For as long as monsters have existed, us horror kids have seen ourselves in them. Throughout cinema, the monster has represented the outsider. Whether it’s King Kong afraid and alone in a city that hates him, or The Gill Man seeking companionship from Julie Adams, the story is always the same; society hates what it doesn’t understand, and society sure doesn’t understand being “different”.
Nicolas Cage is both a great actor and a walking meme-machine, and while the former should never be forgotten it’s safe to say that his latest film, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, exists because of the latter. Cage stars as Nicolas Cage, an actor unable to turn down a paid gig, who finds trouble when a superfan turns out to be a violent drug lord. With his family’s life on the line, Cage “becomes” various characters from his filmography in order to save the day.
Shudder has teamed with Oxfam to shed light on the real-life issues in Jayro Bustamante’s Golden Globe®-nominated La Llorona. Oxfam is a global organization working to end the injustice of poverty. The horror genre can work as a conduit for social activism. La Llorona, the latest film from the Guatemalan direct Jayro Bustamante, whispers truth …
The day Shudder released The Amusement Park was very emotional for me. I think of George all the time, of course, but that day I felt a rush of memories flooding my thoughts.
Fantastic Fest recently soft announced their plans to have an in-person festival this year and, in a lot of ways, just the announcement itself felt like it had more weight than usual. The normal sharing of the event on social media and reading the reactions gave me a light at the end of a tunnel. There was going to be a Fantastic Fest this year. So many people were going to see friends and colleagues they had not seen in years. And we were not just going to see them: we were going to celebrate the best in genre cinema together. Watch them together. Sing karaoke together. Eat great Austin food together. Just be together.
“She’s under a spell that can be broken only by me…or death.”
When I was in kindergarten I got a girl sent to Catholic school because we kissed under the slide during recess. After our teacher notified our guardians, the girl’s parents stormed into the school, gripped their hands around her arm, and physically pulled my friend away from me. Their gasps pierced with hate and tongues spat venom with every word. My parents did their best to assure me that I had done nothing wrong, but I kept thinking there must have been something wrong with me because her parents weren’t just angry, they were scared. These “grown ups” as I had seen them, were scared of five-year-old me because of something their daughter and I had done together. These people were terrified of the power they believed I possessed because she had wanted to kiss me, and there’s “no way” their daughter would ever dream of doing such a thing.
When I was in kindergarten, I got a girl sent to Catholic school because we kissed under the slide during recess. After our teacher notified our guardians, the girl’s parents stormed into the school, gripped their hands around her arm, and pulled her away from me. Their gasps pierced with hate and their tongues spat venom with every word. My parents tried to assure me that I had done nothing wrong. However, I kept thinking something must have been wrong with me because her parents weren’t just angry, they were scared. These people were terrified of the power they believed I possessed because she had wanted to kiss me, and there’s “no way” their daughter would ever dream of doing such a thing.
Six o’clock finally rolls around and I close my laptop as I breathe a sigh of relief that the work day is finally over. I brew a fresh cup of coffee, change into comfier clothes, pull my hair up, and sit down at my craft table. I spend the next five minutes swiping through horror movies and settle on a couple of old favorites that I plan on crafting along to. Coffee brewed and movie queued, I can feel the excitement set in as I settle in to work on the new hobby I picked up during the pandemic: making miniatures and book nooks.
‘80s montages, talking brains, a battle to enslave the universe, buckets filled with severed heads, and a sword made entirely of discarded organs. Flying limbs. Eternal torture. Bleeding television sets. A girl and her pet demon. This is Psycho Goreman, and it is already one of the best horror movies of the year.
