How Amazon's 'Nanny' fixes the problem of "exotic" horror tropes

For almost as long as the genre has existed on-screen, horror movies have used real cultural mythologies to frighten us. Exorcisms, spirits, and vampires are all familiar tropes that have international origins — even more niche subgenres like folk horror owe themselves entirely to pagan and foreign religions. While plenty of these films find nuance by balancing terror with genuine reverence, many American-made horror movies can’t help but feel exploitative — presenting certain spiritual bel...

The Second Life of John Frankenheimer's Seconds

Rock Hudson — rock as stoneStone HuddaughterStone Son (penis?)What IF…?What if…? is more than a new Marvel series. It’s the question that underpins so much great science fiction. What if the hierarchies of biological evolution were upended? What if artificial intelligences rebelled? What if humans colonized new worlds or mastered time travel? And what if—in the case of John Frankenheimer’s 1966 brilliant body-horror science-fiction paranoiac thriller Seconds—any of us could have a second shot...

The Oscar - reflexive film

Deconstructing Woody - Self-reflexivity in the Films of Woody Allen

Deconstructing Woody: Self-reflexivity in the Films of Woody Allen Home Deconstructing Woody: Self-reflexivity in the Films of Woody Allen Ronan Doyle (N.U.I. Galway) Woody Allen Among the most prolific directors in American cinema since his debut with What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), Woody Allen’s work has spanned the eras, his style evolving from the broad comic leanings of films such as Bananas (1971) and Sleeper (1973) to elegiac rom-coms the like of Annie Hall (1977...