American Horror Story
A quick overview of the high highs and middling disappointments in horror this year.
With the social media app formerly known as Twitter now a shell of its former self, horror fans have been forced to return to Facebook to continue such interminable debates as “What does or doesn’t qualify something as ‘horror’?” “What the hell is ‘elevated horror,’ anyway?” “Are remakes inherently bad?” “Have horror movies gotten too ‘woke’?” “Were we wrong for letting women make horror?”
In a year when both David Gordon Green and M. Night Shyamalan released new movies, the horror discourse was especially spicy, and that’s before we get to the really interesting stories, like the surprise viral success of Skinamarink, which, with the way time seems to be passing nowadays, feels like it was released five years ago. Both indie and mainstream horror made daring choices, not looking to appeal to as broad a range of audiences as possible, and treating the genre as a serious art form, as opposed to just a machine that prints money. But the biggest surprise came in October, with the release of Saw X, the tenth film in a seemingly unkillable franchise, which ended up being one of the best, most coherent entries in the entire series. Continue Reading →
The Handmaid's Tale
SimilarCigarette Girl, Millennium, Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King,
Roswell Soul Land 2: The Peerless Tang Clan,
In the spirit of full disclosure, I need to say this: I’m not a big fan of The Handmaid’s Tale. There’s something about a show that is so unrelentingly grim—without even the occasional glimmers of light—that just makes me feel like I’ve been ground down into a salty meat paste. This is why I checked out of Game of Thrones before I even knew the words “Red Wedding,” because I couldn’t bear to watch Sansa Stark beaten, humiliated, and tortured anymore. So while I can say that Handmaid’s has strong writing and still boasts some of the most gorgeous photography of any show out there, I still don’t enjoy it. Can anyone say they actually enjoy it? And when did the incessant castigation of women become primetime entertainment? Continue Reading →
Younger
SimilarSám vojak v poli, The Munsters,
At face value, the original premise of Younger seems destined for a short run. After all, a story about a woman in her 40s who pretends to be 26 to get a job in publishing seems more at home as a Lifetime Original movie than a long-form series. And yet the comedy has lasted six years on TVLand, with the show never losing its charm and heart. While the seventh and final season has the series moving from TVLand to Paramount+, it still manages to keep the same spirit that won it so many fans. Continue Reading →