Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House, based on Shirley Jackson’s novel of the same name, was an absolute masterclass in emotive storytelling, story adaptation, and filmmaking. This time, Flanagan continues to reinvent great stories of the past as the second installment of The Haunting explores Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw”. The Haunting of Bly…
Review: Ratched
We were first introduced to the terrifying and tyrannical Nurse Mildred Ratched in Ken Kesey’s book One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest — but her character was brought to life by Louise Fletcher in Miloš Forman’s film adaptation, which earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1976. Nurse Ratched manipulated her patients in…
Killing Eve: the Transformation of Eve Polastri
Also featured on Medium. Since the beginning, we’ve always wondered whether Killing Eve — the title — means that Villanelle (Jodie Comer) will eventually kill Eve (Sandra Oh) as part of their intoxicating game of cat and mouse. But what if the title isn’t literal and instead possesses a deeper meaning? At its core, Killing Eve is really about…
Review: Dead Dicks
After receiving a series of panicked messages from her older brother Richie (Heston Horwin), young nursing student Becca (Jillian Harris) rushes over to his apartment to check on him. When she gets there, her worst fears come true: she finds Richie’s dead body after a successful suicide attempt. While she’s in distress, Richie suddenly appears,…
20 Years of Cheers: The Legacy of Bring It On
At its surface, Bring It On is a fun teen rom-com about cheerleading that perfectly sets up its tongue-in-cheek tone with its opening dream sequence. Featuring the “I’m sexy, I’m cute, I’m popular to boot” cheer, it pokes fun at how people typically view cheerleading as nothing more than a bitchy popularity contest, but the film also shines…
Review: Yes, God, Yes
Most teenage sexual awakenings explored in cinema are told through the male lens, but Yes, God, Yes not only explores this through the female lens, but through a religious one as well. Loosely based on writer-director Karen Maine’s experience growing up Catholic in the Midwest, the film follows 16-year-old Alice (Natalie Dyer) as she begins to explore…
I Am Legend: Becoming the Villain in a Vampiric Dystopia
Across the world, life as we know it has changed: we’re living in a real-life dystopia due to a novel strain of the coronavirus. With so many people in lockdown around the globe, people have been influenced to seek out films that explore similar circumstances. Unsurprisingly, the most popular is Contagion, a film about an airborne…
Review: Eilsabeth Moss’ Shirley Jackson Walks a Tightrope Between Chaos and Control in ‘Shirley’
This review was adapted into an essay for HorrorWood and published with them on September 18, 2020. Josephine Decker, director of experimental drama Madeline’s Madeleine, explores the life of American horror writer Shirley Jackson in her newest film, Shirley. Jackson, who has written six novels, two memoirs and over 200 short stories, is perhaps best known for ‘We…
Film Review: The Grudge (2020)
J-horror had a huge impact on Western cinema in the late 90s, thanks to Ringu (1998), which led to a lot of American remakes. Takashi Shimizu remade his own film, Ju-On: The Grudge (2002), for an American audience in 2004 starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. There have been two sequels to this so far, but producer Sam Rami and director…
‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ Explores Lesbian Romance Using the Female Gaze
At the end of the 18th century, Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is teaching portraiture to a group of young women when one of them asks her about a painting they discovered at the back of the class — the titular ‘portrait of a lady on fire.’ We then jump to a flashback, which takes precedence for…