In the pilot episode of Mike Judge’s sorely underrated music history series Tales from the Tour Bus, Judge explains he wanted to do the show because he found it funny that conservatives constantly bemoaned the violent, drug-fueled antics of gangster rappers when so many country legends were just as wild, if not worse. Any good student […]
Friendship is Key to Survival in Katherine Lang’s Soul to Call
Rarely in discussions of apocalyptic fiction is friendship brought up. My personal observation is that the genre focuses on whatever topic is relevant in the current political discourse (i.e., Planet of the Apes). Whenever human interaction is brought up, it’s usually the worst ways possible. Many apocalyptic storytellers seem to think humanity’s negative qualities will […]
“Long Lost” #1 has the Creeping, Eerie Pace Every Horror Comic Needs
Long Lost #1 refuses to answer questions. Written by Matthew Erman with art by Lisa Sterle, the book sweeps through plot points without pause, giving new information on almost every page, with an art style that varies in tone sometimes panel to panel. The book reads like a horror film, giving us enough character details […]
Made Men is Too Poorly Stitched Together to Stand On Its Own
There’s this Comedy Bang! Bang! bit where Scott Aukerman is telling Reggie Watts about some new films he’s going to be in this summer. All of them are named after an innocuous phrase that they take extremely literally, like An Apple a Day, and as Aukerman goes on they get more and more absurd. I bring this […]
In Sarah Nelson’s Daniel, Toxic Masculinity is Vampiric
Over time the metaphorical meaning of the vampire has diversified, shifting away from its earliest existence as a literary representation of xenophobic beliefs. Whatever cultural fear or anxiety vampires come to represent is dependent on the context of the story and the storyteller’s motivations. Sarah Nelson’s Daniel, a horror webcomic about a young man turned into a […]
Dirt Creek Runs with Blood Breathes New Life Into Vampire Fiction
I suspect vampires have dwindled in popularity versus their more durable zombie peers because film and television started portraying them solely as morose romantics. It’s not just that vampires stopped being scary, it’s that they stopped being interesting. Zombies sidestep this because they’re never really the focus of the stories that feature them; no one tunes […]
Last Girl Standing Fails to Deliver on Its Promising Premise
What happens when the credits roll on a horror movie? What happens to the “final girl” after she’s spent a night in the woods being chased by a serial killer who murdered all of her friends? These are the questions asked by writer-director Benjamin R. Moody in Last Girl Standing. Unfortunately, Moody’s answer to what […]
Jack Goes Home is a Thrilling Work by a Bold New Director
Thomas Dekker’s impressive psychological thriller Jack Goes Home is the latest in a new wave of American horror films that get much of their tension from questioning the reliability of their protagonist’s view. Like Jacob’s Ladder before it, Jack Goes Home is an exploration of trauma that utilizes horror tropes and imagery to bring viewers closer to its protagonist’s headspace. But Jack […]
Dystopic Homesick Blues: The Long Walk by Richard Bachman
Because the world is always a mess, we’ve decided to look back at some of our favorite dystopic works and examine why they remain so potent no matter how many years have passed between their creation and now. Post-apocalyptic works never seem to go out of style, probably because the question of what happens after the […]
Carnage Park is a Photocopy of Better Genre Films
Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse films may have been commercial flops but it’s easy to see the lasting influence they’ve had on a certain branch of independent films. There are the obvious spin-offs of the project, like surprise blockbuster franchise Machete and the more unique and aesthetically focused Hobo with a Shotgun. But then there are also works […]
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