viewing, and then I loved them. Movie-watching feels more tied to emotion than ever for me these days.
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So anyway. Here are my favorites for the moment.<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8228288/?ref_=ttmi_tt" target="_blank">The Platform.</a></b> “A vertical prison with one cell per level. Two people per cell. Only one food platform and two minutes per day to feed.” That sums up the literal premise, but this movie is multi-layered and rich in symbolism. I love a twisted allegory of a film like this one, there’s so much to chew on.<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7713068/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Birds of Prey.</a> </b>I think this is the last movie I saw in theaters in 2020, and what a lovely movie to have linger. Just pure, unadulterated, female-centric joy. This movie felt made for me, a heartfelt gift from the filmmaker in a time when I sorely needed it.<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5606664/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Doctor Sleep.</a></b> I was supposed to see this movie back when it came out in theaters in 2019, but the gate to my shitty apartment broke and we never made it out of the garage. This is something I’ll probably never get over, because I had to watch this perfect film for the first time on my television instead of projected on a gigantic screen the way the lord intended. Anyway, it’s a beautiful and terrifying film.<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11388406/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Horse Girl.</a> </b>Not a horror movie, but an intense watch that’s at times genuinely horrifying. Alison Brie does an incredible job (as an actor and as one of the writers) balancing an emotionally devastating story with moments of levity and kindness. This one hits surprisingly hard.<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8368406/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0" target="_blank">Vivarium.</a> </b>This movie really got released at a fortuitous time – about a month or so after the pandemic hit the U.S., I think. Vivarium is about being stuck in a sort of one-size-fits-all adulthood (literally, in a Twilight Zone way), but the movie obviously takes on a much more literal meaning when watched from the confines of one’s home during a global pandemic. A very cool movie, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget watching it when I did.<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7939766/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0" target="_blank">I’m Thinking of Ending Things.</a> </b>Having never read the book, I found this film almost completely inscrutable upon first watch, and I still loved every minute of it. You’re probably just a Charlie Kaufman person or you’re not, I don’t know. But it made me feel things.<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8430598/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Shirley.</a> </b>Elisabeth Moss put in an incredible performance in The Invisible Man, which was also very high on my list this year, but her impressionistic performance in Shirley—as a surly, complicated, sometimes-dazzling Shirley Jackson—blew me away. This movie plays out like part biopic, part fever dream.<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8372298/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3" target="_blank">Swallow.</a> </b>This gorgeous movie was my most cathartic watch of 2020. Understated yet so emotionally rich, a perfect film from beginning to end.<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5918982/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Possessor.</a> </b>Perhaps, if I truly had to choose, I would say Possessor is my favorite movie of the year. It’s the one I watched three times in a row, anyway, unable to get the imagery out of my mind. “It was inhuman. I’ll never get the sin stain out,” as they say.<br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11204260/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0" target="_blank">I May Destroy You.</a> </b>This is actually a show, but I had to mention it for Michaela Coel’s incredible performance (and writing and directing!). Raw and honest to the extreme, full of nuance, and beautifully done. Deserves to be discussed with friends.<br /><br /><b>
Horror Honorable Mentions: </b>The Invisible Man, The Other Lamb, Scream Queen!, The Beach House, Relic, The Rental, The Dark and the Wicked, Anything for Jackson, Spree, Gretel & Hansel, The Lodge, Promising Young Woman, Color Out of Space, The Amaranth, The Mortuary Collection, Sightless, His House, Daniel Isn't Real.<br /><br /><b>
Non-Horror Honorable Mentions: </b>Selah and the Spades, Yes God Yes, Unpregnant, Black Bear, Pen15 season 2.
<div><br /></div><div>That's it for this year! What were your favorites?</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-59185556719633741192018-12-31T17:03:00.001-05:002018-12-31T17:03:12.240-05:00Favorite Films of 2018I didn't have time for a whole write-up of my favorite films this year (horror or otherwise), but I did do a quick little Twitter thread. In the interest of posterity, I'm reposting it here. Sorry, there are no deep insights, just a bunch of movies I encourage you to check out with an open mind! These aren't necessarily the "best" movies of 2018, just my personal favorites.<br />
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About a frustrated teacher who believes one of her kindergarten students is a poetry prodigy, THE KINDERGARTEN TEACHER is mesmerizing, contemplative, and poignant. A rumination on talent, ambition, and unfulfilled possibility. Really deserves to be talked about more.<br />
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In DUCK BUTTER, two women meet and decide to skip the "getting to know you" part of a relationship by having sex every hour for 24 hours. Filmed in one night, what could've been just a cheap gimmick is a unique, emotional romp, notable for its no-bullshit treatment of nudity and sex.<br />
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HEREDITARY gave me catharsis like nothing else this year. A modern-day ROSEMARY'S BABY of sorts, it hit all the right nihilistic notes for me (what can I say, sometimes I love to be sad). A favorite for the ages.
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A SIMPLE FAVOR was a complete surprise - though the fact that Paul Feig is the director should've tipped me off that this would be good. Unexpected and a little zany, this was so much fun to watch (and Blake Lively was born for this role). Go in blind and enjoy.
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Icy, bleak, and vicious, HOLD THE DARK knows how to sustain a mood. Ostensibly about a tracker investigating the death of a child by wolves, this enigmatic film is about so much more (than I can say in one tweet). Oh, and that shootout scene!
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I truly don't know how I slept so long on ASSASSINATION NATION. An adrenaline shot to the arm, this was the most viscerally upsetting film I've seen all year, and the most galvanizing. On the nose and in your face, it is a welcome call to arms. Rent it now!
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I wrote <a href="https://bit.ly/2SkVjkf" target="_blank">a whole article about why I loved CAM so much</a>, so consider checking that out if you're interested. (But in short: it's a gutsy, hyper-relevant story with great representation for sex workers!)
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I'm not a huge superhero person, but SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE was a joy to watch. Lovable characters, a great story, and some of the most incredible art I've seen in an animated film.
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"The story you’re about to see is true... as far as I know." THE TALE is a story of sexual abuse, but it's also a compelling, measured exploration of memory and storytelling. Nuanced, essential watching for living in a time of Judge Kavanaughs.<br />
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What were your favorite movies this year?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-53583893632775514802018-10-01T13:29:00.000-04:002018-10-01T15:08:37.544-04:00Made By Women Horror Giveaway!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm so happy to be teaming up with two other awesome, talented authors this month for this "made by women" fall giveaway! Enter below by following all three authors on Twitter for a chance to win ALL of the following (three print books and three DVDs):</div>
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<b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Am-Not-Your-Final-Girl/dp/0692966633/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1538415878&sr=8-2&keywords=i+am+not+your+final+girl" target="_blank">I Am Not Your Final Girl</a> </i>by Claire C. Holland: </b>A timely collection of poetry that follows the final girl of slasher cinema - the girl who survives until the end - on a journey of retribution and reclamation. From the white picket fences of 1970s Haddonfield to the apocalyptic end of the world, Holland confronts the role of women in relation to subjects including feminism, sexuality, violence, and healing in the world of Trump and the MeToo movement.<br />
<b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Breathe-Erin-Sweet-Al-Mehairi-ebook/dp/B076C3YSLC/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1538415913&sr=8-5&keywords=erin+sweet+al" target="_blank">Breathe. Breathe.</a></i> by Erin Sweet Al-Mehairi: </b><i>Breathe. Breathe.</i> is a collection of dark poetry and short fiction exploring the surreal depths of humanity. It’s a representation of how life breaks us apart and words put us back together. Purged onto the pages, dark emotions flow, urging readers into murky seas and grim forests, to the fine line between breathing and death.<br />
<b><i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Love-Slaughter-Sara-Tantlinger-ebook/dp/B01N18DZMA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538415947&sr=8-1&keywords=love+for+slaughter" target="_blank">Love For Slaughter</a> </i>by Sara Tantlinger: </b>This debut collection of poetry from Sara Tantlinger takes a dark look at all the horrors of love, the pleasures of flesh, and the lust for blood. For discerning fans of the macabre, look no further than<i> Love For Slaughter</i>.<br />
<b><i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3177316/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Honeymoon</a> </i>(directed by Leigh Janiak):</b> A newlywed couple finds their lake-country honeymoon descend into chaos after Paul finds Bea wandering and disoriented in the middle of the night.<br />
<b><i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1959332/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">American Mary</a> </i>(directed by Jen and Sylvia Soska): </b>The allure of easy money sends Mary Mason, a medical student, into the world of underground surgeries which ends up leaving more marks on her than her so called "freakish" clients.<br />
<b><i><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098084/?ref_=nv_sr_2" target="_blank">Pet Sematary</a> </i>(directed by Mary Lambert): </b>Behind a young family's home in Maine is a terrible secret that holds the power of life after death. When tragedy strikes, the threat of that power soon becomes undeniable.<br />
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<script src="https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js"></script>Sorry, but due to costs this giveaway is U.S. only! Giveaway ends October 31st at midnight PST.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-59064457795083014742018-02-01T15:52:00.002-05:002018-02-27T14:41:55.509-05:00Book Giveaway!I'm so excited to kick off Women in Horror Month this year by giving away two PRINT copies of my new book, <i>I Am Not Your Final Girl</i>!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYKi6JlmuZLZn3QbU1hlctEqxlocYyfFzDoIflBJh2uOt9yfbxb_jMFiFTSrv87oR3N7S3LyWJP9do4PJb5RSw57rIGflo0bp7dPvJd1c_HfyQekSdHc-w12l4U236_pzef1Ys1OR-gZWF/s1600/finalgirl1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1221" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYKi6JlmuZLZn3QbU1hlctEqxlocYyfFzDoIflBJh2uOt9yfbxb_jMFiFTSrv87oR3N7S3LyWJP9do4PJb5RSw57rIGflo0bp7dPvJd1c_HfyQekSdHc-w12l4U236_pzef1Ys1OR-gZWF/s320/finalgirl1.jpg" width="283" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2y8j51h-Z3fx5JbBRDokr9bW9TGeM7jerGiviM6hHhpvpbsgHzIW8RFisVHIgk2ZzMlIZW0bNT0h6Tn2x32qMAaYfmv8puzInmWvEQwrlKCU0jrQJp-nanbWbD0_mBC5hZ12MdwJXO7eP/s1600/finalgirl2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1216" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2y8j51h-Z3fx5JbBRDokr9bW9TGeM7jerGiviM6hHhpvpbsgHzIW8RFisVHIgk2ZzMlIZW0bNT0h6Tn2x32qMAaYfmv8puzInmWvEQwrlKCU0jrQJp-nanbWbD0_mBC5hZ12MdwJXO7eP/s320/finalgirl2.jpg" width="284" /></a></div>
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<i>From Claire C. Holland, a timely collection of poetry that follows the final girl of slasher cinema - the girl who survives until the end - on a journey of retribution and reclamation. From the white picket fences of 1970s Haddonfield to the apocalyptic end of the world, I Am Not Your Final Girl confronts the role of women in relation to subjects including feminism, violence, motherhood, sexuality, and assault in the world of Trump and the MeToo movement. Each poem centers on a fictional character from horror cinema, and explores the many ways in which women find empowerment through their own perceived monstrousness.</i><br />
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The giveaway will run until the end of the month (and you can get additional points by tweeting about the giveaway as often as once a day). More info on the book can be found <a href="https://www.clairecholland.com/" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0798XK4MC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1516830691&sr=8-1&keywords=claire+c.+holland" target="_blank">here</a>, or you can preorder the Kindle version <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0798XK4MC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1516830691&sr=8-1&keywords=claire+c.+holland" target="_blank">here</a>. Thank you for entering!!<br />
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<script src="https://widget-prime.rafflecopter.com/launch.js"></script>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-26433618034223534792017-11-01T18:54:00.000-04:002017-11-01T19:19:07.625-04:0031 Days of Horror Roundup<div class="storify">
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There really must be something weird and unique about the way horror fans’ minds work, because there’s nothing like a full month of watching horror movies every day to reset my brain. This has probably been one of the most stressful years of my life (for lots of reasons, <a href="https://theslot.jezebel.com/youre-not-imagining-it-trump-really-is-making-us-all-s-1820042566" target="_blank">including the obvious</a>), and it’s been hard to enjoy, well, anything as much as usual. But there’s something so cathartic about watching horror movies when the world as you know it is shifting and cracking, revealing real and deep-seated ugliness all around you. It’s been a rough year, and Halloween came just in time.<br />
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Anyway, this is one of my favorite parts: recapping everything I watched and seeing how I felt about it all. Considering this has been an unbelievable year for horror, I’m not surprised that I watched a lot of new, great stuff this month. Let’s dive in! Use the slideshow above to scroll through my tweets recounting the month’s watches and read my quick takes.
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<b>Rewatches.</b> I watched a lot of new stuff in October, but as the month wore on I found myself, as usual, slipping back into old favorites. <i>Halloween II </i>was a standout for me this year because I’m pretty sure I haven’t watched that in at least a decade, but it still managed to scare me. I remember being a kid and seeing that hot tub murder, which I’m fairly certain turned me off hot tubs for life. Other oldies-but-goodies: <i>Halloween H20, Hocus Pocus, It Follows, Mother’s Day, Sorority Row, Don’t Breathe, </i>and<i> The Faculty</i>. I also rewatched <i>Alice, Sweet Alice, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Amityville Horror, </i>and<i> Turistas</i>, but don’t particularly recommend any of those. Oh – and as usual, I finished the month off with an annual viewing of <i>Trick ‘r Treat</i>, the greatest Halloween movie of all time (come at me).<br />
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<b>The meh. </b>As always, there were some duds and under-achievers. This was my second try watching <i>Hell House LLC.</i>, and although I finished it this time around, I still couldn’t get into it. As someone who usually likes a good found footage horror movie, it pains me to say that maybe I’m just getting tired of this format – not to mention desensitized to it. I also checked out<i> Hostel II </i>for the first time, and found it to be pretty much exactly what I’ve come to <a href="http://www.razorappleblog.com/2015/10/review-green-inferno.html" target="_blank">expect from Eli Roth</a>: bad dialogue, mediocre acting, and a lot of gore. It’s kind of funny to me now, though, that the Hostel movies caused such an uproar when they came out. This movie was gory and gross, for sure, but it’s not even remotely shocking to me now.
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<i>Amityville the Awakening</i> was about as bad as everyone said it would be (after waiting years for a release date, it’s no surprise). The makeup on the possessed brother was so bad it made me laugh out loud and they committed the sin of making me dislike Jennifer Jason Leigh… but at least you can watch it for free on Google Play. <i>Wish Upon</i> was another PG-13 horror that I had low expectations for, but I actually think it would be a fun horror movie for a younger crowd. It has some goofy parts and is devoid of any real scares, but it held together all right and had a surprisingly ruthless ending that I liked.
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I’m a little torn on <i>The Survivalist</i>, because I did find it unique and interesting, and I’m sure certain people would love it. Unfortunately, I also found it depressing and a little too empty… which may have been the point, but was just not quite my cup of coffee. Check it out, though, if you’re into truly bleak post-apocalypse stuff. <i>The Void</i> also has me second-guessing myself, because so many people loved it, but I think I was expecting more of a suspenseful cult movie (a la The Invitation) and got a scifi monster movie instead. Again, that doesn’t make the movie bad, it’s just not my favorite thing.
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Now, I have to admit right off the bat here that I’m not a huge <i>Child’s Play</i> fan. I loved <i>Bride of Chucky</i> as a kid because I thought Jennifer Tilly was badass (still do), but it’s never been a favorite horror franchise of mine. So basically, there’s almost no way this movie could’ve been a home run for me. As it was, I enjoyed it. I thought Fiona Dourif did an incredible impression of Brad Dourif, though, so that was really fun to watch.
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Finally, <i>Stake Land II </i>was certainly not a bad effort. I still love the world they’ve created here, and The Mother was a creepy and effective new villain. Unfortunately, the plot just wasn’t tight enough and the final battle against The Mother was a big letdown. But maybe I just prefer to imagine Martin married and happy like he was at the beginning of the movie. The vampire apocalypse seems like a non-stop bummer, man.
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<b>The good. </b>So much good this year! It’s going to be difficult to recap succinctly, but here goes. Let’s start with<i> Hounds of Love</i>, which kicked off my October in terrifying style. Australian horror is killing it these days, guys. This movie was incredibly hard to watch, even though it managed to keep the most horrifying stuff off-screen (which was a relief, but also, wow, the places your imagination goes when that camera pans to blackness aren’t pretty). Harrowing, flat-out scary stuff here.
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Equally difficult to watch was <i>Gerald’s Game</i> – that ending hand scene will stick with me forever. I love a good, one-location survival horror, and this one pushed all the right buttons. Viewers are so split over the ending, but I think it’s kind of inconsequential, to be honest.
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<i>The Babysitter </i>and<i> Little Evil</i> were both flawed but genuinely fun and funny, and filled with hilarious characters. Samara Weaving’s babysitter character was refreshingly different (seriously, she seemed like the most chill babysitter a kid could ask for… for the most part) and I really look forward to seeing her in <i>Mayhem</i> later. <i>Little Evil </i>was a little too repetitive at times, and honestly a bit of a disappointment after <i>Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil</i>, but I also realize that’s a high bar. Overall, it was a heartwarming film with innumerable Easter eggs for horror fans, so how can I complain?
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<i>Creep 2</i> was a big surprise, considering the first <i>Creep</i> barely registered for me. I found this sequel much more compelling and unsettling, probably at least in part because the protagonist is a female this time around. It’s not just that, though – Desiree Akhavan (Sara) simply makes for a much more intriguing character than Patrick Brice’s broke videographer in the original. Sara’s motivations are more layered and complex, and thus, so are her responses to what Mark Duplass’s character (the titular creep) throws at her. I was into this.
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Speaking of creepy men, <i>M.F.A. </i>was a heartbreaking film about the ubiquity of rape on college campuses. In many ways effective, this movie was a little too muddled to really get its point across. The rape scenes were appropriately distressing to sit through (and not cheap or exploitative, in my opinion), and Francesca Eastwood did a good job portraying the guilt and confusion a victim can feel following a rape. However, some parts of the movie were too pulpy and convoluted, and other aspects of Eastwood’s character seemed beyond the limits of suspension of disbelief. Frankly, while it's something that could possibly be better explored in more depth, the idea that being raped will make you a better artist seems like a dangerous one to throw around to no real end.
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And then there’s <i>Life</i>. Ah, <i>Life</i>. I know everybody likes to make fun of you, and yes, you are a silly, silly movie. There are inconsistencies and plot holes and then there’s that “Goodnight, Moon” scene! That was a really terrible speech, Jake Gyllenhaal. And yet... I liked it! So sue me.
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<b>New (to me) classics.</b> Finally, we’re down to the Elite Three – my favorite movies of October 2017! Let’s start with a new classic that is actually very old: <i>The Slumber Party Massacre</i>. I can’t believe I’ve never seen this before, because now I have to go buy it. It has all the trappings of a perfect 80s slasher: sex, drugs, bad perms, and a crazed killer with a power drill. The amount of boobs in this movie is staggering. Honestly, though, it couldn’t be more perfect.<br />
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Apparently a lot of people hated my next favorite, <i>Better Watch Out</i>. I’ve heard some people say it’s because the trailer was a “trick,” and that it was advertised more as a <i>Home Alone</i> kind of horror comedy while actually being something completely different. I can’t speak to that because I have to yet to even look at the trailer (my preferred method of watching movies), but personally, I loved it. I loved that the movie you think you’re getting turns out to be something much darker and meaner, but it also maintains its sense of humor throughout. Right down to the final minute, I was both on the edge of my seat and laughing out loud. It was a great ride.
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Last but definitely not least, and probably destined to be a forever favorite of mine,<i> Super Dark Times</i>. This movie, man – it got <i>into</i> me. Under my skin. Maybe it was the pervasive, oppressive sense of doom lingering over this story from the first scene until the last. Or maybe it was the depressing way that the dialogue nailed how teenaged boys talk, or the melancholy pall over the authentic 90s setting. Regardless, this movie was pitch perfect and penetrating.
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So that’s it! One more year down. What gems did you discover this Halloween season? Let me know in the comments or on <a href="https://twitter.com/ClaireCWrites" target="_blank">Twitter</a>!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-39958094092355509102017-05-27T20:19:00.001-04:002017-05-27T20:22:17.784-04:005 Atmospheric Horror Films to Watch (+ Book News!)Sometimes being a writer feels so very incompatible with being anything else – a businessperson, a self-promoter, a social media maven. I think it’s imperative for so many writers, myself included, to carve out a fair amount of solitude in order to get into a mental state that allows for creativity. If anyone was wondering where I’ve been lately, well, I’ve been trying to make that creativity thing happen. More specifically, I’ve been trying to <a href="https://www.clairecholland.com/books/" target="_blank">finish my book.</a><br />
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The good news? The book is done, and I’m really, really excited about it. You’ll be hearing much more about that in the near future (I swear!). The bad news is that means I’m now facing a slew of new “writer responsibilities,” many of which (like that self-promotion thing) are relatively new to me. This blog had to take a bit of a backseat while I was writing the book, and it seems like that’s a trend that’s going to continue, unfortunately. I wish I could do my day job, write a book, promote that book, and still write a blog post every week, but I’m not that writer. At least not yet.
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In any case, I hope you’ll stick with me if you’ve enjoyed my writing in the past, because this blog is definitely not going anywhere. Horror is still my number one love – my book is about final girls, after all – I’m just not able to maintain the schedule that seems required these days to keep the social media machine happily fed (things move off the timeline and into the ether so dang quickly, don’t they?). But I’m in this for the long haul, and I’m hoping this blog will only become more expansive and a bigger part of my life in the future. I love writing about horror; I love the art it’s brought into my life and I love that it’s connected me with so many cool people. Y’all are awesome, truly.
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Anyway, onto the real reason you came here, right? Some people call them slow, other people call them boring… but I call these movies masterpieces of ambience and suspense. And I think I’m right.
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<b>A Dark Song.</b> This is the movie that inspired this post; it absolutely drips with eerie, unsettling atmosphere. The film plays out as a chamber piece, with a bereaved mother and a bitter occultist living in an isolated farmhouse and undergoing a grueling, months-long practice in the dark arts. If magic is real (fingers crossed), I imagine this is what it’s really like to attempt something as monumental as contacting the spirit world. It’s not a fun, spooky foray into Ouija boards and chanting for an evening – it’s methodical, arduous work and true self-sacrifice. This film captures that.<br />
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<b>All the Boys Love Mandy Lane.</b> I’m pretty sure I’ve written about this movie before, and its unhurried approach to the teen slasher film. There’s nothing revolutionary here, but I love that the film has this leisurely, summer-hot, hormone-soaked aura that just radiates from the screen. It gives viewers the heady feeling of being a teenager again, unsupervised and surrounded by members of the opposite sex that you’re only just beginning to figure out. Then it adds in a little murder.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvDyxl65tul3g5IHJEqj1WgEiA3vlS-yHvyR8B7PLxPxjl7tPjte0d6CltJzEEW6JQwnc5pMNuhrmRKZ2Y2JQztAS1dh1nciRXKOH6erIE6aeqJhJqWWewhDijRKZW_ky5W1lTkzjat-Et/s1600/lovers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="600" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvDyxl65tul3g5IHJEqj1WgEiA3vlS-yHvyR8B7PLxPxjl7tPjte0d6CltJzEEW6JQwnc5pMNuhrmRKZ2Y2JQztAS1dh1nciRXKOH6erIE6aeqJhJqWWewhDijRKZW_ky5W1lTkzjat-Et/s640/lovers.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>Only Lovers Left Alive. </b>Where would a depressed vampire spend an eternity making sad music and finding minimal enjoyment in things he once loved (like blood popsicles, for example)? In the bleak, under-saturated landscape of Detroit, of course. This film appeals deeply to the emo kid in me, while also being sleekly artistic and, let’s just say it, really fucking cool. This is a film that lets you indulge in the melancholy suspicion that humankind is probably ultimately doomed, while also feeling like if we’re going to go out with a whimper rather than a bang, Jim Jarmusch’s way is the way to do it.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLXXWwZ0tygqoSEMbxqKLx7rAMqm1o1dpnmWxMvaF_H2aa27rOUtnoeGVaVCsapD-Sv_IDcCeSun3SHZ9ZagHGxykCucv3S5niu8dzCyLnQbE0WoG6rdoDEzWKYIWTuVq-c576cD8O4q_d/s1600/innkeepers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="340" data-original-width="800" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLXXWwZ0tygqoSEMbxqKLx7rAMqm1o1dpnmWxMvaF_H2aa27rOUtnoeGVaVCsapD-Sv_IDcCeSun3SHZ9ZagHGxykCucv3S5niu8dzCyLnQbE0WoG6rdoDEzWKYIWTuVq-c576cD8O4q_d/s640/innkeepers.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>The Innkeepers. </b>Ti West’s film <i>The House of the Devil </i>rightfully gets a ton of kudos for its authentic 70s throwback style and its subtle, creeping sense of dread, but if I were pressed to pick a favorite film of his, it would be <i>The Innkeepers</i>. For all of <i>Devil’s</i> retro charm, <i>Innkeepers</i> has a leg up both character and story wise, and it manages to ratchet up the suspense with an even more agonizingly slow burn than its predecessor. Frankly I recommend both films, but everything is a contest these days, isn’t it?
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKMXi9g-xKKNcbrj7vm6MC7rh3gpAoyxkS4Ad1_rsl_DIT6PjzSbGo1aozwubIEyeGjSzikkiWvIHXc2e2Fn8Z_cgVweLLmumZJGGh_ZZ_I3V5q7gLz4dfILFaqg-WKHkCIloftqj4oh1l/s1600/lords.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKMXi9g-xKKNcbrj7vm6MC7rh3gpAoyxkS4Ad1_rsl_DIT6PjzSbGo1aozwubIEyeGjSzikkiWvIHXc2e2Fn8Z_cgVweLLmumZJGGh_ZZ_I3V5q7gLz4dfILFaqg-WKHkCIloftqj4oh1l/s640/lords.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>Lords of Salem.</b> I’ve heard it said that you either love Rob Zombie or you hate him, and I’m here to make a rebuttal. Personally, I find his films to be a mixed bag, and I often find myself enjoying some parts of his films but not others. <i>Lords of Salem </i>fits into this category for me, because while the story isn’t totally there, the environment and its accompanying mood act as characters – ones that I adore. This film is sinister, grungy, and neon-lit; and while the music is nothing mind-blowing, it fits the tone of the film perfectly, folding itself into the dark parts of your brain where I imagine it will stay for quite a while.
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What about you? Do you like slow burns like these movies, or do you find the burn a little too slow? Any favorites? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter!<br />
<span style="background-color: #bd081c; background-position: 3px 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 14px 14px; border-bottom-left-radius: 2px; border-bottom-right-radius: 2px; border-top-left-radius: 2px; border-top-right-radius: 2px; border: none; color: white; cursor: pointer; display: none; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; left: 42px; line-height: 20px; opacity: 1; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; position: absolute; text-align: center; text-indent: 20px; top: 2156px; width: auto; z-index: 8675309;">Save</span><span style="background-color: #bd081c; background-position: 3px 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 14px 14px; border-bottom-left-radius: 2px; border-bottom-right-radius: 2px; border-top-left-radius: 2px; border-top-right-radius: 2px; border: none; color: white; cursor: pointer; display: none; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; left: 42px; line-height: 20px; opacity: 1; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; position: absolute; text-align: center; text-indent: 20px; top: 2156px; width: auto; z-index: 8675309;">Save</span><span style="background-color: #bd081c; background-position: 3px 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 14px 14px; border-bottom-left-radius: 2px; border-bottom-right-radius: 2px; border-top-left-radius: 2px; border-top-right-radius: 2px; border: none; color: white; cursor: pointer; display: none; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; left: 42px; line-height: 20px; opacity: 1; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; position: absolute; text-align: center; text-indent: 20px; top: 2156px; width: auto; z-index: 8675309;">Save</span><span style="background-color: #bd081c; background-position: 3px 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: 14px 14px; border-bottom-left-radius: 2px; border-bottom-right-radius: 2px; border-top-left-radius: 2px; border-top-right-radius: 2px; border: none; color: white; cursor: pointer; display: none; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; left: 42px; line-height: 20px; opacity: 1; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; position: absolute; text-align: center; text-indent: 20px; top: 2156px; width: auto; z-index: 8675309;">Save</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-46873592542129419762017-03-08T15:07:00.002-05:002017-03-09T15:42:49.335-05:00A Day Stained Red<i>This is a personal post that delves into politics. If that's not your thing and you just come here for horror, that's totally cool. Feel free to skip this, or scroll to the bottom of the post if you just want to read one of my new final girl horror poems.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Today is the International Women’s Day. Today, women across the country are striking in support of the Day Without a Woman Strike, to bring awareness to the myriad ways that women are still not equal in our society.
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<br />
But not enough women.
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<br />
When I planned on writing a post in honor of this day, I intended to write something full of inspiration. Something uplifting. Something to honor the women who have fought for us in the past, as well as the women still fighting for us now. I had so much hope that this day would manage to replicate the effects of the <a href="http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/03/march-8-international-womens-strike-poland-black-monday.html" target="_blank">historic strikes in Iceland and Poland</a>, where 90% of women showed up and caused real, tangible change. <i>Finally</i>. Because in 2017, we are <i>still</i> not considered equals in our patriarchal society.
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We are <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/donald-trump-sexism-tracker-every-offensive-comment-in-one-place/" target="_blank">not considered equals</a> by our president, one of the most (rightfully) scrutinized men in the country, a man who is meant to lead our society by example. We are not considered equal within the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/07/the-marines-naked-photo-scandal-shows-military-culture-is-still-sexist/?utm_term=.aa482654b2ec" target="_blank">military</a> or the <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2014/05/19/90039/explaining-the-gender-wage-gap/" target="_blank">job market</a> or the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/emergency-room-wait-times-sexism/410515/" target="_blank">doctor’s office</a> or the <a href="https://qz.com/599999/at-work-as-at-home-men-reap-the-benefits-of-womens-invisible-labor/" target="_blank">home</a>. We are <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/what-its-like-to-use-a-public-bathroom-while-trans-20160331" target="_blank">not protected</a>, and we are not given the tools, or often even <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/texas-passed-a-harsh-anti-abortion-law-now-we-have-proof-its-hurting-women-bf7725149a58#.w4jsem3gj" target="_blank">the right</a>, to protect ourselves. We are not victims whining for handouts or special privileges, but we are victimized by this toxic culture. All we want is something that is, to my mind, fairly simple: the same rights and privileges afforded to men in every way.
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And yet, so many women can’t seem to see these things like I do. They can’t see the things that so many disadvantaged, poor, minority, disabled, and trans women do. Or they’re <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/casey-cavanagh/why-we-still-need-feminism_b_5837366.html" target="_blank">choosing to ignore it</a>.
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Before I wrote this post, I tortured myself for far too long looking at comments on Twitter about today’s strike. Comments from women – generally white, middle- and upper-class women – proclaiming <i>they</i> don’t need feminism because <i>their</i> lives are just fine.
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And you know what? They’re probably right.
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If you are not a minority, if you are not poor or disabled or generally seen as “other” (i.e., the enemy) by society at large, your life probably is fine just as it is. But to ignore the lived experiences of other women who are now screaming for our recognition and aid – if you can’t even be bothered to <i>acknowledge</i> the struggles of those women, or worse, choose to outright deny and silence their experiences – well. That is a shocking and disturbing lack of empathy. That is cruelty. That is you becoming the oppressor.
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So. I’m not writing this post with the hope and confidence I wish I had. I just don’t have it in me today, and I can’t put on false bravado in the face of so many people – <i>my</i> people, including white liberal women I thought I could count on – perpetuating a culture that actively harms us. I am hurt. I am hurting. And I know there are millions of women out there hurting so much worse than I am.
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At the same time, I <i>know</i> that there are so many women doing the work of striking and marching and fighting for those of us who can’t seem to find it in ourselves right now. Not enough women, probably. But enough to give me the small glimmer of hope I need to hold on to. For some of us, it’s the tiniest wisp of a flame, and it’s always in danger of burning out. But if we help one another, if we do what we can when we can do it, I think we can keep that flame alive. We can stoke it on little by little, until we are able to pick up the torch ourselves and run with it.
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Today, I’m doing what I can. I’m wearing red and abstaining from work and consumerism in honor of those who can’t afford to. I wish I were marching, but as someone with anxiety that is currently somewhat crippling, I can’t get myself out of the house. So I’m writing this. And I’m hoping that for now, it’s enough.
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And one last thing: a poem from my <a href="https://www.clairecholland.com/books" target="_blank">upcoming feminist collection</a>. It’s not the triumphant poem I wish I could post, but it’s the poem I’m feeling today, in solidarity with other women who are grasping at what little faith they can. Because if I can't be the strong woman today, at least I can write one into existence.<br />
<br />
<b>Shideh</b><br />
<b><i>Under the Shadow</i> (2016)</b><br />
<br />
Separate yourself, like sliding wire through<br />
clay. Divide your organs - heart, lungs, tongue,<br />
and brain. You think you need them all?<br />
You’d be shocked what a woman can live<br />
without. We’re like roaches, we thrive,<br />
<br />
pull our tired bodies through war, things<br />
we never asked for, with children strapped<br />
to our backs. Now don’t forget the smaller bits:<br />
tonsils, gallbladder. Your ovaries, your veins.<br />
A box for bile, another to keep you sane. Make<br />
<br />
a plan. Mark each box with an x and let it sit.<br />
Let it fester in the dark, grow mold, grow rabid<br />
with disuse. Your personality is apartments,<br />
doors that can be closed. When they come<br />
they’ll take pieces, they can’t carry it all.<br />
<br />
They can’t change you, too much. Can’t know<br />
what you do at home. Just try not to howl,<br />
or shudder, when you see: when it happens to us<br />
it’s for the best, but when it happens to them<br />
it’s tragedy.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-89580388805634591342017-01-31T19:09:00.000-05:002017-01-31T19:21:23.473-05:00Cool As Hell: Neon Demon Poster RoundupSay what you will about <i>The Neon Demon</i> (personally, <a href="http://www.razorappleblog.com/2016/10/movie-roundup-12-all-movies-i-watched.html">I thought</a> the story was pretty thin, but unquestionably beautiful to look at), but there's no denying its gorgeous aesthetic has inspired some equally gorgeous posters. Below are some of my favorites, both from the studio and from artists found online.<br />
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I've tried to credit everyone's work, but please let me know if I missed you or if you'd rather I remove your poster, and I will remedy the situation.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioWyFgCgPeIdE-XeyaP7ht9GUgSKQemP-O96OPmmsElpmj5asX_zVxk8tXVCuBMQx2gaPsu6wgbn8t8rWX6dSW5rndsNgutmk_sh8miJfudc3_488kNETtjMF_LN3nl_O0CjeJdTA4RW6C/s1600/AdamJuresko.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioWyFgCgPeIdE-XeyaP7ht9GUgSKQemP-O96OPmmsElpmj5asX_zVxk8tXVCuBMQx2gaPsu6wgbn8t8rWX6dSW5rndsNgutmk_sh8miJfudc3_488kNETtjMF_LN3nl_O0CjeJdTA4RW6C/s640/AdamJuresko.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/464163137/the-neon-demon-alternative-movie-poster?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=the%20neon%20demon%20poster&ref=sr_gallery_3" target="_blank"><i>via</i></a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXgrGpyimXyYx9LcQvQmQW6Taey20A2aJaCzyvt9u_np2WApoGqih1-D0nNxroZWczPWsESQTJH2X3SThaV_HYOE5B99jwZEK-GksxbF8hKEwayBcJ3UL-uB9L77BTvyuEbNJ7evZ_0k8U/s1600/Alleycat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXgrGpyimXyYx9LcQvQmQW6Taey20A2aJaCzyvt9u_np2WApoGqih1-D0nNxroZWczPWsESQTJH2X3SThaV_HYOE5B99jwZEK-GksxbF8hKEwayBcJ3UL-uB9L77BTvyuEbNJ7evZ_0k8U/s640/Alleycat.jpg" width="452" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/464534553/neon-demon-alternative-horror-movie?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=the%20neon%20demon&ref=sr_gallery_1" target="_blank"><i>via</i></a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZWUTgfOXthYwEgLXDHCGmSOrYwUY32v0vmqmsZpraBNL_iAYwBtReIJOClewcoFVCY0HUJPvkdg2Nw7Uya68kjjzJB1bYreXfNMSEvm4P8iGjLahz_0ErpA6_VSkaGWAMaprj-tzzOxKy/s1600/chinn_neon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZWUTgfOXthYwEgLXDHCGmSOrYwUY32v0vmqmsZpraBNL_iAYwBtReIJOClewcoFVCY0HUJPvkdg2Nw7Uya68kjjzJB1bYreXfNMSEvm4P8iGjLahz_0ErpA6_VSkaGWAMaprj-tzzOxKy/s640/chinn_neon.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://alternativemovieposters.com/amp/neon-demon-matt-chinn/" target="_blank">via</a></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30sHW0xPLv3jyZ6okBcyacHcuQAdYH0M6gWf9ojk133-faE8tzf2Nha12-83_kllzd_AlDQpIzkJY-sWutLtc2FIyYxaTqoj_BS8jtnDROLZaGgooDzKN4Nj0Xa-rsXj9zuSR_-awtXYH/s1600/glitchway_neon2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30sHW0xPLv3jyZ6okBcyacHcuQAdYH0M6gWf9ojk133-faE8tzf2Nha12-83_kllzd_AlDQpIzkJY-sWutLtc2FIyYxaTqoj_BS8jtnDROLZaGgooDzKN4Nj0Xa-rsXj9zuSR_-awtXYH/s640/glitchway_neon2.jpg" width="452" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://alternativemovieposters.com/amp/neon-demon-glitchway-2/" target="_blank">via</a></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyRJlNJ0ArbCIDjR6B0VzaSchJ0lpNhtqAxl5yTa4qQDiynW07QojlHOQu0VLq4RNCDv-ZwGCeIOsu0ZNDrsSN0q5vzSEjr-agUTD2OV2zGZ71oCl72FSkPCviSlU0JN-KR_pdUsGdxgtv/s1600/godfrey_neon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyRJlNJ0ArbCIDjR6B0VzaSchJ0lpNhtqAxl5yTa4qQDiynW07QojlHOQu0VLq4RNCDv-ZwGCeIOsu0ZNDrsSN0q5vzSEjr-agUTD2OV2zGZ71oCl72FSkPCviSlU0JN-KR_pdUsGdxgtv/s640/godfrey_neon.jpg" width="432" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://alternativemovieposters.com/amp/neon-demon-john-godfrey/" target="_blank">via</a></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMDGo1xIEideyHeVajtjXf-cKi7M1Bwe9ow65UEd4Z1LaNICL3akNwT6FMYeNCLjuJr6qRPmQVfd8a6CpHv5oIs3WSr83UezmcJeA_HUNPSuE6rRabXBeGVPveODjmLZ2YBK3yp_6anQoF/s1600/janks1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMDGo1xIEideyHeVajtjXf-cKi7M1Bwe9ow65UEd4Z1LaNICL3akNwT6FMYeNCLjuJr6qRPmQVfd8a6CpHv5oIs3WSr83UezmcJeA_HUNPSuE6rRabXBeGVPveODjmLZ2YBK3yp_6anQoF/s640/janks1.jpg" width="452" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="http://janksreviews.com/neon-demon-new-posters/" target="_blank">via</a></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifnzHuDgShDXEruF3FF_hJU5W1TwG1UHXpB5XU6RNA6plk_b3FD2-Y-z-qy5ekg7NAyBLZ1LHxKsyUrH6W0dr7wU_uSZpfxJAr1hyphenhyphenoFBKx2_8U1Ss-_xZN0T9VCIFY3nN_WR6-_CriWNuy/s1600/twine_neon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifnzHuDgShDXEruF3FF_hJU5W1TwG1UHXpB5XU6RNA6plk_b3FD2-Y-z-qy5ekg7NAyBLZ1LHxKsyUrH6W0dr7wU_uSZpfxJAr1hyphenhyphenoFBKx2_8U1Ss-_xZN0T9VCIFY3nN_WR6-_CriWNuy/s640/twine_neon.jpg" width="452" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://alternativemovieposters.com/amp/neon-demon-mark-twine/" target="_blank">via</a></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7x1BeivvXcrgu93Y4vZm25vsnHppx8sSEWeTn2Q1ynyqhfMmNl4TWeOh34PXPvNQmWGqLrUNh99qgWkKfUmanf3AmAqjbaP_4KyOlZ0t3RS1KUaqag3-9kDGvQJ4zOQYA5_UCuZ4TdXM1/s1600/The-Neon-Demon-poster-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7x1BeivvXcrgu93Y4vZm25vsnHppx8sSEWeTn2Q1ynyqhfMmNl4TWeOh34PXPvNQmWGqLrUNh99qgWkKfUmanf3AmAqjbaP_4KyOlZ0t3RS1KUaqag3-9kDGvQJ4zOQYA5_UCuZ4TdXM1/s640/The-Neon-Demon-poster-2.jpg" width="478" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>studio poster</i></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT4BeALAf9zHikgY-roaxbPUTKyqAOxp2Do8vros0bL9FOD8IV1fv3mQ7b2Iu3NmkMnj_tjdE_lKU0SjcMiReLv-DswbCvj38XrepVhZoRW2iwY8AzQu0-ho9ArY75QaXrus_tgXTN-4wT/s1600/littlevioletghost.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT4BeALAf9zHikgY-roaxbPUTKyqAOxp2Do8vros0bL9FOD8IV1fv3mQ7b2Iu3NmkMnj_tjdE_lKU0SjcMiReLv-DswbCvj38XrepVhZoRW2iwY8AzQu0-ho9ArY75QaXrus_tgXTN-4wT/s640/littlevioletghost.jpg" width="424" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="http://littlevioletghost.deviantart.com/art/THE-NEON-DEMON-poster-629884993" target="_blank">via</a></i></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI0p3pnSZbK5gKFpCRWmOXBvkZeYT3e-IIzBZn_jFfvoX58cglp92Rz29TqgkOoc7bO-RFFDiMg96qgKpGJ9hk6hzBh_zJD7BOlkYe1KPmUgQX9yOwAyjdDaJVAVdwBF55oLwVhMUp1TOn/s1600/nikita_neon.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI0p3pnSZbK5gKFpCRWmOXBvkZeYT3e-IIzBZn_jFfvoX58cglp92Rz29TqgkOoc7bO-RFFDiMg96qgKpGJ9hk6hzBh_zJD7BOlkYe1KPmUgQX9yOwAyjdDaJVAVdwBF55oLwVhMUp1TOn/s640/nikita_neon.gif" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://alternativemovieposters.com/amp/neon-demon-nikita-kaun/" target="_blank">via</a></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFN-KtsnQiH6wIHMCKFo13xPoPGEV6R58gkINxb3l_2LWyXsn_Aak3VjXmWLy87JRA_xK321UCq0ThsAUNnUCcIo_t_mz6Rj6eUAQ92WKbaCaPSFqTcfpUtAiMZWpuuze8pl9K2mRfrGQF/s1600/neon_demon_ver3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFN-KtsnQiH6wIHMCKFo13xPoPGEV6R58gkINxb3l_2LWyXsn_Aak3VjXmWLy87JRA_xK321UCq0ThsAUNnUCcIo_t_mz6Rj6eUAQ92WKbaCaPSFqTcfpUtAiMZWpuuze8pl9K2mRfrGQF/s640/neon_demon_ver3.jpg" width="446" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>studio poster</i></td></tr>
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What are your favorite movie posters? Tell me in the comments or on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/clairecwrites/" target="_blank">Twitter</a>!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-3517488859520705402017-01-26T17:10:00.000-05:002017-01-26T23:05:46.316-05:00M. Night Shyamalan Nails Dark Humor in ‘Split’<i>This post DOES NOT contain spoilers</i><i> for </i>Split<i>, but it does have spoilers </i><i>for </i>The Visit<i>.</i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBmyaH0NyZlmdt93L8QPi3Kos9aL_2oJfD8YrbAemXw-ID-PfcHj8whh5NW0sTd6zw0Taqg4wxdLcTtwUb7I5i4D1ix9t26B0pSSBrZb-THuBNJodE2XviGt3dujZ09y5FLG6HbgL8Cuxc/s1600/hedwig.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBmyaH0NyZlmdt93L8QPi3Kos9aL_2oJfD8YrbAemXw-ID-PfcHj8whh5NW0sTd6zw0Taqg4wxdLcTtwUb7I5i4D1ix9t26B0pSSBrZb-THuBNJodE2XviGt3dujZ09y5FLG6HbgL8Cuxc/s640/hedwig.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>McAvoy as the alter "Hedwig."</i></td></tr>
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A grown man, speaking and acting like an oversexed nine-year-old boy while dancing spasmodically to Kanye West albums for the girl he’s just kidnapped.
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A mentally ill nursing home escapee, her mouth covered in powdered sugar, screaming “Yahtzee!” at two terrified children.
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A <i>second</i> mentally ill nursing home escapee, rubbing a dirtied diaper in a child’s face, claiming cheerfully that it’ll help him get over his fear of germs.<br />
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These are just a few of the most darkly humorous moments I’ve had the pleasure (and discomfort) of enduring while watching M. Night Shyamalan’s films <i>Split</i> and <i>The Visit</i>. If nothing else, you have to give the man credit for absolutely nailing the black humor in his two latest films. Specifically, the impeccable way Shyamalan manages to blend a near-constant sense of creeping dread and horror with some of the funniest, darkest humor I’ve seen in a while. Because it wasn’t always this way.
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2q6whHPlSXdFveSv8IhtVVlrbWybQRnkqeoCjiFCQypOwrdF83c4J9dbPnMRq-ChyegK_sOrbRjpGbUiaFN0g-5VAtHzMSNweUEn30QH0zIHsZX-nxZZQMjK6GVmcYOIqKw5au_3CTKz1/s1600/zooey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2q6whHPlSXdFveSv8IhtVVlrbWybQRnkqeoCjiFCQypOwrdF83c4J9dbPnMRq-ChyegK_sOrbRjpGbUiaFN0g-5VAtHzMSNweUEn30QH0zIHsZX-nxZZQMjK6GVmcYOIqKw5au_3CTKz1/s640/zooey.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Deschanel's wide-eyed sense of weirdness pervaded </i>The Happening,<i> to its detriment.</i></td></tr>
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Does anyone remember <i>The Happening</i>? In which Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel (odd casting to begin with) spent an entire film trying to outrun plants that made people suicidal. The film had some scary moments – an old woman cracking her head through multiple windows before dying is a particularly memorable one – but it was entirely undermined by an offbeat, wacky tone that shifted in and out of focus throughout the film’s runtime. Deschanel spent the majority of the movie with her eyes comically widened, making a bizarre “who me?” face that only confused her characterization and the plot, while Wahlberg aimlessly threw around flat jokes at strange junctures. The result was what I imagine to be an amalgam of the worst parts of a Wes Anderson film mixed with the worst parts of Hitchcock. In short, the tone was totally off.
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Looking farther back, I’m inclined to believe tone may have been an issue for <i>The Village</i> and <i>Lady in the Water</i> as well, though I remember those films even less clearly than I do <i>The Happening</i>. But all three of those films seem to suffer in part due to an overly serious tone, muddied by sporadic bouts of off-the-wall goofiness. The uncomfortable, occasionally laughable portrayal of Adrien Brody’s mentally challenged character in <i>The Village</i>, for example. And <i>Lady in the Water</i>, while touching (Giamatti’s sweet performance is ever a knife to my heart), was always teetering on the verge of saccharine, even twee, with its cast full of quirky misfits. It just <i>didn’t quite work</i>.
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2tDccemUgwIzCyRAq_NM3M3_rXkYeqPrnnUl8eupVwGYjinlRkGOVMa7A_XW3IWTW2mVUAGBeL1EsLNCmKXeaYQT2rhd0nqZth7hPoFRRbvkv2mmbHdLepwVdIE5yyiHB7m9iCkIZQNd5/s1600/patricia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2tDccemUgwIzCyRAq_NM3M3_rXkYeqPrnnUl8eupVwGYjinlRkGOVMa7A_XW3IWTW2mVUAGBeL1EsLNCmKXeaYQT2rhd0nqZth7hPoFRRbvkv2mmbHdLepwVdIE5yyiHB7m9iCkIZQNd5/s640/patricia.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>McAvoy as the eerily calm alter, "Patricia."</i></td></tr>
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<i>The Visit</i>, however, seems to be where Shyamalan began to get his groove back. This film did a laudable job of mixing primal, visceral horror (body horror, psych horror, bio horror) with the darkest of humor, and <i>Split</i> takes that even further, and improves on it in some ways. So rarely have I experienced a horror film like <i>Split</i>, in which I so consistently found myself laughing out loud while simultaneously feeling deeply unsettled, anxious, or scared. <i>The Visit </i>was wall-to-wall oddball horror that had me laughing as much as shrieking; <i>Split</i> is something more nuanced, more fleshed-out, and more disturbing altogether.<br />
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In <i>Split</i>, Shyamalan maintains an uncanny sense that something is not quite right in this world (beyond the obvious mental health issues), which fills every single scene with a sense of impending doom that stretches on and on as your nerves fray further. One minute you’re laughing at James McAvoy’s silly, innocent portrayal of a nine-year-old alter, while the next minute you’re confronted with the wide, sad eyes of Anya Taylor-Joy as the terrified abducted, looking on. We may initially laugh at McAvoy, now attired in a skirt and shawl and speaking in a high, feminine voice, but it only takes moments to realize that this new alter may be one of the most quietly dangerous of all. You’re constantly drawn into McAvoy’s creepily charismatic, often amusing presence, and then pulled back to the perspectives of the traumatized characters he seeks to harm grievously.
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgChX9Yk2l5oAwYvo3_MJNA8DUFbepXEPN3zVft6FUH05GRN0tpVygZotE_o0M9rFu-ffcsHBNYt2RBUVGX1DN9Q4jyX3N2jGPXhTMrJVI8fpaRq4pgQTeFL7praeTUcAvEatAlClv6Fd2F/s1600/anya.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgChX9Yk2l5oAwYvo3_MJNA8DUFbepXEPN3zVft6FUH05GRN0tpVygZotE_o0M9rFu-ffcsHBNYt2RBUVGX1DN9Q4jyX3N2jGPXhTMrJVI8fpaRq4pgQTeFL7praeTUcAvEatAlClv6Fd2F/s640/anya.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Taylor-Joy does wide-eyed terror right.</i></td></tr>
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The film has its faults, and although this isn’t exactly a review, I’ll quickly list just a couple: 1) The film is populated with characters doing typically horror-movie-stupid stuff several times too often (honestly, I haven't felt the need to judge characters' actions so harshly in quite some time, and I watch a <i>lot</i> of horror); and 2) I’d love for Shyamalan to explain to me why it was necessary – really necessary – to strip the teenaged girls down to their underwear for a large portion of the movie. Dennis has OCD, sure, but he also seems to have a hell of a lot of extra clothes lying around his place. He couldn't have lent the girls some sweats? Much of the horror film industry has moved past these clichés, and I think we could all endeavor to do so.
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But don’t let that distract from the larger point. <i>Split</i> walks a tightrope of restless suspense that I suspect will be highly enjoyable for the adrenaline junkies of horror fandom, and is roundly fun entertainment. That’s far more than I could’ve said about a Shyamalan film just a few years ago.
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So what did you think? Let me know here in the comments or over on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/clairecwrites/" target="_blank">Twitter</a>!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-37200884196090806492017-01-20T10:20:00.000-05:002017-01-20T10:20:15.096-05:00On Trump, Art, the Horror of Real Life, and a Way Forward (Plus an Announcement)This is how I know I am lucky: On November 9, 2016, I woke up feeling worse than I can remember feeling in my entire life.
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I’ve had bad days; days when I’ve been sick, scared, and hurt. I’ve dealt with frustrating medical issues. But I’ve never had a serious bout of depression, or an obstacle that threatened my life or livelihood. I’ve always had a support system to catch me when I fall.
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I’ve had anxious, scary days when a friend or family member was in pain or dealing with illness. But I’ve never had a family member become so ill that there wasn’t a sizable ray of hope illuminating the path forward.
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I’ve lost loved ones, but rarely in ways tragic or unexpected.
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So yes, I am so deeply lucky to be able to say that before November 9, I never had to confront the all encompassing sadness, fear, and anxiety that I felt the day after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. The fear I still feel, and a fear that only seems to grow by the day, for myself and for those less privileged than me.
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">This post isn’t about whining. I passed whining, through grief, and into full-on fighting mode weeks ago.</span></b></blockquote>
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Some of you – a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/21/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-popular-vote-final-count/" target="_blank">huge majority</a> of voters, in fact – know exactly what I mean. Others are sure to believe I’m nothing more than a “whiny liberal” who needs to sit down and shut up. Trump won. Get over it.
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For those of you who think this election was just like any other election, and so Democrats should accept defeat quietly (despite that Republicans <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/305749-republicans-employ-double-standard-to-discredit" target="_blank">failed to do any such thing</a> either time Obama won the presidency), I could point you to so many reasons why it’s not. For example, the <a href="http://www.salon.com/2016/11/11/this-cant-become-our-new-normal-hate-acts-reported-across-the-country-in-wake-of-trumps-victory/" target="_blank">rise in hate crimes</a> since the election, including those <a href="https://politicalwire.com/2017/01/14/gop-official-grabbed-town-worker-groin/" target="_blank">perpetrated by elected officials</a> who no longer feel the need to “be politically correct.” These crimes were and are directly incited by the <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/10/07/donald_trump_2005_tape_i_grab_women_by_the_pussy.html" target="_blank">sexist</a>, <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-outrageous-comments-mexicans-article-1.2773214" target="_blank">racist</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/09/meryl-streep-was-right-donald-trump-did-mock-a-disabled-reporter/?utm_term=.7a9b0f2b04ef" target="_blank">ableist</a> rhetoric employed by Trump throughout his campaign. Despite calls to “give him a chance,” nothing that Trump has done thus far has inspired any optimism in those of us who <a href="https://rewire.news/article/2017/01/13/total-abortion-ban-debuts-congress/" target="_blank">value human rights</a>, <a href="http://www.gq.com/story/education-secretary-betsy-devos-bad-day" target="_blank">education</a>, the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-people-would-lose-insurance-if-obamacare-repealed-2016-12" target="_blank">overall health of our society</a>, and myriad other issues that, before this election, seemed enshrined in and protected by U.S. law.
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Add to all those concerns these issues that continue to plague me: Trump’s <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2016/12/23/donald-trump-foreign-business-deals-jeopardize-us-531140.html" target="_blank">unethical ties</a> to an untold number of domestic and foreign corporations, his alleged <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/01/six-agencies-are-investigating-trump-russia-ties" target="_blank">ties to Russia</a>, and his <a href="https://www.good.is/articles/cnn-stands-up-to-trump" target="_blank">refusal</a> to accept legitimate news as fact.
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In short, no, this election was not like any other election.<br />
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But if I can’t convince you with all of the above, I’m afraid that only time can. I’m afraid you will only see it when it’s directly affecting you, when it’s taking away your healthcare, your rights, your job. If you haven’t already felt some of those effects, you will likely <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/12/27/these-coal-country-voters-backed-trump-now-theyre-worried-about-losing-obamacare/?utm_term=.bedff46d973c" target="_blank">very soon</a>. I am truly sorry for that.
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But this post isn’t about whining or sadness. I passed whining, through grief, and into full-on fighting mode weeks ago. I’ve subscribed to a reliable news source, attended meetings and forums with my local representatives, made the calls to my representatives. I will march in the Woman’s March in Washington this Saturday, because peaceful protest and civil disobedience are not anti-democracy – they are the heart of democracy. The very purpose of democracy itself.
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Rather, I’m posting this because I’ve been seeking ways to supplement those efforts, short of changing careers (the idea of a career in politics is a sort of fresh hell to this introverted writer). I’ve searched my soul trying to think of ways I can make a difference, and do you know what came out? Poems. Lots and lots of poems.
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<i>Poems?</i>, you might say. I know. I’ve been thinking that, too. What good is poetry in the face of all this? And yet, it was poetry shared by thousands on Twitter that brought me, and apparently <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/11/still-poetry-will-rise/507266/" target="_blank">many others</a>, some small measure of comfort and consolation in the weeks after the election – poems like <a href="https://twitter.com/langston_poems/status/622415365168070656" target="_blank">this one</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/MrBelvedont/status/796386033566785536" target="_blank">this one</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/courtenlow/status/796399431595753472/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" target="_blank">this one</a>.
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">But it can feel pointless, even narcissistic, to embrace one’s own art in this political climate. Anything relevant or timely begins to feel like a bid for attention.</span></b></blockquote>
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I am a poet by nature. I always have been. It’s how my feelings most often come out; it’s how I process things. I’ve tried more times than I can say to tamp down that part of me, to be a writer of something more “modern,” more accessible. But in the weeks following the election, the only thing that poured out of me was poetry. It’s how I work. Frankly, it’s the best way I work.
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Yesterday I read that Trump has potential plans to kill the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as defund other programs that support the arts. Again, this will seem like whiny liberalism to some of you, but to me and to society at large, this news is devastating. Because no matter what anyone says, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/apr/27/value-of-arts-and-culture-to-society-peter-bazalgette" target="_blank">art is imperative to a working society</a>.<br />
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But it can feel pointless, even narcissistic, to embrace one’s own art in this political climate. Anything relevant or timely begins to feel like a bid for attention. For example, <a href="http://www.girlsgonechild.net/2017/01/thank-you.html" target="_blank">this post </a>by Rebecca Woolf, who is currently working on her first film and will soon be asking for crowdfunding help, encompasses everything I’m feeling about making my own art these days. In a nutshell, she says: “Raising money to make a movie suddenly felt petty considering everything that was going on – being an advocate for my project (and myself) felt inappropriate – like setting up a lemonade stand in the middle of a funeral,” but, “Sometimes it takes the rise of a villain for us all to become superheroes. And sometimes it takes writing fictional stories for us to realize our truths. If more women could tell the stories… maybe we wouldn't have to fight so fucking hard to be heard.”
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Consider this quote from Lyndon Johnson, on signing into existence the National Endowment on the Arts: “Art is a nation’s most precious heritage. For it is in our works of art that we reveal to ourselves and to others the inner vision which guides us as a nation. And where there is no vision, the people perish.”
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Societies <i>require</i> art. Art provides catharsis, solace and commiseration. It inspires empathy and expands our perspectives. It provides a way to communicate that is not only seen or heard, but felt. It incites action and helps us find new ways to progress. It gives society a vision and a soul. Without that soul, we crumble and die.
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span style="background-color: white; font-size: x-large;">I’m writing a book of poems from the perspectives of final girls from horror cinema. A book about women who are stronger than me, women who inspire me, women who resist. Women who survive until the end.</span></b></blockquote>
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All of this is to say, in part, that I am nearly done writing my first full collection of poetry. It’s inspired largely by the election of Donald Trump, but also by a lifetime spent dealing with sexism, as well as the last several months I’ve spent listening to other marginalized groups who say they’ve been experiencing Trump’s brand of hate for their entire lives – it just hasn’t been covered by the news until now. So I’m doing the only thing I know how to do – I’m writing. Specifically, I’m writing a book of poems from the perspectives of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_girl" target="_blank">final girls from horror cinema</a>. I’m writing a book of poetry about women who are stronger than me, women who inspire me, women who resist. Women who survive until the end.<br />
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I am so excited - invigorated - by this book. I will be publishing it myself, and it will be out soon, because I believe I have something to contribute. I believe this country needs every thoughtful, contemplative voice it can find right now.<br />
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As I let my own little piece of resistance into the world, I want to intensely encourage all of my writer friends, my artist friends, my filmmaker friends (the ones I know and the ones whose art I haven’t yet had the pleasure of experiencing) to <i>continue making your art.</i> No matter what. Make it loud, make it vital, make it important. Make it as accessible as possible. And when it comes time to promote that art, don’t be afraid to ask for your small piece of recognition. Hell, ask me. Because what you do means everything.
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For now, I leave you with this – a poem of mine, and my (purely metaphorical) message to the GOP. It’s based on Amy Everson’s 2014 film <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3854104/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2" target="_blank">Felt</a></i>.
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<b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>Amy
</i></b><br />
<b><i>Felt (2014)</i></b><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Give me muscles, or else I’ll make them
</i><br />
<i>myself out of this anger rising
</i><br />
<i>from my throat and bubbling to my skin
</i><br />
<i>like disease I cannot contain any longer.
</i><br />
<i>This is how you make me feel, like some
</i><br />
<i>thing blighted, broken and abnormal.
</i><br />
<i>I rear back my head, thrust my pink
</i><br />
<i>tongue to the sky, make it ugly for you.
</i><br />
<i>I want to hurt you. I want to offend.
</i><br />
<br />
<i>I know you’ll laugh, and it will feel like
</i><br />
<i>a slap to my jaw. You think I can’t, think
</i><br />
<i>my strength seems soft as cotton, spongy
</i><br />
<i>as exposed innards. You think I’m sweet,
</i><br />
<i>candied to cloying, a thing to grab and put
</i><br />
<i>in your mouth until I’m chewed to a pulp
</i><br />
<i>and used up. You’re wrong.
</i><br />
<br />
<i>I will adorn this body with scars, twist it
</i><br />
<i>until it is sharp, maul it into weaponry.
</i><br />
<i>I will become the fist and gun and bomb
</i><br />
<i>that you have used against me since
</i><br />
<i>the day I was born in this woman’s body.
</i><br />
<i>If you find the tenor or shape of my words
</i><br />
<i>unappealing, know that you have made me.
</i><br />
<i>Thank you. I will use all this against you,
</i><br />
<i>and you will not see it coming.
</i><br />
<br />
If you would like to follow the news regarding my upcoming book release (no pressure, I swear!) or see further excerpts from the book, please visit <a href="http://www.clairecholland.com/" target="">my website </a>and sign up for my newsletter, or connect with me on <a href="http://www.razorappleblog.com/p/aboutcontact.html">social media</a>. I will also post about my progress here from time to time.<br />
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Please don't hesitate to reach out on social media to talk to me about anything, regardless of whether you care about my poems. This is the time for creators to band together and support one another. If you make art, if you write, if you read - I'd love to talk about all of it.<br />
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TL;DR: Refuse to sit down and shut up. Always.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-44446065753104810022016-12-28T02:23:00.001-05:002016-12-28T02:42:51.244-05:00Movie Roundup #13: This Is The EndSo we’ve finally come to the end of this tumultuous, rather terrible year. I’d say I’m happy, except I think the next four years have the potential to make 2016 look like child’s play. The silver lining? Some really great horror movies came out this year, and I bet we’ll have enough nightmare fodder for many, many more in 2017. So that’s sort of a silver lining if you like being scared all the time (I do, though I prefer my scares to be fictional).
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To be completely honest, I temporarily lost my taste for horror movies over the last couple of months; I think real life became so horrifying that it made it difficult to willingly subject myself to anything even remotely gloomy. Luckily I’m bouncing back, if gradually. Even so, I’ve missed some of the most lauded horror films of the latter half of 2016 (<i>The Eyes of My Mother, Under the Shadow, The Wailing</i>). Hopefully I’ll get to those soon, but because I feel like I’ve missed a lot of goodies, I’m refraining from doing a best-of-2016 post this year. Apologies, but I would love it if readers would leave their personal favorites of the year in the comments.
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So this is my last post of 2016 – but I promise to be back with a vengeance come January.
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<b>The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016). </b>Everyone is raving about this one, and for good reason. It’s an enigmatic, suspenseful, original little slice of horror that’s a joy to watch unfold. Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch have great chemistry playing father and son; as things get worse and worse, we see them confront challenges in tandem with an unspoken rapport that seems entirely authentic. The story is mostly confined to the morgue and these two characters, so that chemistry is essential. But even Jane Doe (played by Olwen Kelly, who used yoga techniques to contort her body and control her breathing) made a lasting impression without ever speaking a line.
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<b>Trash Fire (2016). </b>I haven’t seen this movie getting a lot of love from the horror community, but I absolutely adored it. The cast of unrepentantly horrible characters is totally my cup of tea, and Adrian Grenier, Angela Trimbur, and Fionnula Flanagan all knock it out of the park as deeply unlikeable, selfish, neurotic people. I also love the strange roles AnnaLynne McCord has been trying on recently in movies like this and <i>Excision</i>. The ending of the film is a bit underwhelming, but at the same time it seems like it couldn’t possibly have ended any other way. The ending is inevitable, final, and probably the best-case scenario if we’re being really honest.
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<b>Always Shine (2016). </b>This is another under-the-radar one that I really enjoyed. Mackenzie Davis and Caitlin Fitzgerald are both excellent as actresses attempting to resuscitate a friendship that’s been all but destroyed by jealousy and insecurity. But it’s Davis who steals the show as the less successful (but technically better) actress who seems typecast as the angry, aggressive sideshow in her own life. It’s a fascinating, somewhat depressing depiction of the many ways women are expected to contort themselves to “fit” in this world.
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<b>The Monster (2016). </b>I wasn’t as taken with this as I hoped I would be, considering it’s directed by Bryan Bertino. I suppose my expectations were misplaced, though; I was hoping for a slow-burn suspense, much like Bertino’s <i>The Strangers</i>, and what I got was a full-on monster movie. That’s just my fault for not taking the title at face value. Even so, I never felt fully immersed in this monster-flick-slash-mother-daughter-drama; the two elements felt a bit too cobbled together, and the many flashbacks only served to take me out of the present story. Not a bad movie by any means, but not one I think I’ll remember.
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<b>Evolution (2016). </b>This was weird and beautiful, but possibly too weird for me to fully enjoy it. I don’t know. I generally like small horror movies that are billed as “folk tales” in whatever respect, but folk tales usually have a moral to them and I’m not sure what this movie was trying to say. I don’t know if I didn’t get this movie or if it didn’t get me, but I think we’ll just have to agree that we’re both great and we need to see other people in order to be fully appreciated.
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<b>Pet (2016).</b> This is pure trashy exploitation, and fun enough if you let it be. That’s really all I can say about it. A good midnight movie, assuming it’s free.
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<b>Blair Witch (2016). </b>I wanted to like this, I really did… but I did not like this. I’ve said it all before, but most found footage horror movies are so painfully generic, so painfully beat-by-beat familiar, and this one is no exception. It just read like an amped-up version of the original <i>Blair Witch Project</i>, stripped of its realness and suspense. I will say that the tunnel scene with Lisa had me curled up in a ball (claustrophobia!), and the weird way time morphed in the woods added an interesting element, but I wasn’t crazy about anything else in this reboot/sequel.
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<b>Morgan (2016).</b> <a href="http://www.razorappleblog.com/2016/09/movie-trailers-are-ruining-my-life.html" target="_blank">I think I called it on this one.</a> <i>Morgan</i> is fine, albeit entirely predictable and a bit nonsensical (someone is going to need to explain Paul Giamatti’s character’s motivations to me if I’m ever going to be able to like this movie). Anya Taylor-Joy deserves better. Hell, the entire cast – Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kate Mara, Rose Leslie, the aforementioned Paul – deserves better. These people are too good to be in something so basic.
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<b>When the Bough Breaks (2016). </b>Let me preface this by saying I love <i>Single White Female</i>, the Lifetime channel, and all 90s-esque thrillers. This movie ticks all three of those boxes, because although it’s not technically any of those things, it could easily be any of those things. A cheesy fun time (but yes, objectively Not a Good Movie).
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<b>Yoga Hosers (2016). </b>To be fair, I only watched the first half hour of this. Thirty minutes in, I’d reached my limit on bad accents, wooden acting, and cringe-worthy references to teenagers and their technology. I hoped it would be endearing, but it was definitely just annoying. Weirdly enough, it kind of made me want to revisit <i>Tusk</i> (an impulse I will surely regret). I hate to hate on Kevin Smith – <i>Red State </i>is my jam – but this was insufferable.
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What have you watched lately? What were your favorites films of 2016? Let me know in the comments or on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/clairecwrites/" target="_blank">Twitter</a>!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-78301366846270886962016-11-29T17:06:00.001-05:002016-11-29T17:26:50.369-05:00Women of the Apocalypse<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Sometimes it starts with a bang.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Divide (2011)</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFxLgup3GM08ZkXU763gxDAn38s-sMCss-OKr_p_cNmPjkw8qfe3zsyAKkaSNova0mJVdQej1xk5pX4ATgCSrH4h9lYujwIJCeXgTVoJSfllB2otvakaSVhS3K6uEg90xCNjFyFwnm1Bnl/s1600/dawnofthedead.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFxLgup3GM08ZkXU763gxDAn38s-sMCss-OKr_p_cNmPjkw8qfe3zsyAKkaSNova0mJVdQej1xk5pX4ATgCSrH4h9lYujwIJCeXgTVoJSfllB2otvakaSVhS3K6uEg90xCNjFyFwnm1Bnl/s640/dawnofthedead.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Dawn of the Dead (2004)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Other times, power is given up willingly.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">So slowly, you don't even notice it happening until it's too late.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Qr728FB77UCESZBjkxE9zR5NCUao1FldSfvuHQsLDY7IyIMUNg4lqFLSzF4wPcJaQ18_YddJ8xrhfYNKwL4_WRyISPWu3itutn1oFx8AxvlWP28odvJ4oESbz-sOlbsWxqANfXVWHytH/s1600/thepurge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Qr728FB77UCESZBjkxE9zR5NCUao1FldSfvuHQsLDY7IyIMUNg4lqFLSzF4wPcJaQ18_YddJ8xrhfYNKwL4_WRyISPWu3itutn1oFx8AxvlWP28odvJ4oESbz-sOlbsWxqANfXVWHytH/s640/thepurge.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Purge (2013)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></o:p>
<o:p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">But it always plays out the same. They take…</span></o:p><br />
<o:p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi21T4-VVoR_kRcVyT7lj2cd67L_LNvmU-6iHOrj7biGI5WvgKhdof0FB-VAkB8xmWM0wCqT0YzlDq4_N52mq-B-8lphEPabhkeU-0wLf6yh5w-VplOf3fSrJpikNgsTcJVM1ut5sbU_xRg/s1600/thedivide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi21T4-VVoR_kRcVyT7lj2cd67L_LNvmU-6iHOrj7biGI5WvgKhdof0FB-VAkB8xmWM0wCqT0YzlDq4_N52mq-B-8lphEPabhkeU-0wLf6yh5w-VplOf3fSrJpikNgsTcJVM1ut5sbU_xRg/s640/thedivide.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Divide (2011)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">…and they take…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeeEF4UyJSVX-AaNJKvIwp7kLxyENlxv9QSSxx6Qj4FLn1hkdwUvhxdR11mNc3ZQ2SWprxjp_ugEY97KH5GkznZOj_CtiNkdvcsKqtzEPvGBajCmJ_DKhi5qfmX6nayL6E1ks4NVusKvu5/s1600/twdmaggie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeeEF4UyJSVX-AaNJKvIwp7kLxyENlxv9QSSxx6Qj4FLn1hkdwUvhxdR11mNc3ZQ2SWprxjp_ugEY97KH5GkznZOj_CtiNkdvcsKqtzEPvGBajCmJ_DKhi5qfmX6nayL6E1ks4NVusKvu5/s640/twdmaggie.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Walking Dead (2010)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">…and they take.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI1gs4YcikOMxdDTmvuEi2CI_8eUNwDsalXvYBgTd3MV-HpA-iWb-ZhY5eA-eKe520bZxob4v3duWbq9tw5jT_1yH1_bAMBRThw0oVAcyZrMcPNMzoPeZHTPBcT_KA0Evnyk_6Jgnh59V2/s1600/madmaxmilk.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI1gs4YcikOMxdDTmvuEi2CI_8eUNwDsalXvYBgTd3MV-HpA-iWb-ZhY5eA-eKe520bZxob4v3duWbq9tw5jT_1yH1_bAMBRThw0oVAcyZrMcPNMzoPeZHTPBcT_KA0Evnyk_6Jgnh59V2/s640/madmaxmilk.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">But we’re stronger, because we have to be.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3RRkpbUN9KNr4Bx4jvHAwN2c7prIgs_AFwUYSDiQAOxJPgrzA1aBwB24UbqVLfCdzYCT-FVM1XYosj32QLxw09irE5IEQOg9KW9TT6Cp3-Y7xENgqw3ulD5qZzQoY3bUOQrGoLAo1zvXq/s1600/madmaxhug.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3RRkpbUN9KNr4Bx4jvHAwN2c7prIgs_AFwUYSDiQAOxJPgrzA1aBwB24UbqVLfCdzYCT-FVM1XYosj32QLxw09irE5IEQOg9KW9TT6Cp3-Y7xENgqw3ulD5qZzQoY3bUOQrGoLAo1zvXq/s640/madmaxhug.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">So we fight.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc-6OgOmcAMN4xU-XhOpJbU0pg-m3EJPom8cSSsGVUIm8loGRDJwRhGa0cQls5Y4_RcSL2vnv7ETaCtpTqhhIKaCZ1KwJZvFxkehnsVz2DRe-rD-z39yYnBLOieN67YWdY10I0lcKFf2Vz/s1600/madmaxroom.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc-6OgOmcAMN4xU-XhOpJbU0pg-m3EJPom8cSSsGVUIm8loGRDJwRhGa0cQls5Y4_RcSL2vnv7ETaCtpTqhhIKaCZ1KwJZvFxkehnsVz2DRe-rD-z39yYnBLOieN67YWdY10I0lcKFf2Vz/s640/madmaxroom.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcGGjt18Zojzu5oY5n8qcFZwgi1nlBWgn7b0L3pjqzamfZIw78F_xNX6EMrIFOOZYWMZO16Ctt2y9B5mWtH3bQKSy2nP4YdCl6U-Q2VIgsl6peNtfOZckpY4_RYqKZ59BFFpJF4HX_4Sck/s1600/selena.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcGGjt18Zojzu5oY5n8qcFZwgi1nlBWgn7b0L3pjqzamfZIw78F_xNX6EMrIFOOZYWMZO16Ctt2y9B5mWtH3bQKSy2nP4YdCl6U-Q2VIgsl6peNtfOZckpY4_RYqKZ59BFFpJF4HX_4Sck/s640/selena.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>28 Days Later (2002)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjMeSD7_GnmbcSmjRA_dwrFy9YZhQPif7D30y4xMXi14mIR5tYbc8LZDB6FS9CEyLBXrGPPIr3c3oi4ezBUsmZx017JNwCjptERUrTQxOP0HPCeO0XfCS1ZV7D-y7UuOE5DkveMIilSap2/s1600/madmax.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjMeSD7_GnmbcSmjRA_dwrFy9YZhQPif7D30y4xMXi14mIR5tYbc8LZDB6FS9CEyLBXrGPPIr3c3oi4ezBUsmZx017JNwCjptERUrTQxOP0HPCeO0XfCS1ZV7D-y7UuOE5DkveMIilSap2/s640/madmax.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOmMu3-WrJECGHcu9Tx586ExNzAOZGRcu2t4rsj4x76rxbSDjMQS0A-UoSH1QVhB2ahILqSeb9JYg89Gj-LG52rha-O2oHX9rgHfrBWi9krABUvo-HOULyp5r-rZ5_Tv_DIzPD34CLoJ5c/s1600/stakeland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOmMu3-WrJECGHcu9Tx586ExNzAOZGRcu2t4rsj4x76rxbSDjMQS0A-UoSH1QVhB2ahILqSeb9JYg89Gj-LG52rha-O2oHX9rgHfrBWi9krABUvo-HOULyp5r-rZ5_Tv_DIzPD34CLoJ5c/s640/stakeland.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Stake Land (2010)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhavVJD7xtd9Yp3L8xPe-U7BtHdsQOLA3VL_kOFxG9_4JMdUKt4GpaIxMh7rJhYbhjWfS5GuUQNDsHer6UvDA_qIrA0iORpPPia6SocyHyPyenkz_7sDRZSteyIb9p3zhQ_KeNb23FNDX7v/s1600/planetterror.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhavVJD7xtd9Yp3L8xPe-U7BtHdsQOLA3VL_kOFxG9_4JMdUKt4GpaIxMh7rJhYbhjWfS5GuUQNDsHer6UvDA_qIrA0iORpPPia6SocyHyPyenkz_7sDRZSteyIb9p3zhQ_KeNb23FNDX7v/s640/planetterror.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Planet Terror (2007)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR0gLRX-q4L-4r5G8XSsI6EgTcgPcoueA7ruQjwWhtpvWlfv3TRFhIG67bN0tDCH3MepvDpUEh-h9RthDNzm1CoUbtX7IRU4HhDCK-RPDHNbC55rtwP7ORaPv8u3_RA9WlaMZ8pKBOfYa7/s1600/madmax2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR0gLRX-q4L-4r5G8XSsI6EgTcgPcoueA7ruQjwWhtpvWlfv3TRFhIG67bN0tDCH3MepvDpUEh-h9RthDNzm1CoUbtX7IRU4HhDCK-RPDHNbC55rtwP7ORaPv8u3_RA9WlaMZ8pKBOfYa7/s640/madmax2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVf5DUDAraQfOFOHSHf2rwjNnYFqJbM1Jkvrc0k0aaK91G169v3Agcl1NyNcxSFw0Z4irK439KRsY_VkJFYQCcM6bWv-r29Y2VC44G_EMKr7-ILve6IOs_VHwr0nd6Bs-iW45PsgWmwbpy/s1600/intotheforest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVf5DUDAraQfOFOHSHf2rwjNnYFqJbM1Jkvrc0k0aaK91G169v3Agcl1NyNcxSFw0Z4irK439KRsY_VkJFYQCcM6bWv-r29Y2VC44G_EMKr7-ILve6IOs_VHwr0nd6Bs-iW45PsgWmwbpy/s640/intotheforest.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Into the Forest (2015)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0vdBir7MfQ167_Vjq6Bb_0q_ILePjHjsu1Q3LR_Nr7j7SrJFfmWwQYVcLWpd1d6C2kMbI9-1Daw2ReJl9MnBpBDLw0aAqYOhpiElAGB4xMcOS6ahZnm1kUUs2GlzQAWGyYyylRwS-lsnr/s1600/residentevil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0vdBir7MfQ167_Vjq6Bb_0q_ILePjHjsu1Q3LR_Nr7j7SrJFfmWwQYVcLWpd1d6C2kMbI9-1Daw2ReJl9MnBpBDLw0aAqYOhpiElAGB4xMcOS6ahZnm1kUUs2GlzQAWGyYyylRwS-lsnr/s640/residentevil.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZd0hm5f9fG6LZS1o_-mnfghSh5pl9kOqKk8kKtqMPYetwHm6es1q6fDL2BHm8TQKUVv4UOOGDfLQsB7r0gwdNtctDotUYX9CI6LIov7cgMxhETyDyzRJ39NBCrJda3t0BElb2GhQkoVLp/s1600/madmexwomen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZd0hm5f9fG6LZS1o_-mnfghSh5pl9kOqKk8kKtqMPYetwHm6es1q6fDL2BHm8TQKUVv4UOOGDfLQsB7r0gwdNtctDotUYX9CI6LIov7cgMxhETyDyzRJ39NBCrJda3t0BElb2GhQkoVLp/s640/madmexwomen.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
And we don't stop fighting.<br />
<br />
So far, this is the most I've been able to cobble together as far as "feelings" about the election go. I'm trying to focus my efforts mainly offline and in the real world, but I encourage everyone to <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/11/14/way-to-stop-trump-lessons-of-war-on-terror/" target="_blank">stay</a> <a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/217831/what-to-do-about-trump" target="_blank">informed</a>, and to <a href="http://enclave.entropymag.org/resources-what-you-can-do-right-now/" target="_blank">donate as much time and money</a> as you can towards the causes you care about. If ever there was a time to stand up for what you believe in, now is it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-35515045650830724772016-11-04T15:15:00.001-04:002016-11-29T17:44:23.867-05:00#31HorrorFilms31Days RoundupThis was a less exciting Halloween than past years: There were hardly any new movies coming out to anticipate (in fact, all the movies I'm hyped up for seem to be coming out in November and December this year, which is a little odd), and the election season has been kicking my ass and making life generally unpleasant. I'm pretty much living for November 9th, when <i>I hope</i> America will start its slow and painful transition back to sanity. But I digress.<br />
<br />
The sad truth is that I failed the #31HorrorFilms31Days challenge - for the first time in years! But I still feel a duty to exhaustively detail and analyze everything I <i>did</i> watch, so. <a href="https://storify.com/ClaireCWrites/31horrorfilms31days-roundup" target="_blank">Click here to see all the movies I watched on Storify</a>, or just read about the highlights here. Although I spent a lot of October enjoying old favorites (<i>The Shining, Misery, Arachnophobia, Idle Hands, The Craft, Dawn of the Dead,</i> etc. etc.), there were some new films, or at least new-to-me films, that I also liked. Some trends and a few recs from my month of viewing:<br />
<br />
<b>Vampires. </b>I watched a fair amount of Anne Rice this month - more than I've probably watched since I was a teenager. Although <i>Queen of the Damned</i> was just as cheesy as I remembered, I really liked <i>Interview with the Vampire </i>(which I'd never seen before!), and another vampire flick from director Neil Jordan, <i>Byzantium</i>. I recommend them both, but <i>Byzantium</i> was really a standout of the month for me.<br />
<br />
<b>Mind benders. </b>I've been reading a lot of <a href="http://taylorholmes.com/" target="_blank">this blog</a> lately, and the author turned me on to several mind-bending scifi/psychological/horror films. <i>Circle</i>, <i>They Look Like People</i>, and <i>Containment </i>were all recs from that site, and I enjoyed them all to a degree, though <i>Circle</i> was my favorite of the three. (On the non-horror front, I loved <i>Z For Zachariah</i>, another rec.) On this same wavelength, I feel I have to mention that I also watched the third season of <i>Black Mirror</i> in October and really, really liked it. My standout episodes were the same as basically everyone on the internet (San Junipero, Playtest, Nosedive, in that order), but it bears repeating because they were really great.<br />
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<b>Old favorites. </b>There were lots and lots of oldies-but-goodies, but allow me to mention a few of the lesser-discussed ones. <i>Mother's Day </i>is a horror remake I never hear anyone talk about, and maybe that's fair... it's not a huge standout in any respect, but it is solidly entertaining. Delightfully nihilistic and nasty, and featuring a performance by Rebecca De Mornay (who plays unhinged amazingly well) as the titular mother, this was a nice surprise. <i>The Collector </i>and <i>1408</i> were two other horror films I expected to be terrible but were actually quite solid. Oh, and now that I've rewatched it, I really can't stop <a href="http://www.razorappleblog.com/2016/10/my-definitive-list-of-movies-to-watch_28.html" target="_blank">singing nostalgic praises for <i>Idle Hands</i></a>. It's just so much <i>fun</i>.<br />
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<b>Brand new. </b>Looking back, I only watched two recently released films: <i>Lights Out</i> and <i>Jack Goes Home</i>. <i>Lights Out </i>had a more interesting premise than I originally gave it credit for, and was a lot better than I expected. That being said, there wasn't anything terribly original about the way it was made that would compel me to watch it again. <i>Jack Goes Home</i> was a much more mixed bag, and admittedly had a lot of issues, but I ended up kind of loving it. Rory Culkin and Lin Shaye really commit to their wild performances in what is a crazy story. I might have to write a full review on it.<br />
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So there you have it. Another Halloween has passed, sadly, and now we're onto the holidays (ugh, already?). Luckily there's a <i>lot</i> of great stuff coming out in the next couple of months: <i>Trash Fire, Sun Choke, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, The Monster, Evolution, Pet, </i>and<i> The Autopsy of Jane Doe</i> are all films I'm looking forward to. What are you anticipating in the coming months? And how was your Halloween; did you do better than I did at #31HorrorFilms31Days? Tell me in the comments!
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-32947587724296123672016-10-28T15:39:00.000-04:002016-10-28T15:39:06.915-04:00(My) Definitive List of Movies to Watch on HalloweenFor most people, picking which movies to watch on Halloween isn’t a fraught decision – pop in any “scary” movie (from <i>Hocus Pocus </i>to <i>Saw XI</i>-whatever), and they’re set. For horror junkies who already watch scary movies 24/7, though, not just any movie will do when Halloween rolls around. After all, how do you commemorate the best day of the year (come at me, Christmas people) when what you’re doing isn’t all that different from a normal Monday night?
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For me, Halloween isn’t so much about being scared out of my wits (a feeling I strive for the other 364 days of the year) as it is about capturing the spirit of the day, and maybe recapturing a little of what it was like when you were a kid. Thus, I give you my list of the absolute best movies to watch on Halloween night.
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<b><i>Idle Hands. </i></b>If you’re in the mood for something purely fun,<i> Idle Hands</i> is where it’s at. This 90s teen-stoner-serial-killer-possession movie about a kid with a murderous hand is goofy, gross, a little scary, and full of Halloween goodness without delving into kids’ movie territory (sorry, but I just can’t get into <i>Hocus Pocus</i> like other people can). In what will prove to be a running theme in this list, it also takes place on Halloween, and therefore highlights some awesomely 90s costumes (there’s something so Britney Spears circa Baby One More Time about Jessica Alba in an angel costume… or is that just me?). Yes, this is a nostalgic pick, but it still holds up all these years later in the pantheon of teen comedies, and it’s a good horror comedy to boot.
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<b><i>Anything Stephen King. </i></b>There’s something so quintessentially Halloween about a Stephen King adaptation, isn’t there? Something about the way King tells a story just feels classic, cozy, and creepy all at once. Some of my favorites are <i>Pet Sematary</i>, <i>Misery</i>, and <i>The Shining</i>. I also recently enjoyed <i>Mercy</i>, though that’s more a matter of taste. Hell, this could be your theme for the whole day if you let it – there are so many King adaptations (but be prepared for a broad range in quality). Bonus points if you watch with a <a href="http://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3412614/want-try-cocktail-inspired-shining/" target="_blank">Redrum cocktail</a>.<br />
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<b><i>May. </i></b>If you need something scarier – or gorier – I recommend <i>May</i>, a film about a lonely young woman who endeavors to make herself a new best friend by any means necessary. This early film from Lucky McKee is heart wrenching and repulsive in equal measure, and Angela Bettis is fantastic in the vulnerable lead role. If weird is your schtick, or you fancy yourself a true outsider in a world of posers, or if you just couldn’t find anyone to go trick-or-treating with you, <i>May</i> will help let your freak flag fly on Halloween night.
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<b><i>Trick ’r Treat.</i></b> Full disclosure: this has been my Halloween movie of choice for at least the last five years. I know it’s not a revolutionary stance in the horror world, but I just don’t think there’s any movie out there that quite encapsulates the feeling of Halloween like this one. It’s silly and fun, but also shockingly nasty at times. The vignette style ensures that there’s something in there for everyone, and the film even introduces an indelible new horror icon in the form of Sam. I hope every year for a movie that can top this one, but a part of me is pleased each year that nothing has.
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<b><i>Halloween.</i></b> You knew this had to be on the list, right? And I’m obviously talking original, 1978, John Carpenter, Jamie Lee Curtis with bad hair <i>Halloween</i>, for which there is no replacement. (To be fair, I do watch Rob Zombie’s <i>Halloween</i> movies pretty much every year, for reasons mostly unknown to me… but to watch those on Halloween night would seem truly blasphemous.) Maybe it’s because I grew up watching AMC’s <i>Halloween</i> marathon every year as a kid – do they still do that? I don’t have cable anymore, so I don’t know, but I hope they do – but to me, this movie <i>is</i> Halloween.<br />
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So what are your favorite Halloween flicks? Let me know what you'll be watching this year in the comments or on <a href="https://twitter.com/ClaireCWrites/" target="_blank">Twitter</a>!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-37212651574166729722016-10-17T15:22:00.002-04:002016-10-18T23:21:12.760-04:00Movie Roundup #12: All the Movies I Watched Before #31HorrorFilms31Days<div class="MsoNormal">
You know, Halloween Month (known to regular people as October, I guess) has
not been going as it normally does for me. I’m just not feeling it as much as
usual, and #31HorrorFilms31Days actually feels like a bit of a struggle for the first time ever. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think it’s horror’s fault (I would never blame you, horror). There have been
some amazing movies in the last several months; in fact, it’s been one of the
best years for horror that I can remember. But it kind of seems like all the
great movies came out before October, and there’s very little left to look
forward to or enjoy right <i>now</i>. And
some of the movies I am still looking forward to aren’t coming out until
November or December (<i>Trash Fire, The
Monster, Evolution, The Autopsy of Jane Doe</i>). So I’ve mostly been watching
old favorites and, honestly, a lot of middling horror that's been sitting in
my Netflix queue forever.</div>
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BUT, I guess that isn’t terrible news – it means I saw a lot
of great (or at least noteworthy) horror in September, and I think I have some
excellent stuff to look forward to as the year comes to an end. So let’s take a
little look.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Neon Demon (2016).</i></b> Girl moves to L.A. to become a model and
becomes wildly successful – not least because she’s only 16 (15?) years old. As
a comment on our society’s obsession with youth, this wasn’t half bad. As a
piece of entertainment… well, let me put it this way: I’m a huge fan of movies
that don’t make a ton of narrative sense, but are gorgeous to look at and pick
apart, and even I didn’t really like this movie. It <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> lovely to look at, but the message behind the pretty imagery is
so overt and simple, there’s not much to say once the credits roll. Like a
pretty face in a magazine, there’s just not a lot beneath the surface that
makes this all that worth delving into.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016).</i></b> John Wayne Cleaver is a
teenager with all the markers of a sociopath (with a name like that, what did
his mother expect?), but who’s trying very hard to be a good person. When a
serial killer comes to his town, John becomes obsessed with catching and
stopping him. I liked so much about this movie – the bleak setting, the
excellent acting (Christopher Lloyd!), the weird premise. On those points
alone, I would recommend it. But there’s also a lot that’s just… strange. For
example, the fact that John’s mother knows he has homicidal tendencies and he’s
been seeing a psychiatrist about it just seemed odd and a little weirdly blasé.
There’s also a big twist that completely changes the genre of the movie from
what you thought it was to what it really is… and how much you like that twist
will probably determine how much you like the film. I enjoyed it overall, but I
didn’t love the direction it took once the twist was revealed – but like I
said, that’s more about personal preference in terms of genre than a comment on
the quality of the film.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Into the Forest (2016).</i></b> Give me Ellen Page, Evan Rachel Wood,
and a post-apocalyptic premise, and I am all in. This is a fairly simple story:
two sisters come of age in the wake of a massive (worldwide?) power outage. There
are no zombies, no radiation poisoning, and hardly any characters other than
the two women, but it’s an affecting little drama nonetheless. I suppose it’s a
stretch to call it horror, but it has many of the same themes as any great apocalypse
horror flick, as well as some gut-wrenching moments – and this is my blog,
dammit, so I’m recommending it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">31 (2016).</i></b> I was excited about Rob Zombie’s latest (and
notably, crowd-funded) film, because it seemed like the story was contained
enough that it might not have the same issues as so many of his other films. Although
there certainly were things I liked about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">31</i>,
it unfortunately still suffered from its fair share of poor writing, dialogue,
and pacing (and… not beat a dead horse, but its reliance on Sheri Moon Zombie’s acting). For
example, I loved how video-gamey the setup and progression was: the captured and
unwilling “contestants” are put in a closed-course maze of sorts and forced to
fight increasingly bloodthirsty killers to the death. However, the finale was
an immense letdown that soured the entire film for me. Worth watching once if
you’re a Zombie fan, but I seriously doubt non-fans will find much to like.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Don’t Breathe (2016).</i></b> I wrote a bit about this movie <a href="http://www.razorappleblog.com/2016/09/movie-trailers-are-ruining-my-life.html" target="_blank">here</a>, but
the general gist of it is: I loved this movie. It was full of twists and turns
and suspense that truly never lets up until the credits roll. I can only hope
that director Fede Alvarez and actress Jane Levy continue to work in horror, because
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Don’t Breathe</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Evil Dead</i> (2013) were two of my favorite
horror-watching experiences in recent memory. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Don’t Breathe</i> is a movie like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Strangers</i>, in that I imagine I’ll be able to watch it for years to come and
still feel thrilled by it, despite knowing what’s coming.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Satanic (2016).</i></b> What is with all these horror movies with adjectives
as titles? Although I’ve liked some of them (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Insidious</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sinister</i>), I
hate the trend, and this film’s title is as generic as the movie itself. Well,
maybe that’s not entirely fair. I did enjoy the setup: four friends on their
way to Coachella (yeah…) make a detour in L.A. to tour true-crime occult sites
and encounter a mysterious woman who knows quite a bit about one particular
crime. That’s kind of a great premise, if you ask me. I would watch that movie,
in theory (minus the Coachella part). But what starts out as a mildly intriguing affair devolves into
something so full of horror clichés <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i>
so dull, I couldn’t possibly recommend it in good conscience.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Forest (2016).</i></b> I know this came out quite a while ago, but
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it, so I thought I should mention it. A
woman heads into Japan’s Suicide Forest (yes, that is a real, and really
creepy, place) to find her missing twin sister. There’s nothing revolutionary,
or even very unique, about this movie aside from the setting, but it hit all
the right notes as far as creeping me out while watching it in my house on a
dark night alone. I’d give it a shot, especially if Japanese-inspired horror
tends to spook you like it does me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tell Me How I Die (2016).</i></b> I could barely finish this one.
Students looking for a way to make extra cash agree to take part in an
experiment that has unexpected (and frankly, ridiculous) side effects: chiefly,
they allow some subjects to see the future. Oh, and there’s also a serial
killer on the loose inside the lab, because how else are you going to spice
things up? Actually: there are a million other directions this movie could have
gone that would have made more sense and been more entertaining.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>Friend Request (2016).</i></b> I actually didn’t finish this one. Let
this be the death knell for <a href="http://www.razorappleblog.com/2015/09/september-movie-roundup.html" target="_blank">social media-themed</a> horror movies, please. (I know it won't be.)</div>
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What movies have you seen lately? What are you looking forward to?</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-14935152560102973672016-10-14T17:17:00.000-04:002016-10-15T19:37:19.291-04:00Guest Post: Tracing Innovative Women Characters in Horror<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The following is a guest post.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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Even though women have started playing a wider variety of
roles in horror movies, many still have stereotypical female characters.
However, there are some truly excellent horror movies with unconventional
female characters, and it appears that women’s roles in the genre are slowly
changing. The following films have female leads who don’t fit any of the usual
<a href="http://www.razorappleblog.com/2016/04/the-manipulative-woman-in-scifi-bending.html" target="_blank">genre stereotypes</a>. Fair warning: Due to the nature of this post, there are
spoilers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>Scream</i> (1996)</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>Scream</i> is a slasher film about a high school student, Sidney
(Neve Campbell), who is targeted by a killer called Ghostface. At first the
story follows the typical course of a slasher flick, with various teenagers
being killed in gory ways. However, <i>Scream</i> soon reveals itself to be a
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/review96/screamharr.htm" target="_blank">satirical take</a> on traditional slasher movies. After many deaths, some hilarious
moments and a few twists, Sidney discovers her friend Stu is the killer. She
eventually kills him, only to discover Ghostface is not one killer but two - Sidney's boyfriend is the second killer, and she manages to
kill him as well.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As a satirical take on slasher flicks, <i>Scream</i> mocks many of
the features of typical slasher movies. One of the major tropes in slasher
movies is the "final girl" - the female character who ultimately
defeats the killer. She must be a virgin who avoids vices such as drinking and
drugs. Usually, the girls who get killed in slasher films are not virgins or
considered virtuous. Both <i>Halloween</i> and <i>Friday the 13th </i>are good examples of
this motif, wherein the final girl is a "wholesome" virgin. <i>Scream</i>,
however, breaks this trope. The characters in Scream even point out the rules
of horror movies. The number one rule is “don’t have sex.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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At the beginning of the movie, Sydney is a virgin, but in
the course of the film she has sex with her boyfriend, Billy. Yet she survives
and goes on to kill Ghostface (both of them!). Despite learning some horrible
truths about her mother, watching her friends being murdered and fighting for
her life, Sidney survives and turns the final girl trope on its head. <i>Scream</i>
ultimately allowed slasher films to break the rule of the virtuous final girl
in a way that still resonates today. The 2013 movie<i> <a href="http://www.razorappleblog.com/2014/05/chastity-bites-or-young-feminists-guide.html" target="_blank">Chastity Bites</a></i> is an
excellent example of this.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>The Descent </i>(2005)</b></div>
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<i>The Descent </i>is an adventure horror movie about six women who
go spelunking in an attempt to help one member of the group, Sarah (Shauna
Macdonald), cope with the death of her family. After they enter the cave, the
mouth of the cave collapses, trapping the women. As they try to find a way out,
they realize creatures that have a taste for human flesh are hunting them. In
their fight for survival, the women are killed off one by one. Eventually, only
Sarah is left, and the movie ends with Sarah still trapped in the cave,
listening as the hungry creatures approach.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In adventure horror movies where people are trapped with a
monster, women are often portrayed as mere arm candy or as damsels in distress.
It’s also uncommon to find a horror movie that solely stars women. While The
Descent is an action horror movie, all the characters are women, and they do
not take on stereotypical roles. Instead, they’re an adventurous group of
friends looking for some excitement. Despite losing her family, Sarah isn’t a
helpless wreck. Rather, she shows a huge amount of strength and only continues
to grow stronger as the movie progresses. Indeed, <i><a href="http://www.geekquality.com/the-descent/" target="_blank">The Descent</a></i> offers a take on
women in horror movies that remains somewhat uncommon today.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><i>The Babadook </i>(2014)</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<i>The Babadook</i> is a psychological horror movie that tells the
story of Amelia (Essie Davis) and her son Sam. After Sam’s father dies, a
troubled Amelia has to raise Sam on her own, though she finds it increasingly
difficult to manage. One night, Sam asks Amelia to read him a book about a
monster called the Babadook. Sam becomes obsessed with the Babadook and
believes it’s hunting them. To her horror, Amelia soon realizes that the
Babadook is real and is stalking them. After a harrowing ordeal, Amelia finally
overcomes the Babadook and keeps it locked in the basement where she
occasionally feeds it worms.<o:p></o:p></div>
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On its face, <i>The Babadook</i> appears to be a movie about a
monster, and in a way it is. But the monster is actually a <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/19/grief-the-real-monster-in-the-babadook.html" target="_blank">metaphor</a> for
Amelia’s grief. Initially, Amelia tries to deny her grief, but the Babadook
won’t allow it. At one point, it even tells her that if she keeps trying to
deny its existence, it will only get stronger. Eventually, Amelia comes to the
realization that the only way to overcome the Babadook is to accept it. After
she accepts that it is real, she gains control over it. She keeps it in the
basement and occasionally feeds it, just as one occasionally revisits grief
psychologically.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This insightful movie is really a story about one woman’s
struggle to accept her own grief, thereby preventing it from destroying her son
and herself. Her struggle takes her through the many stages of grief, from
denial to acceptance. Essie Davis’ excellent acting portrays Amelia as a
troubled woman who finds the strength within herself to deal with grief, as
well as its physical manifestation as the Babadook. Incidentally (or not), <i>The
Babadook </i>was written and directed by a woman, Jennifer Kent.<o:p></o:p></div>
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With their tough (both mentally and physically) and unique
female characters, these three horror movies trace a positive trend in the
genre: a move away from stereotypical roles for women toward more empowering
ones. Hopefully, this trend will only continue, and we'll see more
nontraditional female leads in future horror movies. Perhaps we’ll even see a
few more convincing female villains!<o:p></o:p></div>
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These are by no means the only horror movies with innovative
female characters. What is your favorite horror movie with strong or unusual
female stars?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i><a href="https://twitter.com/cassie_culture" target="_blank">Cassie Philips</a> writes blog posts about tech and
entertainment at <a href="http://securethoughts.com/" target="_blank">SecureThoughts</a>. She’s particularly interested in how women’s roles in movies
have changed over the last few decades and what that says about society’s views
on women in general.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-29003883242928129132016-09-01T23:38:00.001-04:002016-09-28T13:06:18.158-04:00Movie Trailers Are Ruining My Life<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl_DCc4DGG7nZnrKx7FGUeHOV_3AHtyyrdE-vLAj-o1d1Op1OdH6GiXFD9AyMC4EA06sQOpOQ9Ffh3ERRLsVEdYSCHKM5m8zheGCmYjskTgqYHI6RJLIJp4mPjh2A7tQNAUjBkaBtMPOUH/s1600/dontbreathe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl_DCc4DGG7nZnrKx7FGUeHOV_3AHtyyrdE-vLAj-o1d1Op1OdH6GiXFD9AyMC4EA06sQOpOQ9Ffh3ERRLsVEdYSCHKM5m8zheGCmYjskTgqYHI6RJLIJp4mPjh2A7tQNAUjBkaBtMPOUH/s640/dontbreathe.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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It’s the beginning of September, and although it’s still a
blistering 90+ degrees on a regular basis here in Philly, the promise of fall
is in the air. It teases and torments me in the form of witch and black cat
decorations set out a month early in grocery store aisles, in the annoying Starbucks
ads for pumpkin spice lattes that are suddenly popping up in my email inbox, and in the many, many
trailers for horror movies that are slated to come out over the next two months
or so. I will only complain about the latter in this post, a.k.a. diatribe.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Let me start by saying that it is a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">good time</i> to be a horror fan. Seriously. There is some great stuff
coming out these days: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">10 Cloverfield
Lane, The Invitation, The Witch, Green Room, Don’t Breathe</i>. Go back another
year or two and I could name at least fifteen more movies I’ve loved. And looking ahead, there are at least ten more I’m extremely excited
about seeing. But now, let’s take one of those movies as an example of an insidious trend that's been creeping up on me for a while, but only started ruining my life - my very sanity - in the last few weeks: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Morgan</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Morgan</i> looks
great. It had me hooked based on its lead, Anya Taylor-Joy (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Witch</i>), and the tagline alone: “A
corporate risk-management consultant must decide whether or not to terminate an
artificially created humanoid being.” I follow a lot of horror blogs, so I
caught this one clip early on:<o:p></o:p></div>
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Like I said, I was sold. Good cast, good production value, a tense moment, sold. No need to lay out all the gritty
details for me, thanks, I’d rather be surprised. Unfortunately, the powers that
be (i.e. 20<sup>th</sup> Century Fox) could not let it rest. I went to see a
horror movie in theaters soon after, and there was the trailer for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Morgan</i>, laying out every last detail of
the film in, as far as I can tell, explicit detail. I mean really, compare the
clip above to the trailer:<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now, I could be wrong. There could be oodles of plot left
untouched, ready to be discovered only by those willing to fork over twelve
bucks for a ticket to the show. But for my taste, this trailer tells way too
much. I’ve already learned everything I need to know about Morgan, including exactly
where her story is headed (if not how it ends). The element of surprise – of
shock and awe – is gone for me. I know too much. And I have some shocking
information for studio heads and trailer editors: I’m now far less inclined to
go see <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Morgan</i> in theaters.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I know, I know. Those in the biz claim that showing more of
a film’s plot in the trailer makes audiences more likely to go see it. But
dammit, pandering to the lowest common denominator is why we can’t have nice
things, and I am so unspeakably tired of it. Why must stupid people constantly ruin
things for the rest of us?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Yes, I said stupid people. I’m sorry if this offends you,
but watching the entire plot of a movie in two minutes and then paying good
money to watch it all play out again is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">stupid</i>.
Sure, it sucks to waste twelve dollars on a crappy movie, and maybe seeing the whole
thing condensed makes you feel surer about your choice, but listen up, because
boy do I have news for you: that’s what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">reviews</i>
are for. Do two minutes of research before heading to the theater (yes, I’m
looking at you, person who decides which movie to see while waiting in line based
on the titles on the marquee) and you can be fairly secure in the quality of
movie you’re paying to see.<o:p></o:p></div>
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But apparently two minutes on Google is too much to ask of the
average theatergoer these days.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This problem is especially egregious when it comes to horror
films, which generally rely heavily on the element of surprise to, you know,
surprise and scare audiences. Give away the biggest scares in the trailer, and
what are you left with? Not me wetting my pants with fear and anticipation, that’s
for sure.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now I must harp on a film (just the trailer for a film)
that I absolutely, genuinely love, and for that I am sorry – but it must be
done. You see, I went to see <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Don’t
Breathe</i> last week, and it was every bit the pulse-pounding, heart-hammering
thrill I’d hoped it would be. And you know why? Well, first of all, because it’s
a great film – that certainly can’t be undersold. But also because: I went in
completely blind. I knew the logline for the film and nothing more, aside from
the fact that the director was a favorite of mine and the film had some
positive buzz. I avoided trailers like the plague. I literally left a theater once
to avoid any whiff of a spoiler.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And it paid off. It was one of the most suspenseful,
exciting theater experiences I’ve had in years. Had I watched the trailer,
though? It gives away a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">huge</i> spoiler.
If you haven’t seen it, I’m giving you fair warning, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do not watch it. </i>But if you’ve seen the movie already, let’s
examine:</div>
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Less than two minutes in, bam. Giant spoiler. If I saw that
before seeing the film, I would’ve spent the entire first half of the movie
waiting for that moment, knowing it was coming sooner or later, and it would
have colored the entire experience for me for the worse. And for those viewers
that had that experience, rather than the one I got to enjoy – full of tension,
anxiety, and genuine shock – that is a damn shame.</div>
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I know it’s not up to the filmmakers; like everything else,
this comes down to money and marketing. As long as spoilery trailers rake in
the bucks, they’ll surely continue churning them out. I can only send this
futile yawp of frustration out into the ether, with little to no hope that
anyone who can actually change things will take notice.</div>
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But I will “vote” with my dollars. I probably won’t see <i>Morgan</i> in theaters unless someone can
convince me that there’s much more to the story than what’s shown in the
trailer. And I’ll continue fleeing auditoriums during <i>Blair Witch</i> trailers (please, universe, don’t ruin this for me) like
a fool, hoping that someday, someone will listen. Until then, ignore the weirdo
in the next row humming through the previews with her eyes closed and her ears
plugged. She’s not crazy, I swear.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-32406262684964447672016-08-11T14:00:00.000-04:002016-08-11T14:00:21.260-04:00Currently Listening To: Southern GothicYou guys may or may not know that I'm a huge fan of The Pretty Reckless (I actually noted this vital truth on my newly-updated <a href="http://www.razorappleblog.com/p/aboutcontact.html" target="_blank">About/Contact</a> page, so check that out if you want to know some useless facts about me). I get made fun of for this a lot, but there's no shame in my game, man. Have you heard TPR lately? No? Well get back to me when you've listened to their latest single, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nrlsUvbKTs" target="_blank">Take Me Down</a>.<br />
<br />
If you liked that, you might like the music that's been on my mind lately - specifically southern gothic. Whether it be rock, folk, or blues, it's all a little dark, a little creepy. You might not be able to pinpoint why, exactly. Like the music that played on repeat during <i>The Strangers</i>. It just does something weird to your backbone, you know?<br />
<br />
<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="380" src="https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify%3Auser%3Aspotify%3Aplaylist%3A6jOKJ9uMXxnGM9Bh3rujY3" width="300"></iframe><br />
<br />
What are you listening to these days? And what are your favorite creepy tunes?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-8328613929046204292016-08-09T21:59:00.001-04:002017-06-24T13:31:58.079-04:00Movie Roundup #11<div class="MsoNormal">
A few more quickie reviews – because the summer is long,
hot, and way too busy, amiright? So here’s what’s good.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHw0nk-_H-KHtQ_GNWP57mLFZdO1i4ChS88IZwtGJpRmy3XQqGxBVMNXWmyDiICHXUpXKI3uhTyJLFcpVRz7EiV__-wBjUI63AHCdriOJWxJz7jbFb0WxLGG3yCegwMSWoYGKlq_rvMgzB/s1600/blackcoat.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHw0nk-_H-KHtQ_GNWP57mLFZdO1i4ChS88IZwtGJpRmy3XQqGxBVMNXWmyDiICHXUpXKI3uhTyJLFcpVRz7EiV__-wBjUI63AHCdriOJWxJz7jbFb0WxLGG3yCegwMSWoYGKlq_rvMgzB/s640/blackcoat.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></b>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Blackcoat’s Daughter (a.k.a. February) (2016).</i></b> This film
about creepy girls at a creepy boarding school sounded absolutely tailor-made
for me – and in a lot of ways, it was. After all, is there anything better than
a creepy boarding school story? Nope. I really enjoyed the leisurely,
atmospheric way the story was told (it truly <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dripped</i>
atmosphere, so, score), though at times it was just a tiny bit <i>too</i> leisurely for my taste. However, I think future viewings will only yield more and more, so this film is a win in my book.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimCsxUuZ80tTXV6zbLkSF8AmqWQTlmCPpLV8WP5mWZtMoBmSm0oq80lJOjM-AX-Em-6iA9Im58ctsrfl39PaucMZnPET1GZcIudrwHHEwyIXaSaYwiGFrGA-Tuza1K_QG0St5c-WjwDrVm/s1600/onesbelow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimCsxUuZ80tTXV6zbLkSF8AmqWQTlmCPpLV8WP5mWZtMoBmSm0oq80lJOjM-AX-Em-6iA9Im58ctsrfl39PaucMZnPET1GZcIudrwHHEwyIXaSaYwiGFrGA-Tuza1K_QG0St5c-WjwDrVm/s640/onesbelow.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Ones Below (2016). </i></b>A horror film about mothers, parenting,
and paranoia. This had a lot of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rosemary’s
Baby</i> vibes, in a very good way, but still managed to be its own film
(unlike, for example, Mickey Keating’s recent <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Darling, </i>which was stylish but far too imitative of the movies it
was inspired by).</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjArxT_V3WFftxDCVuo5QYlye52aSsZ_aA419hu0crDJ11V-H3MXPYvYef-b_jrbsu3ghMwu__nwbAVwEeSwhln8QqNWRH-Y_dJ18GddgT65Jo1pljoRMTywQGSYwTPYGzWk_1HMQ3PM9MY/s1600/lambs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjArxT_V3WFftxDCVuo5QYlye52aSsZ_aA419hu0crDJ11V-H3MXPYvYef-b_jrbsu3ghMwu__nwbAVwEeSwhln8QqNWRH-Y_dJ18GddgT65Jo1pljoRMTywQGSYwTPYGzWk_1HMQ3PM9MY/s640/lambs.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></b>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Even Lambs Have Teeth (2016). </i></b>Y’all… I kind of loved this. It’s
a little sleazy, a little bit of a mixed bag – and I loved it. It takes the
rape revenge subgenre and makes it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fun</i>.
Is it weird that I just said that?</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh09Uq_1PhwsaJ3EFU6ayqj2B8wendnhNdeFaoNDqGWE-_urUi1irjCpziPsaFGxKffiiptQyA7kPkpFpfLA_ZJu2JBoCGERLpg1KoO_wJeD2C0OWusM3zGhbXczMBDugbchCKbiUsR_Kti/s1600/shallows.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh09Uq_1PhwsaJ3EFU6ayqj2B8wendnhNdeFaoNDqGWE-_urUi1irjCpziPsaFGxKffiiptQyA7kPkpFpfLA_ZJu2JBoCGERLpg1KoO_wJeD2C0OWusM3zGhbXczMBDugbchCKbiUsR_Kti/s640/shallows.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Shallows (2016). </i></b>I had (definitely unreasonably) high hopes
for this one, and I was sorely disappointed. That might be unfair of me,
because this film did pretty much exactly what I imagine it set out to do. As a
lover of single-setting horror movies, though, this one fell short of a lot of
the ones I’ve loved in the past (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black
Water, Frozen, The Ruins</i>). It doesn’t help that I have a strong aversion to
Blake Lively’s acting (but a simultaneous obsession with her Instagram… who can
figure).</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUiYZqsHU76AMYfzdGgtPDVMdolAcD8kV8ffBf8lYDhArPfii5d7tP6Xg_HAmHDnkP0FkYgvZ2XRJxm-rPZnoguOSSTz0bOpaV-_WukSITNUc6bJoPEXXF_R5IAeEsb-2t8FG9hPuhDyA4/s1600/deep.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUiYZqsHU76AMYfzdGgtPDVMdolAcD8kV8ffBf8lYDhArPfii5d7tP6Xg_HAmHDnkP0FkYgvZ2XRJxm-rPZnoguOSSTz0bOpaV-_WukSITNUc6bJoPEXXF_R5IAeEsb-2t8FG9hPuhDyA4/s640/deep.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">47 Meters Down (2016). </i></b>It’s hard to set an entire movie underwater,
so I give this one points for trying. Mandy Moore is adorable and a really
likable heroine, but unfortunately she's given very little to work with here. This movie was slow, often funny when it wasn't meant to be, and ultimately very forgettable. Not the worst summer watch I've seen, but I don't recommend it.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJzadxqeddJHC_mLytCS0Cqh77ZujsKcfu_FDq58cjbQSFXkmZBZA7FcEYS309PQAmNeaoyej_9hCTUjCpa3bnCYCnFKpiJPsrlgBr6K43iXrmVxvkkSMBZwA87wmR6i1j3wO-qLtplDDV/s1600/rebirth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJzadxqeddJHC_mLytCS0Cqh77ZujsKcfu_FDq58cjbQSFXkmZBZA7FcEYS309PQAmNeaoyej_9hCTUjCpa3bnCYCnFKpiJPsrlgBr6K43iXrmVxvkkSMBZwA87wmR6i1j3wO-qLtplDDV/s640/rebirth.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></b>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rebirth (2016). </i></b>This Netflix original was a bit of a letdown. It
started out strong with plenty of paranoia, but it never really evolved into
anything more than those first few scenes at the Rebirth compound. I wish there
had been more to it.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDO3FoPKsNQzaafNZYoe9-idleL0DiItoCHATXCHLzhy25dPn5OlcaC6lqslr90B0TzzC5-i6kGqJ8fb77vyI9dUyVrN4gEHmhgRrwosbXWXX7izKW7ajl0bHCqaEnQsbT4kMvuA7Se0bJ/s1600/thepurge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDO3FoPKsNQzaafNZYoe9-idleL0DiItoCHATXCHLzhy25dPn5OlcaC6lqslr90B0TzzC5-i6kGqJ8fb77vyI9dUyVrN4gEHmhgRrwosbXWXX7izKW7ajl0bHCqaEnQsbT4kMvuA7Se0bJ/s640/thepurge.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></b>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Purge: Election Year (2016). </i></b>I maintain that the original <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Purge</i> is the greatest <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Purge</i>. The sequels are just mediocre action movies. (Not to mention the most interesting character in <i>Election Year</i> was killed off way too soon.)</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-jJ5Lf3YtvUysy2nTp51wuf1PnespDCg96H6YNlVML2Qexvx_UsLmW_1VWNzccXBbE4gzkWCEMKrq2dkFJOQg7h2GlUUZgrZEhu6AKdJH_MOoyBDnpLK7QGDuZkgi2tCCdmk7aTQ3sT53/s1600/urge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-jJ5Lf3YtvUysy2nTp51wuf1PnespDCg96H6YNlVML2Qexvx_UsLmW_1VWNzccXBbE4gzkWCEMKrq2dkFJOQg7h2GlUUZgrZEhu6AKdJH_MOoyBDnpLK7QGDuZkgi2tCCdmk7aTQ3sT53/s640/urge.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></b>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Urge (2016).</i></b> This movie was slightly better than <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Loft</i>, which it reminded me of for
some reason. But that’s not an endorsement.</div>
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What've you been watching these days? Let me know in the comments or on <a href="http://www.twitter.com/clairecwrites/" target="_blank">Twitter</a>!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-88817514980528032892016-07-27T22:14:00.000-04:002016-07-29T13:21:06.947-04:00Splice: The Horror of Having It All<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIn8DuFgixXSi8b1QIJ17j621wLRc7AVwKrC_YkRh9k9Xr3lzYhb2ZV0U7dRUHIqsnHHmgcVZ4CaOwVJfTbI4ib-jNHpx04Hpe2xLBAxtwy5JY1iZJR0E8NTOEDl0B6eXrhxoChM25JSX9/s1600/image1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIn8DuFgixXSi8b1QIJ17j621wLRc7AVwKrC_YkRh9k9Xr3lzYhb2ZV0U7dRUHIqsnHHmgcVZ4CaOwVJfTbI4ib-jNHpx04Hpe2xLBAxtwy5JY1iZJR0E8NTOEDl0B6eXrhxoChM25JSX9/s640/image1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>This post contains spoilers.</i></div>
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“What’s the worst that could happen?”</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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That’s the question Clive, a genetic engineer, poses to his
partner in both work and life, Elsa, regarding the possibility of having a
child together. The rest of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Splice</i>
goes on to answer that question, and the perspective is not an optimistic one.<o:p></o:p></div>
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While sporadically debating the pros and cons of making a
baby the old fashioned way, the two scientists create a creature, eventually
named “Dren,” by splicing genetic material from different animals – including
human genes from Elsa, who becomes a de facto mother. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Splice</i> explores a number of fraught topics, including the politics
of male-female relationships, the nature of motherhood, and the ethics of
genetic engineering and abortion. One of the less explored topics, however, is
what the film says about the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">working</i>
mother, specifically. While the waters are a bit murky on the subject, look at
it in the right light and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Splice</i>
could very well be a cautionary tale for the career woman considering
motherhood.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkuKGC1uMg3ZrFPVs_KesWFlXIpyyJd3fxtc96UikXnDi-xMxmnMbsPwfueX9wqlKpgJCB-kntYW8c4Nb5FrxkIvqIR2o-a3g0FnJmtr53A_iaYiB5IjXgrhQFvOUXiqycVCd0TaU7Sytz/s1600/image2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkuKGC1uMg3ZrFPVs_KesWFlXIpyyJd3fxtc96UikXnDi-xMxmnMbsPwfueX9wqlKpgJCB-kntYW8c4Nb5FrxkIvqIR2o-a3g0FnJmtr53A_iaYiB5IjXgrhQFvOUXiqycVCd0TaU7Sytz/s640/image2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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From the outset, the film shows Elsa as an ambitious scientist
who loves her job – and who loves her life exactly the way it is. Her boyfriend
Clive is the one who wants to change things, gently but insistently prodding
Elsa about altering their lives to make room for a baby. Elsa makes it clear
that she’s not interested in doing so, stating, “I don’t want to bend my life
to suit some third party that doesn’t even exist yet.” She also suggests they wait
until they “crack male pregnancy,” suggesting that she may <i>never</i> be interested, for a variety of reasons. However, Clive
continues to pester Elsa to change her mind. It’s apparent that Clive represents
the good, “normal” man who wants expected things like a nuclear family, blissfully
unaware of the lasting effects a child would have on his female partner’s body
and career. Elsa represents the abnormal, and impliedly wrong, approach to living
as a woman: putting herself before her womb.</div>
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Elsa takes the ultimate gamble when she inserts her own
genetic material into the amalgam that is Dren. This presents the central
conflict of Elsa’s character: her repressed desire to be a mother, and her larger
desire to remain in control of her own life, body, and career. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Splice</i> goes on to suggest that these two
desires are inherently incompatible, and further, that attempting to “have it
all” is a punishable offense.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiso9vOaVp8Z-FeWjoBNyTZ_uGQZrtDYylxOhWHhl6bjfr9lPC08ThWjQN8YYVScKAyt_k0nckJQFsoOVEOyDZXtTp11eVG82HrPzy8Irkl7T83WgibgAnPsr3wHsdVoYxTO0UF5DJf-toD/s1600/Splice-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiso9vOaVp8Z-FeWjoBNyTZ_uGQZrtDYylxOhWHhl6bjfr9lPC08ThWjQN8YYVScKAyt_k0nckJQFsoOVEOyDZXtTp11eVG82HrPzy8Irkl7T83WgibgAnPsr3wHsdVoYxTO0UF5DJf-toD/s640/Splice-4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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When it comes to pseudo-motherhood, Elsa can’t do anything
right, at least in Clive’s opinion. At the beginning, he reprimands her for
treating Dren “like a pet” rather than a specimen. Clive’s fear illustrates how
stereotypically female attributes, such as the ability to nurture, are
considered weaknesses in a male-dominated profession like science, and the work
world in general. Elsa sees potential in Dren that reaches far beyond the
original goals of the experiment, but the film only presents this new facet of
her character as a negative. It makes Elsa emotional, and therefore a danger to
the sterile work world she inhabits.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As Dren matures and becomes more volatile, she grows closer
to Clive, who she begins to see as a potential mate (and, disturbingly, vice
versa), and becomes resentful of Elsa’s restrictive presence. Clive remains critical
of Elsa’s reactions to parenthood as she begins to shift from doting mother to controlling
mother, suddenly finding her not maternal <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">enough</i>
for his liking. Although we discover that Elsa has deep-seated issues with her
own mother that hinder her ability to parent effectively, we also see that as
the only parental figure left in the equation, she is obliged to become more
and more domineering in order to keep their unauthorized experiment under
wraps.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHwxT3-rB_I6iC1ou85dwZNQRu-Qw_TJ0HAEXBDyMRyOR2Ec7pvelQazPXHBGlA5U464dELaE7XvLq5o_OxU0MkYnlSEN9_nrh1ShaNOYUH4JBMgghd2REXgnQNrJ9WUeIT4n62OqKfPc0/s1600/image4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHwxT3-rB_I6iC1ou85dwZNQRu-Qw_TJ0HAEXBDyMRyOR2Ec7pvelQazPXHBGlA5U464dELaE7XvLq5o_OxU0MkYnlSEN9_nrh1ShaNOYUH4JBMgghd2REXgnQNrJ9WUeIT4n62OqKfPc0/s640/image4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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It’s at this point that Elsa becomes fundamentally unable to
reconcile her roles as mother and scientist. Faced with a wild, fully grown Dren
who doesn’t want to be told what to do, Elsa reestablishes control the only way
she knows how: by force. She knocks Dren unconscious, ties her down, and surgically
removes the stinger she has on her tail. Elsa then uses the stinger to
synthesize the protein her team has been attempting to make all along. It is
her greatest accomplishment, and also her coldest, most calculating moment, divorcing
her entirely from the mother figure she once represented to Dren. It seems that
in order to find success in her job, Elsa has to renounce her maternal side
completely.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the final act of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Splice</i>,
Dren transitions from female to male (the final part of her life cycle,
foreshadowed earlier in the film). Dren then rapes Elsa, for reasons left unexplained.
Perhaps it’s simply Dren’s animal instinct, but it comes across as punishment;
punishment for being too ambitious in realms not traditionally female (Elsa’s career,
science), or punishment for not finding fulfillment in the roles women are
“supposed” to find fulfillment (motherhood and wifedom). No matter how you
splice it, the film does not treat Elsa’s nonconformance with much kindness or
sympathy, and for better or worse it reads as a blaring warning sign to women
like her: attempting to “have it all” can be deadly.</div>
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<i>This post originally appeared as a post on <a href="http://www.btchflcks.com/2016/07/splice-the-horror-of-having-it-all.html#.V5lptWWnWRs" target="_blank">Bitch Flicks</a>.</i></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-30546811869230259882016-06-22T17:15:00.003-04:002016-06-22T17:20:36.735-04:00100 Best Horror Movies Ever: Don't Look Now<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFtDs8sh-r8cULSZ8mdGlHq4lSrCnLkzfbqwwp4Sz99JK2dzbli2MF88DNs7tEbj4KgeTKzwqH4IhhWFtveNSS5rPR5bovfxpobOUMPFeJwIR37qgR3YKCFhRAe7Z7OLr0ZOUOzKtSLekB/s1600/dont-look-now-american-poster-2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFtDs8sh-r8cULSZ8mdGlHq4lSrCnLkzfbqwwp4Sz99JK2dzbli2MF88DNs7tEbj4KgeTKzwqH4IhhWFtveNSS5rPR5bovfxpobOUMPFeJwIR37qgR3YKCFhRAe7Z7OLr0ZOUOzKtSLekB/s640/dont-look-now-american-poster-2.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This post contains
spoilers for a 43-year-old movie …and I can’t believe I even have to type that,
so this is your warning from here on out that all of these challenge posts may
contain spoilers for old movies. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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I watched <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Don’t Look
Now</i> with my husband, and since I’ve seen it before I pitched it to him as a
classic film that’s still incredibly effective and frightening. And then the
film went on to both prove and disprove my theory.<o:p></o:p></div>
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To be fair, I haven’t seen this movie since I was pretty
young, so I only had a hazy memory of the whole thing, punctuated by the
death-by-dwarf scene. I maintain that the climactic scene is chilling to the
bone, but my husband had more of a “what the hell?” reaction to it, akin to my
reaction the first time I saw <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sleepaway
Camp</i> as a teenager. I was disturbed in more of an uncanny valley way than
anything else – why was she making that weird noise? And why did they attach
the head of a teenager onto the body of what was clearly an adult man? It was
creepy, but funny. But creepy.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Here are those two scenes for reference, though if you haven't seen <i>Don't Look Now</i> I do recommend watching the whole thing. I still think it's one of the more effective and accessible classics I've seen.<br />
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<center>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6C-Y3oX5PyQ" width="560"></iframe>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/K6z6QIiXTnY" width="560"></iframe></center>
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This got me thinking about the nature of classic horror
movies and why some people love them while other people can’t seem to connect
with them at all. Spoiler alert: I don’t have a clear answer (I warned you
these challenge posts wouldn’t be thesis-worthy, right?). I’m not sure if it’s the
nostalgia of remembering something the way you first saw it – as in, that dwarf
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">terrified</i> me as a child, so I still
feel chills when I see her now. Or maybe it’s just the ability to employ a different
mindset and recalibrate your expectations while watching. I think that’s something
a lot of people today either can’t or don’t want to do, which is fair enough – after
all, I refuse to ever watch <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen Kane</i>
again, no matter how many film classes tell me it was groundbreaking at one
time. But I think watching classic horror <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">requires</i>
the viewer to approach things in a different way than contemporary
horror. The rewards are necessarily different, but not necessarily any less gratifying.</div>
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Going back to the uncanny valley thing, though, I think many
older films have that going for them as well, and the results can be genuinely disturbing.
Even when a film’s effects are shoddy and the acting is risible, it’s all just strange
and surreal and off-putting enough to unsettle you. Or maybe it’s not. It
really comes down to a big ol’ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>¯\_(<span style="font-family: "ms 明朝"; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">ツ</span>)_/¯<br />
<br />
So what say you? Are there any classic horror films that
still give you the major creeps? Tell me in the comments or on <a href="https://twitter.com/clairecwrites" target="_blank">Twitter</a>! Do it!<br />
<br />
As always, you can follow my 100 Best Horror Movies Ever Challenge with <a href="http://www.razorappleblog.com/search/label/100-horror-movies-challenge" target="_blank">this tag</a> on the blog, or the Twitter hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/100BestHorrorMoviesEver?src=hash" target="_blank">#100BestHorrorMoviesEver</a> (I really regret making that hashtag so long). Next time I hope to be talking about <i>Possession</i> – the 1981 version with Isabelle Adjani to be specific, because man there are a lot of "possession" movies.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-20238107747225579132016-06-08T10:08:00.000-04:002017-01-31T18:45:04.675-05:00An Ode to Pink Horror PostersDon't get me wrong; I love a good creepy, gross, disturbing horror film poster as much as the next person. Horror posters adorn my entire house, and I love them - I wouldn't have them hanging over my couch if I didn't. But if I'm really honest, I sometimes find myself wishing they weren't all quite so... dark. I know, that's silly, right? They're <i>dark</i> movies, after all. But google "greatest horror movie posters" and 90% of what comes up is very monochromatic - a lot of blacks and grays, maybe with some dark green and, of course, red thrown in. There's nothing wrong with that, but today I'm publishing an ode to the brighter side of horror - the pink side, specifically.<br />
<br />
I was originally inspired by this series of posters for Mickey Keating's latest, <i>Darling</i>:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNWBWCfw0tuqrNJRBaP2BKicjFdh3MtOkg8SOiHZdH7KsN4ap5F4M0hZez3blZn2H9dEUrWpQe5d_0IoiPMTJgxRXXWsdnShyphenhyphenSTgDpD2kKnnui2vGfkmLPuqk2vnnOthLA-MT07is_4UdA/s1600/darling3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNWBWCfw0tuqrNJRBaP2BKicjFdh3MtOkg8SOiHZdH7KsN4ap5F4M0hZez3blZn2H9dEUrWpQe5d_0IoiPMTJgxRXXWsdnShyphenhyphenSTgDpD2kKnnui2vGfkmLPuqk2vnnOthLA-MT07is_4UdA/s640/darling3.jpg" width="432" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz7w9O0cEs4FObB2U2boRCbOLEpkNPr_p1j7iC-K2_JTS2PlOQ7tvGrYnMKAh_chsAUfqknAZMIgw-LyEyguTcK_PjDB2QL2EZSdOuBTlmNioZoOLnlJOfvJ9xtglDhvKY84XA9Dx_keMH/s1600/darling1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz7w9O0cEs4FObB2U2boRCbOLEpkNPr_p1j7iC-K2_JTS2PlOQ7tvGrYnMKAh_chsAUfqknAZMIgw-LyEyguTcK_PjDB2QL2EZSdOuBTlmNioZoOLnlJOfvJ9xtglDhvKY84XA9Dx_keMH/s640/darling1.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhR-GjW4atixFKGtkKTU6VKSfQG69Iv2yEt-opY5HxLK7tQMEAQdT_qjTXrOnPXiAWL8ib6_PhPTXufuAcaRHWX3hAWekjsMZQ-_SiRbt5ASretsEOz88j_YNjGd3AhTQHMKP5GkCHydwh/s1600/darling2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhR-GjW4atixFKGtkKTU6VKSfQG69Iv2yEt-opY5HxLK7tQMEAQdT_qjTXrOnPXiAWL8ib6_PhPTXufuAcaRHWX3hAWekjsMZQ-_SiRbt5ASretsEOz88j_YNjGd3AhTQHMKP5GkCHydwh/s640/darling2.jpg" width="432" /></a></div>
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I love how the pink notes carry through and link all the different versions together - and the effect is anything but cutesy. It got me jonesing for other such posters, and to my great delight I found that my beloved<i> What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?</i> once got a similar treatment:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg23KhyzIiDoOUzrI3JtMts06URpQkG1_MRwrpNnz61C5VMLeugaxdQqb1vyzFLcc7sdVyHXDYBKK1BnBoQlnTtUDdeoBFmRMJtFaSGBcQi8doa_wZ-fmMOHg8GpOp5S9ZB-RfePKAGwlT-/s1600/babyjane1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg23KhyzIiDoOUzrI3JtMts06URpQkG1_MRwrpNnz61C5VMLeugaxdQqb1vyzFLcc7sdVyHXDYBKK1BnBoQlnTtUDdeoBFmRMJtFaSGBcQi8doa_wZ-fmMOHg8GpOp5S9ZB-RfePKAGwlT-/s640/babyjane1.png" width="436" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVZGX93pnJUNvBdoKsG4hI5YXAE8MhOESXQM1lDtdA7ClgMBjtl60ueQR3fC7zVnTUCA1ZaFLz3w6fR9kmvC76scYDh6SkgqZIVLdRY04NV9QykcNMLuSlsaoaZMfVoHGfetsWOtN_H12N/s1600/babyjane2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVZGX93pnJUNvBdoKsG4hI5YXAE8MhOESXQM1lDtdA7ClgMBjtl60ueQR3fC7zVnTUCA1ZaFLz3w6fR9kmvC76scYDh6SkgqZIVLdRY04NV9QykcNMLuSlsaoaZMfVoHGfetsWOtN_H12N/s640/babyjane2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGNLrsPRkBiwOEzfLaQ9hPbu0VWvukB4A9BlfHYX9QXVnKCEmLfbyNKBc-1BxMXat9FyAt0sERihp93uvpFz5Zwn9Al8ycsqeO5Rse6H9PbQPffZKNURiywZMUWI7bmBV6791oa9YAJaDg/s1600/babyjane3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGNLrsPRkBiwOEzfLaQ9hPbu0VWvukB4A9BlfHYX9QXVnKCEmLfbyNKBc-1BxMXat9FyAt0sERihp93uvpFz5Zwn9Al8ycsqeO5Rse6H9PbQPffZKNURiywZMUWI7bmBV6791oa9YAJaDg/s640/babyjane3.jpg" width="404" /></a></div>
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If that first poster with the doll's head doesn't prove that a poster can be both pink <i>and</i> horrifying, I don't know what does. Oh hell, let's take a moment to appreciate a few more:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtUsYG92LHNCw11LVbYQUEq55J5eCltEVX1w6WHIhfuPNCV9_DEoopN6YReA0fnyGoIK0KfZ-tv1YebrQClogt2lM-zfSyx75bsGuug3WrvtFEIHYr2sMX4h-_xdB5x7jQkpCC_vjQQmSr/s1600/BrideWoreBlack_Danish.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtUsYG92LHNCw11LVbYQUEq55J5eCltEVX1w6WHIhfuPNCV9_DEoopN6YReA0fnyGoIK0KfZ-tv1YebrQClogt2lM-zfSyx75bsGuug3WrvtFEIHYr2sMX4h-_xdB5x7jQkpCC_vjQQmSr/s640/BrideWoreBlack_Danish.jpg" width="460" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrL9YjG9VwCpOTZu0AyLgUxaGJTXLmFttiPWnoE_d3Kzag62UCLPYGUH5VubGpVAlU_bgW2xool67RRR6gLckG8VltRg6HjBpv9BukJc4CDFyHODSW1lCFIClBUZTdwQlsfQANw_gIBbre/s1600/chastitybites.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrL9YjG9VwCpOTZu0AyLgUxaGJTXLmFttiPWnoE_d3Kzag62UCLPYGUH5VubGpVAlU_bgW2xool67RRR6gLckG8VltRg6HjBpv9BukJc4CDFyHODSW1lCFIClBUZTdwQlsfQANw_gIBbre/s640/chastitybites.jpg" width="432" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwznyHsuxM-CN8FiQ8t5H2QFlL0XyUpHmIZwVg5lsK3Auu2CQWE_nCYURG7mIfLLajVWK7kSTy7WNnHZjlv7jh89jq7waoRognUbeQmWftX0uijymvKDSqMU7XiKGniH6CP1FlrqSIpFs7/s1600/dumplings.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwznyHsuxM-CN8FiQ8t5H2QFlL0XyUpHmIZwVg5lsK3Auu2CQWE_nCYURG7mIfLLajVWK7kSTy7WNnHZjlv7jh89jq7waoRognUbeQmWftX0uijymvKDSqMU7XiKGniH6CP1FlrqSIpFs7/s640/dumplings.png" width="466" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0rUDJFhZVlotnEMZK-KxTb2bQkkl5-nlcNRMSWkCxJXuN5AlpKmOkuf2xWBEqFFymhbpCNFRwk2PUJq16IWf1VJUbjpViHuaOUNQCS0uLsgsSmM3bT8svEwm9o8k6zkTuFdCGuhyphenhypheneTAW9/s1600/lovedones1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0rUDJFhZVlotnEMZK-KxTb2bQkkl5-nlcNRMSWkCxJXuN5AlpKmOkuf2xWBEqFFymhbpCNFRwk2PUJq16IWf1VJUbjpViHuaOUNQCS0uLsgsSmM3bT8svEwm9o8k6zkTuFdCGuhyphenhypheneTAW9/s640/lovedones1.jpg" width="430" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS15Z_sjNQ4B0An9L6EefjsjfbdwFWiDB-oIVseY38TdntmzGJIbzCTncborJvlh1yBe-LXqiuGo6ebckpMHlNC8e9mz2NM2BaJFdSSBFSDGQLkm0KJZicb-sOeJ11AiBV1oarBI96Admb/s1600/rosemarypolish.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS15Z_sjNQ4B0An9L6EefjsjfbdwFWiDB-oIVseY38TdntmzGJIbzCTncborJvlh1yBe-LXqiuGo6ebckpMHlNC8e9mz2NM2BaJFdSSBFSDGQLkm0KJZicb-sOeJ11AiBV1oarBI96Admb/s640/rosemarypolish.jpg" width="462" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvPvcbxXl9pHBJgfcDadKgrE8lHfu452msafjBmQLi-_QsTWyQF1WT4nfQk-4XUG4vQt4L0ZiXqMbzOuL8rmjXI-FVAjUEyAxBXXrXbJNTcn8GMenvMSeOZta-9mP6QLByKhIT9W2k7zGN/s1600/thewitches.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvPvcbxXl9pHBJgfcDadKgrE8lHfu452msafjBmQLi-_QsTWyQF1WT4nfQk-4XUG4vQt4L0ZiXqMbzOuL8rmjXI-FVAjUEyAxBXXrXbJNTcn8GMenvMSeOZta-9mP6QLByKhIT9W2k7zGN/s640/thewitches.jpg" width="428" /></a></div>
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What are your favorite movie posters? Let me know in the comments, or send me a photo on <a href="https://twitter.com/ClaireCWrites" target="_blank">Twitter</a>!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8615951080936423114.post-86646213217719553152016-05-26T16:40:00.001-04:002016-05-26T16:53:05.626-04:00YA Novels for Horror Film Fans<div class="MsoNormal">
I love horror movies. You know I do. But if you read this
blog, you may have no clue that I also love reading – do it pretty much every
day, in fact. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the books I read are horror, young adult
horror to be exact. Why YA? Honestly, I’m not sure why, but for some reason adult
horror novels don’t typically do it for me. I don’t know if my lizard brain is
stuck in adolescence or what, but YA horror just seems to hit a sweet spot that
can really scare the shit out of me.</div>
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To be fair, it’s easier to scare me with a book than a
movie, for whatever reason. When I’m sitting alone in bed, with the silence
pressing in all around me and a story blowing up to monstrous proportions in my
imagination… well, what merely seems unsettling in the daylight can become
truly terrifying at night. I think maybe it’s the aspect of being totally
alone, without even characters on a screen (even ones in peril) for company.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Anyway, I thought I’d drum up some book recommendations for
those of you who love horror movies! And in no particular order, here they are.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwOGofsPQ0_tlNU6R45SupDpCir40gXhEu-HlIYGdPXvm_j6pJrXWy7LlCYJ33UrljhUG4bbEKfYlSIACjsBdNsVv4o6lCeo7Dnlhx010Vff56OXC-An1Xx3uMUJZAo-JBDLEZoaTY96dx/s1600/daughters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwOGofsPQ0_tlNU6R45SupDpCir40gXhEu-HlIYGdPXvm_j6pJrXWy7LlCYJ33UrljhUG4bbEKfYlSIACjsBdNsVv4o6lCeo7Dnlhx010Vff56OXC-An1Xx3uMUJZAo-JBDLEZoaTY96dx/s400/daughters.jpg" width="263" /></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">For fans of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Witch</i>: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18748653-daughters-unto-devils?ac=1&from_search=true" target="_blank">Daughters Unto Devils</a> by Amy
Lukavics<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Daughters Unto Devils</i>,
about a family living on the desolate prairie in the 1800s, delves into a lot
of the same themes as this year’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Witch</i>: the shame and fear surrounding sexuality, the double-edged sword of religious
devotion, and the insanity that can be brought on by isolation. Both also
feature a healthy dose of the supernatural. This is one book that really, truly
kept me up at night.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">For fans of urban legends:
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/205012.Boy_Heaven?from_search=true&search_version=service" target="_blank">Boy Heaven</a> by Laura Kasischke<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Laura Kasischke’s writing is simply unmatched in terms of creating
an evocative setting. In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boy Heaven</i>, she
tells the story of three girls at cheerleading camp who smile at the wrong boys
at the wrong time. It’s literally framed as a campfire urban legend, and it
works perfectly as such. You can practically feel the muggy summer air and hear
the cicadas chirping in the cabins. The ending packs a punch, too. If you like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boy Heaven</i>, I also recommend checking
out <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Feathered</i> by the same author,
which is about a spring vacation in Cancun and brings to mind <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Ruins </i>and <i>And Soon the Darkness.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi62WEJoh6YmEaZcFs_IeymwWyorhGg36isi-YL9dwHnwCCFoIWP5k3pvw7aFNvAL7cB8fJ9OFmYTiszys8gPZY1mHzU02pXRPHSy-E0TH8UyEV0ZQhxBjd0grBEYq1_Y1r5rmHHb7EbJSD/s1600/boring.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi62WEJoh6YmEaZcFs_IeymwWyorhGg36isi-YL9dwHnwCCFoIWP5k3pvw7aFNvAL7cB8fJ9OFmYTiszys8gPZY1mHzU02pXRPHSy-E0TH8UyEV0ZQhxBjd0grBEYq1_Y1r5rmHHb7EbJSD/s400/boring.jpg" width="257" /></a><o:p> </o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">For fans of slashers:
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11958033-ten?from_search=true&search_version=service" target="_blank">Ten</a> by Gretchen McNeil<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ten</i> is a classic
slasher in novel form: ten teens away for the weekend at a house party on Henry
Island start to get picked off by an unseen killer, one by one. It features a
lot of the slasher tropes we all know and love from horror film (which I
appreciated), and it’s good, creepy fun.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">For fans of ghost
stories & psychological horror: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9266779-frost?ac=1&from_search=true" target="_blank">Frost</a> by Marianna Baer<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Another book with all the hallmarks of a horror movie:
boarding school, old Victorian houses, and possible ghosts that may possibly be
making things happen – scary and dangerous things. On the other hand, Leena,
the main character, could just slowly be going insane… and therein lies the
delicious, suspenseful mystery.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2jskcIFeSmWw1A-52TpS_e7sAk4tcIsb6M44E3DVEa7lgJOsTgkU1Maz370gutRwXAEckZGmXHKo9H6WLM4ptt0vS6XmGzomVharKbn8175289WdevehkF6w-k4lj5wFdKeBUlDez6Kvx/s1600/imaginary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2jskcIFeSmWw1A-52TpS_e7sAk4tcIsb6M44E3DVEa7lgJOsTgkU1Maz370gutRwXAEckZGmXHKo9H6WLM4ptt0vS6XmGzomVharKbn8175289WdevehkF6w-k4lj5wFdKeBUlDez6Kvx/s400/imaginary.jpg" width="263" /></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">For fans of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Mary</i>, complicated women, and/or
heavy metal: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22750458-boring-girls?ac=1&from_search=true" target="_blank">Boring Girls</a> by Sara Taylor<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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This is an all-time favorite read of mine. I’d actually say
it’s more of an adult novel, but it features teens and I’ve seen it described
as YA. It’s about two girls, Rachel and Fern, who get deeply involved in the
metal music scene, even forming their own band. It’s a tough scene for women,
though, and the book really explores what it’s like to be a girl in a man’s
world, and the things that can happen when people are stripped of agency over
their own bodies. It’s not really scary, but it’s a tough, powerful read that
brings to mind <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Mary</i> and other
horror movies with complex female characters.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">For fans of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It Follows</i> and/or the realistic supernatural:
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8603765-imaginary-girls?ac=1&from_search=true" target="_blank">Imaginary Girls</a> by Nova Ren Suma</b></div>
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This is another of my all-time favorite spine-chilling reads,
and should appeal to anyone who loves a story with a creeping sense of dread. Though
I’m struggling to express exactly how it reminds me of <i>It Follows</i>, it simply <i>does</i>.
The story of Chloe, her sister Ruby, and a mysterious reservoir features the
same sort of subtle, skin-crawling horror, and it’s the kind that really stays with
you.</div>
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That's all for now, though there surely further installments knocking around in my brain. What horror novels do you love? Let me know in the comments, or talk to me on <a href="https://twitter.com/ClaireCWrites" target="_blank">Twitter</a>!</div>
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