radio silence
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“Is That a 58 Degree Dutch Tilt?”: DP Brett Jutkiewicz on Scream
In the latest Scream installment, “elevated horror” and “requels” are among the contemporary genre trends affectionately deconstructed. The movie also lobs a little friendly fire toward the 1990s slasher revival that birthed the series—a character quips, “It was really over-lit and everyone had weird hair.” There’s not much cinematographer Brett Jutkiewicz can do about the latter, but the former served as a gauntlet thrown down. “When you have a line like that in the script, as a DP you think, ‘I guess I better not over-light this thing. I don’t want to end up as the butt of my own joke,’” […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Apr 11, 2022 -
“Requel”-ing Wes Craven: Radio Silence on Scream (2022)
There may be no horror franchise that opens with as simple and satisfying a tradition as Scream. As the production company’s logo appears on screen, we begin hearing the ringing of a landline phone—if you’ve seen only one of Scream’s now five installments, you immediately know whose voice will be on the other line. Reeling in a character with a false sense of comfort before swiftly posing a question everyone in the audience would affirmatively respond to (“do you like scary movies?”), the soon-to-be-victim begins to realize what we already know: if they can’t answer three specific slasher-film trivia questions, they’ll […]
by Erik Luers on Jan 14, 2022 -
Fantasia International Film Festival 2019: Fear and Formalism
A good friend, suffering from an incurable case of acute cinephilia, recently informed me that we are “living in a golden age of horror,” citing breakout hits like Jordan Peele’s doppelgänger-dependent Us and Ari-Aster’s bucolically-tinged relationship drama Midsommar. But for every horror film remade (“reimagined”) to inspired results (Lars Klevberg’s Child’s Play), a muddled, paint-by-numbers redo isn’t far behind (Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer’s Pet Sematary). For every step forward the ever-growing Conjuring Universe took, it’s always as a result of first taking two steps back (the Nixon era period pieces The Curse of La Llorona and, to a lesser […]
by Erik Luers on Sep 5, 2019 -
“Imagine Making a Movie Without Tape”: DP Brett Jutkiewicz on Ready or Not
In Ready or Not, a bride spends her wedding night playing a deadly game of hide and seek with her new in-laws, a clan of board game magnates beholden to a curse that requires them to dispose of the newlywed before dawn. The film unfolds almost entirely at the wealthy family’s estate, an opulent expanse shot mainly at the historic Parkwood Estate near Toronto. Ready or Not’s $6 million budget and 26-day shooting schedule are modest for a wide theatrical release, but for cinematographer Brett Jutkiewicz the scale is downright gluttonous compared to past efforts like Benny and Josh Safdie’s […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Aug 29, 2019 -
“Is That a Little Too Much Like Scooby-Doo?” Radio Silence on Ready or Not
Opening with a wedding and concluding with some kind of funeral, the horror-comedy Ready or Not is a welcomed late summer season addition. Grace (Samara Weaving) and Alex (Mark O’Brien) are married at the Le Domas family mansion. After the ceremony, the family announces that, as is tradition, they will promptly play a children’s game with (or more accurately, against) the bride, as she is the newest member of the Le Domas family and thus must pass a test. The game is Hide and Seek, and if Grace can make it to morning, she lives. If the Le Domas family […]
by Erik Luers on Aug 22, 2019 -
Lady Vengeance: V/H/S — Horror Movie Litmus Test
The most important thing to know about V/H/S is that it is more than the sum of its gimmicky-on-paper parts, which include found footage film, genre anthology, and snuffy homage to the recent history of lo-fi horror. Although it is not entirely free of the inherent unevenness of the omnibus film, V/H/S works surprisingly well as a whole because of consistency in the aesthetic, clever writing, and tongue-in-cheek humor across multiple directors’ vignettes. The setup involves a group of 20-something delinquents whose primary activity is shooting prank videos of a slightly racier nature than the likes of Jackass. When they […]
by Farihah Zaman on Oct 5, 2012
