Shudder
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Trailer Watch: Stewart Thorndike’s Bad Things
After world premiering at the Tribeca Festival in June, a trailer officially arrives for Bad Things, writer-director Stewart Thorndike’s follow-up to her 2014 debut Lyle. While her first film was a lesbian riff on Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, Bad Things is overtly influenced by Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel The Shining. In my interview with Thorndike out of Tribeca, I detail the film’s plot in an introductory paragraph: Ruthie (Gayle Rankin) is debating whether or not to sell the now-derelict hotel her mother used to run years prior. With a decisive real estate meeting only days away, Ruthie […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jul 31, 2023 -
Trailer Watch: Jennifer Reeder’s Perpetrator
Jennifer Reeder’s follow-up as a writer-director to her 2019 feature debut Knives and Skin, the first trailer arrives today for Perpetrator. The film had its world premiere at this year’s Berlinale before having its North American premiere at Tribeca Festival earlier this summer. In my interview with Reeder ahead of Berlinale ’23, I briefly elaborate on the film’s premise: Precocious 17-year-old Jonny (Kiah McKirnan) has a no-frills home life with her deadbeat father, supported by her after school hustle as a petty thief. Her mother has long been out of the picture, only exacerbating her feeling of isolation when she […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jul 19, 2023 -
Trailer Watch: Laura Moss’s birth/rebirth
The trailer arrives for birth/rebirth, the feature debut of writer-director Laura Moss, a 25 New Faces alum from 2017. Co-written by Moss and their longtime screenwriting partner Brendan O’Brien, the film is essentially a modern-day take on Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, examining the biological urge to create life (whether through scientific exploits or human procreation) and the true meaning of “motherhood.” In my interview with Moss out of this year’s Sundance, I provide a general rundown of the film’s plot: The film follows Dr. Rose Casper (Marin Ireland), a brilliant pathologist lacking in basic social skills. Human connection doesn’t interest her […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jul 13, 2023 -
“I Absolutely Cannot Stand the Present”: Ted Geoghegan on Period Horror Film Brooklyn 45
Post-WWII national anxieties offer a glimpse into our current tolerance for totalitarianism in Brooklyn 45, writer-director Ted Geoghegan’s latest horror effort. Presented as a real-time film in a bottle setting, the film takes place during the immediate aftermath of the war as a group of veterans meet at one of their Brooklyn (by way of Chicago) abodes to reconnect and (attempt to) mend fresh wounds. Clive “Hock” Hockstatter (Larry Fessenden) hosts the group, who assemble in part to support their old friend after his wife’s recent suicide. Rounding out the guest list is Marla Sheridan (Anne Ramsay), who worked as […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jun 15, 2023 -
Let Me Be Your Shelley Duvall: Stewart Thorndike on Bad Things
The haunted halls of a defunct Catskills hotel wreak psychological violence on a group of young, queer city slickers in Bad Things, the long-awaited sophomore feature from writer-director Stewart Thorndike. Arriving nearly a decade after Lyle, Thorndike’s sapphic take on Rosemary’s Baby starring Gabby Hoffmann, Bad Things similarly tackles plot points and thematic fixations of another scary movie staple—Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining—through a thoroughly queer and feminist perspective. Ruthie (Gayle Rankin) is debating whether or not to sell the now-derelict hotel her mother used to run years prior. With a decisive real estate meeting only days away, Ruthie assembles a […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jun 14, 2023 -
“Significant Portions of the Movie Were Literally Just Lit by the Television”: Kyle Edward Ball on Skinamarink
The primordial fear of being watched, stalked and caught by an unknown entity lurking in the dark is the basis of Skinamarink, the microbudget feature debut from writer-director-editor Kyle Edward Ball. The incredibly loose narrative follows young siblings Kevin (Lucas Paul) and Kaylee (Dali Rose Tetreault) as they patter around their family’s strikingly ordinary middle-class house in the dead of night circa 1995. Their parents are nowhere to be found, all of the doors have mysteriously vanished and the lights eventually stop working. While this phenomena is enough to chill any child, their well-being is most threatened by a supernatural […]
by Natalia Keogan on Jan 13, 2023 -
“What if the Worst Thing That Could Happen Actually Happened?”: Director/Co-writer Christian Tafdrup on Speak No Evil
Two European families—one Danish, one Dutch—meet during a picturesque Italian vacation in Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil. Their bond is immediate, and soon enough the Dutch couple enthusiastically invite the Danes to visit them in Holland. The gesture is friendly enough, but the sincerity of the statement isn’t necessarily taken at face value. Shortly after the Danes—Bjørn (Morten Burian), Louisa (Sidsel Siem Koch) and their daughter Agnes (Liva Forsberg)—return to their well-kept abode, they receive a postcard in the mail. As it turns out, the Dutch family was completely serious about their offer, inviting them to visit their home in […]
by Natalia Keogan on Sep 14, 2022 -
Trailer Watch: Christian Tafdrup’s Speak No Evil
Watch the trailer for Danish director Christian Tafdrup’s unnerving horror-satire Speak No Evil. The film follows two families who hail from different European countries (Denmark and Holland) and decide to keep in touch after meeting on an Italian vacation. A few months later, the Dutch family invites the Danes to visit their retro Holland abode for the holidays. As one can imagine, things soon begin to go horribly awry. In his dispatch out of Sundance, Filmmaker‘s Vadim Rizov wrote that “Speak No Evil gets the job done, buoyed in part by the novel cultural politics of its Western European faceoff.” […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Aug 17, 2022 -
“I Wanted to Tell a Story Where the Atmosphere Was So Severe That It Literally Consumed the Movie”: Jeffrey A. Brown on the Environmental Horror of The Beach House
In his final book, The Weird and the Eerie, critic and theorist Mark Fischer differentiates between “the weird” and the supernatural as it appears in both literature and film. For example, the supernatural world of vampires, writes Fischer, “… recombines elements from the natural world as we already understand it….” These supernatural stories are contrasted with fictions based around suggestions and byproducts of natural phenomena, such as black holes. “… The bizarre ways in which [a black hole] bends space and time are completely outside our common experience,” Fischer writes, “and yet a black hole belongs to the natural-material cosmos […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 19, 2020
