This week, we really needed to get our spooky season confessions and opinions off our chest.
Audrey’s Take:
Woman covered in blood
Women covered in blood — it’s a genre. Think about it. Sidney Prescott from Scream frames a clear iconic image surviving Ghostface. Samara Weaving in Ready or Not paints an ending that lives rent-free in my mind—the “Final Girl”, in a white wedding gown, embraces a deliciously vengeful moment of peace, enjoying a cigarette on the steps of her in-laws’ house after their unsuccessful (and embarrassing) attempt to kill and sacrifice her. See Kill Bill’s Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu as Tarantino’s taste for violence meets female rage. For the romantics, Bones and All demonstrates cannibalism as a metaphor for love in coming of age; Taylor Russell’s mouth is smeared with the blood of her lover, a moment slathered in “Ethel Cain”. Peele fans, Us wouldn’t be the same without Lupita N’yongo’s confrontation with her doppelganger, blood dripping down her face. So, rewatch your favourites this Halloween and agree or disagree. It’s undeniable. Women covered in blood dominate the season.
Nikola’s Take:
Batman: The Animated Series
Gotham sits in the shadows of its towers, cowering under monoliths that swallow the sky. The city is the source of horror here, evoking a kind of modern dread where you’re slithering down a labyrinthine alley, oppressed between concrete walls that are unsettling in their unnatural angularity. And while darkness may feel ever-present, it’s occasionally sliced through by a beam of light from a car (à la Cruella) taking its fur-vaunting, three-piece suit-donning passengers on their way to a noir night of jazz at a mafia-run speakeasy. For a cartoon about a crime-fighting billionare dressed as a bat, I wouldn’t have expected myself to say that this shares more with the colossal Art Deco of Metropolis, and the dystopian retro-futurism of Brazil than it does with the WHAMs and KAPOWs of campy comic-books. An entrancing aesthetic engulfed in an orchestral score that is in equal parts inspiring as it is haunting, Batman: The Animated Series‘ rich ambiance is no richer than the unexpectedly psychological insight it offers into the minds of its broken characters. Moving stories, thick atmospheres; it’s a wonderful show to absorb a couple of hours after midnight, this Halloween.
Livvie’s Take:
Hereditary is my comfort film
Hereditary is one of my comfort films. Firmly placed into one of my Letterboxd “Top four”, I think that because this film has brought me such whiplash, trauma, and pure entertainment, it transcends the typical horror film experience. The one I normally have, like with Rec, is by hiding behind a pillow, spoilers at the ready on my phone so I can expect jumpscares. And sure, that is how I was the first time I watched Hereditary. But the rewatchability of it cannot be underestimated (I think I’m on my fifth or sixth rewatch by now). From the beautiful camerawork to phenomenal acting, where Toni Collette should have won that Oscar and I’ll die on that hill, Hereditary is the A24 horror gem, alongside Midsommar, that only gets better on the rewatch. Besides what better way to get closer to your friends to suggest a casual film night, then watch them react to that car scene – although I think I’m forever scared to stick my head out of window.
llustration by Rebecca Tate, @rebi_draws on Instagram