Hi teem!
AHHHHHHH FUCK IT’S OCTOBER I’M WASTING MY LIFE but it’s fine.
Hope you’re doing well. I hope your Friday is everything that you’ve ever dreamed it is. I also hope that you take care of yourself and that you don’t beat yourself up too bad if you make a mistake. Mistakes are made to be teachings or whatever it is that Ghandi said. You know the quote. You can work out the rest.
Today’s list is all about the good spooky stuff. Horror and thriller and the rest. If that’s not your cup of tea then maybe skip this one. But hey, if you like the occasional Scooby-Doo man in the mask, there are a couple of masterpieces in this list that are well worth your time.
FOR (GOOD) TERROR
For stuff that’s as excellent as it is spooky dooky.
Annhillation (2018- dir. Alex Garland- NETFLIX / ITUNES)
The 2010’s were a period that moved away from the very bleak, grey and torture-porny aspects that Horror had grown accustomed to over the last ten years, replaced with ghosts, possessions and colour. Annhillation is no exception, a weird sci-fi horror amalgamation that isn’t afraid to be as pretty as it is scary.
It follows an all-women team of scientists that venture into a strange dome that appears shortly after a meteor crash landed on earth. Natalie Portman leads the expedition, on an attempt to find her husband. As they get deeper and deeper into the proverbial woods, they find themselves face to face with the horrors of the imagination, the land terraformed into something ancient, wild and horrifying.
It’s unusual for a film so very green to be so very scary. 2010’s horror found itself fully embracing neon to create unique senses of unease. Annhillation does the opposite, instead exploring the colourful horror of the natural world. Stark white beastie bones and flowery graves. Long patches of dirty green grass and walls made more of fungi than made of concrete. It’s a hell all it’s own, a strange inversion of what you’d expect walking into the devils domain. Though make no mistake, there is a hell awaiting them, the devil at the center. It’s unique in that way, horrifyingly captivating the entire way through. It’s also unique thanks to it’s almost entirely female cast, something mostly unseen in the horror genre. The few men we do meet are either in flashback or in small increments as we learn their ultimate fate. All of these gals, Portman, Jessica Jason Leigh, Tess Thompson, Gina Rodriguez & Tuva Novotny, are all wonderful, leading us through this haunted green world one cruel step at a time.
And don’t even get me started on the bear. If you know this movie, you know about the bear. If you don’t, don’t seek it out. The bear sucks. It sucks. It’s one of the worst movie villains in the last ten years. Awful boy. No good. Not like Paddington. Paddington would never.
But do seek this movie out. Pretty please with a Paddington on top.
Ex Machina (2015- dir. Alex Garland- NETFLIX / NEON / ITUNES / GOOGLE PLAY)
I first discovered Annhiliation director Alex Garland through his previous feature, the absolutely astounding Ex Machina. Essentially a elongated four way conversation about the ethics of AI between astounding leads Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac & Sonoya Mizuno, Ex follows Gleeson as he’s invited into Isaac’s private laboratory to help test his new experimental AI, Vikander. What he finds instead is a world of cruelty and starts to conspire to break her out.
I can’t discuss this movie without discussing the incredible ending. To be fair I haven’t seen it in a few years and don’t remember all the details. What I do remember is that it features the most unnerving dance scene ever put to film. Have you ever wanted your incredibly tense and sensual dissection of ethics and morality broken up by one of the most attractive actors alive dancing with one of his failed experiments? You do. 100%. Watch this movie for that. Come later for the scares.
Gone Girl (2014- dir. David Fincher- NETFLIX / AMAZON PRIME VIDEO / ITUNES / GOOGLE PLAY)
For the most part, I’m not particularly special when it comes to these picks. I think our society has collectively agreed that when it comes to these all-timers- “yes, these are great movies. These are the works of art that deserve to be celebrated”.
So shining a light on the exceptionally twisty Gone Girl feels a bit unnessecary. Folks know, while not a horror, how dreadful and unnerving this flick is. They know that Rosamund Pike delivers one of the greatest leading lady performances in the last ten years and the fact that she didn’t immediately shoot to the top of the A-list and stay there is beyond me. (She’s english. Maybe her agent couldn’t get her a good visa). Everyone knows that Ben Afflecks swarmy jackass is utterly captivating. They all know that it’s incredibly weird that Tyler Perry of all people turns up halfway through the movie. They all know that it’s about Afflecks hunt for his missing wife, Pike, that turns into a massive media frenzy with him as the main suspect. They know that it’s clever, extremely well written and just all in all expertly put together, and they definitely know that it knocked me right the hell on my ass when I first saw it at sixteen, where I stayed, until that final shot, one of the most horrifying put to film, certainly the most of 2014.
Everyone knows that. I dunno what I’m even doing here.
Hereditary (2018- dir. Ari Aster- ACADEMY ON DEMAND / NEON RENTALS / ITUNES / GOOGLE PLAY)
It’s another piece of common knowledge that this is one of the most frightening movies of the last ten years. A movie so slow, suspenseful and deliberate that I spent the last 20 minutes with my legs tucked well against my chest, desperately hoping that it would just get itself over with so I didn’t have to see the face of the thing that clung to the corner of Alex Wolff’s bedroom ceiling.
This is the first of the one-two punch of Ari Asters incredible two year streak, following this the following year with the very different but just as good Midsommar. This is my favourite of the two, as shadowy and foreboding as Midsommar is colourful and weird. It follows Toni Collette, an artist whose mother passes away. Shortly after, her family is seemingly cursed with increasingly strange and grusome events, resulting in some of the most horrifying horror that I personally has ever seen put to screen, as well as an incredible speech that my brother and I can’t stop quoting to one another as John Mulaney.
The horror involves, but is not limited to, women in the corner of rooms, tiny dollhouses, severed heads, dead birds, ants, burning alive, horrible deception and a very spooky treehouse. To go into anything more would ruin it, the film best seen as blind as humanly possible. It’s a masterpiece of rising tension and will likely be the reason you won’t be able to go to sleep that night. I surely didn’t.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017- dir. Yorgos Lanthimos- ACADEMY ON DEMAND / ITUNES / GOOGLE PLAY)
Yorgos Lanthimos is a very strange director who has recently burst into the mainstream with his excellent, oscar winning The Favourite. My favourite of his works is this, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, a dreadfully odd slow burn that introduced me to modern cinema’s most terrifying weird white guy- the incredible Barry Keoghan.
The movie follows Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman, a married couple whose family is threatened in a non-chalantely terrifying way by Keoghan, who asks Farrell to make the ultimate sacrifice or else face the slow deterioration of the people he loves the most. At some point Kidman (excellent in this as she is in most everything) gives a very sad handjob to a scumbag in order to save her family. It doesn’t do much good.
This movie feels like it was shot by an alien, terrified by our human customs and conveniences. The suburbia of Sacred Deer is soul crushing & barren, reflecting the anxiety and pain that exists inside our leads. The very gruesome is far and few between, so when those moments do arrive, it’s a massive shock to the system, sending a ripple throughout your entire body that leaves you breathless and disturbed. This tension builds to a awfully inevitable conclusion that makes you want to scream. It’s unbearable to watch. And yet you can’t look away. Wow, that’s crazy.
Nightcrawler (2014- dir. Dan Gilroy- ACADEMY ON DEMAND / ITUNES)
Nightcrawler is similar. This thrillers disturbing features make for one hell of a watch, your eyes unable to take themselves off of Jake Ghyllenhalls incredibly unnvering central performance, one that really makes the entire film.
This is another that I don’t remember a hell of a lot about so I’ll just say this-
It’s about how Jakey weasels his way into crime journalism, taking photos and video of bloody crimes to sell to broadcasters. It’s gritty work, work that gets more and more involved as things go on. It’s fascinating to watch this greasy little weasel- which Jakey very much is by the way- fall deeper and deeper into the cesspool that is LA, willingly swallowed up.
Parasite (2019- dir.Bong Joon-ho- ACADEMY ON DEMAND / ITUNES / GOOGLE PLAY)
You should have seen Parasite by now. There’s a reason why this incredibly resonant examination of capitalism, class and all the evils that come along with it was so well received when it first came out, gathering one hell of a cult following and snatching up every single award that there was to give the following year. Isn’t it crazy how this thing won best picture and then a coupley weeks later every single country in the world shut down? Kooky. Anyway.
If you haven’t seen it, please do. It’s as good as everyone says.
In it, the incredibly poor Kim family weasel their way into jobs for the affluent Parks, one by one using all matter of chicanery to make themselves invaluable to their new bosses and slowly carve a better life for themselves. But as all good plans must, things slowly start to go wrong.
There’s a reason why this film, while being extremely Korean in both it’s subject matter and it’s film making, is so resonant with so many people. It’s an incredibly pointed and distressing examination of that destructive demon we call Capitalism, spending the first half of the film telling this almost screwball character comedy, before tearing the whole thing down. It begs you ask the question- who in this picture is the Parasite? Is it the Kim’s? Who use lies, deception and every ounce of effort they can to deceive their employers into a paycheck? Or is it the Parks? Who present themselves as friends to all, blindfully ignorant to the fact that their success is literally built on the backs of the less fortunate? What does that dynamic do to a person who is less off? What lengths will a person go to to protect what little they have? How far can be a person be pushed, be disrespected, because of their class before they can’t take it anymore? When things get bad, who pays the consequences and who thrives?
It’s artful, masterful and extremely hard to watch. You’re drawn in extremely effectively with comedy and charm over an in-film period of many weeks, maybe months, before things grind to a halt and everything you know gets flipped on it’s head over the course of a day. I don’t want to give too much away, because the result is exceptional (bro the peeeeeeeach shot) but I will say- if you aren’t radicalized by the end of this flick, I don’t know what to tell you man. The machine has got it’s hooks in you. There may be no hope for you.
Prisoners (2013- dir. Denis Villeneuve- NEON / ITUNES / GOOGLE PLAY)
I think I mentioned in another newsletter than I used to think I didn’t have a favourite director and how that thought was shot out of the sky with the creation of this list.
Our boy Denis Villeneuve has found himself right at the top of that list. Our guy has made some of my favourite flicks of all time, including this exceptionally grimey crime thriller that put the guy on the map, well and proper, back in 2013.
In it Hugh Jackmans daughter goes missing. Jake Gyllenhaal leads the investigation to find her. As pressure mounts, Hugh starts taking things into his own hands, including holding the exceptionally grimey and gross Paul Dano against his will. Things get worse from there, leading to a wonderfully grotty conclusion, with one of the most memorable final shots in a film of the last decade. I don’t remember a lot from this flick (And I really should, I’ve got in on Blu-Ray, I need to rewatch it. Bad Mattie Bee) but I do remember that shot. I remember that haunting score that accompanied me for a month as I slowly worked my way through The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo on the bus to film school. It’s a film that huants my dreams. It deserves to haunt yours too.
The Shining (1980- dir. Stanley Kubrick- ITUNES / GOOGLE PLAY)
Come on. I don’t need to tell you about The Shining. You know about The Shining. It’s the greatest horror movie of all time. It’s got those ghost girls and the bloody lift. It’s great. You know it’s great. A hundred thousand better words have already been written about it. Read those. Look at this cool pic of Shelly Duvall (who deserved a lot better than how she was treated on the set of this movie).
What a cool lady.
Suspiria (2018- dir. Luca Guadagnino- AMAZON PRIME VIDEO / ITUNES / GOOGLE PLAY)
Luca Guadagnino, the director of Call Me By Your Name, was given the incredibly difficult job of remaking Suspiria, quite possibly the most influential horror movies of all time. He does it by taking it’s central themes and ideas and expanding them out in horrifyingly grotesque detail, turning a spotlight to those who live through great times of darkness and those who, even worse, help push it along.
It’s about Dakota Johnson, an American who joins a Berlin Dance company run by Tilda Swinton. As she becomes more and more involved, she gets closer and closer to a deep darkness that threatens to swallow her, and everyone, whole. Meanwhile, across town, an old male psychotherapist ruminates on a life that has passed him by- that life the key to the entire thing.
I won’t give too much away but I will give you an example of the sort of shit you’re in for by watching this. In order to impress Tilda, Dakota has to do a one woman dance. Unbeknownst to her another dancer, who has crossed the women who run the academy, is locked in the dance studio next door, lined wall to wall in mirrors. Dakota doesn’t know that she’s caught in a strange spell that connects her to the woman next door. As Daktoa dances, the woman is forced to dance too, only her moves are jerky and inelegant. Violent even. As if the idea of the steps were suddenly implanted in her bones, forcing her to move. As Dakota fights for her life, desperate to prove herself to those who could make or break her future, the other woman is slowly torn apart, the dance sending her careening into walls, into the floor, her arms getting pushed back so far that they break, her legs spinning so fast they they snap, her body roiling against the ground so vigorously and specifically that it twists her into knots, her every muscle, bones and tendon in her body stretched to their limits until they can’t push anymore, the poor girl left a withering, heaving mess of putty on the floor, surrounded by her own blood, piss and tears. It’s horrifying, visceral and all set to the sound of Tom Yorke’s incredibly distressing string based score. It’s remarkable and unforgettable and should give you an idea of the kind of shit you’re in for. It’s a wild watch and will likely leave you flabbergasted by the end of it, but it needs to be comprehended by as many brains as possible.
The VVitch (2015- dir. Robert Eggers- ITUNES / GOOGLE PLAY)
Anya Taylor-Joy is a gift and this film helped put her on the map. Black Phillip is also a gift, perhaps even greater than sweetheart Anya and deserves tattoo room on your bod.
The VVitch is about a family of pilgrims in seventeenth century America who are kicked out of their colony and forced to live off the land. Told through the perspective of teenaged Tominson (Taylor-Joy), they are quickly met with the harshness of the environment, crops and witchcraft.
I could talk about the excellent use of language, director Robert Eggers using as much time-appropriate ye olde english as he could. I could talk about the sinister, foreboding set-design and colour scheme, all of which leave you feeling wildly uneasy. I could talk about the steller performances, from wide eyed Anya to her merciless parents. I instead wanna talk about breakout star of the movie and the greatest performer in a horror movie of all time- Black Phillip.
Black Phillip is a goat that is the source of all the families problems. That’s because he’s actually the devil. With a mischievous look in his eyes and a glistening black goat, this guy scampers from scene to scene with such a powerful ferocisty and purpose, you’d think that he were actually possessed. Never in all my days has an animal performer commanded so much attention, never has one ever scared the shit out of me like he does he gets onto his hind legs and starts scaring the youngest children with a bleat and a shimmering of his coat. He’s such a good goat that they put him on the damn poster for crying out loud. Best moment of the whole thing belongs to him. This movie doesn’t exist without that beautiful, beefy goat. Yall gotta watch this masterpiece for him alone. I beg of yeeeee.
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That’s us for today folks. I hope your Friday is excellent, I hope you get a little bit spooky if you want. Halloween is on it’s way buds :)
xxx
-Mattie Bee