A fan of all things Cormac McCarthy and RuPaul's Drag Race, you can typically find Craig in the kitchen pursuing his dream of becoming a head chef, or researching comparative genre aesthetics for his M.A. in Film Studies at Chapman University.
There is something undeniably idiosyncratic and charming about Alice Lowe’s Prevenge. For many, they’ll be sold on its villain, whose vocal inflections combine the coldness of the Red Queen and the carefree energy of children’s TV icon Peppa Pig. But, obviously, it isn’t just the film’s novel villainess (or villainesses, for some) that makes the overall viewing experience great. It’s visually rich, with an icy-black heart and reverence for genre, character, and audience.
There’s a moment during the 2017 reboot of The Mummy where Russell Crowe - transforming from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde - turns gray. Not misshapen, or any larger than his human self, just gray. One could say he even looks a bit moldy, kind of like Sofia Boutella’s 900-year old mummified Princess Ahmanet. If anything, Hyde’s complexion is a good indication of the film’s overall stale riffs on the Boris Karloff classic, and the dim-witted yet enthralling Brendan Fraser spin-off of the 90s. It’s old and not getting fresh anytime soon.
Today, zombie films are released about as fast as Danny Boyle’s sprinters in 28 Days Later. Inevitably, that means sifting through some rotten, but also invigorating flesh-eating flicks. As Boyle’s film arguably rebirthed the subgenre, and with The Walking Dead (although rapidly losing merit) having given much depth and timeliness to a worn subject, standards have grown. It’s why AMC’s spin-off Fear the Walking Dead landed with a resounding dud: it chose to pretentiously reinvent the wheel and could not steer its narrative into a coherent direction. Why?
Alien: Covenant, now the eighth installment in the Alien universe, arrives on Earth nearly forty years after Ridley Scott was put on the map for directing the original eerie and sophisticated creature feature. Perhaps it’s the pending anniversary that made Scott nostalgic for his glory days, for Covenant is sadly anything but a dismal, rehashed and sluggish attempt to recapture what made Alien (and Aliens) effectively original and terrifying.
Added to the handful of films that can truly claim the right to being the forbearer of an entire subgenre, Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is an equally riotous and chilling portrait of jealously and vanity. While some debate as to whether Sunset Blvd. or Baby J incited Grande Dame Guignol cinema (or, more fondly known as hag horror), audiences should enjoy seeing glamorous actresses of yesteryear get down-and-dirty with Mean Girls-level spiteful digs that feel uncomfortably horrific and humorous.
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One Thursday a month, Sophie lays out the rules for a horror film drinking game! Browse our past entires and be on the look out for new ones.
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