Race, Gender, Politics and The Horrific
Luke Perry, in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’ Helped Redefine the Male Love Interest
The mediocre 1992 movie eventually led to some great TV — but it also created a first-rate example of a male feminist.
Continue reading “Luke Perry, in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’ Helped Redefine the Male Love Interest”
The Craft (1996) is a film that came out around the time I turned 13. A freshman in high school and firmly established as a minority within a minority in my predominantly white/European immigrant working-class suburb right outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was a painful observation. I was constantly confronting micro-aggressions about what kind of Black person I was supposed to be, and wasn’t, from all of my peers. I was the weirdo. And I found myself socializing with other weirdo’s who were the pop culture nerds, especially those who liked genre films and TV (The X-Files and Buffy The Vampire Slayer consumed my life for many years) as much as I did.
Continue reading “20 Years of the Craft: Why We Needed More of Rochelle”
There’s a school of thought (or, non-thought, as it were) that says you should just turn your brain off and enjoy movies. If it’s not “high-brow” entertainment, then it’s not worthy of exploration. Certainly, horror films, with their low production values and cheap thrills meant for teenagers aren’t worthy of serious study. But as seen in Xavier Burgin’s excellent documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, analyzing the horror genre is perhaps most worthy of study because of how it shows us how black people are depicted in American popular cinema. Although the documentary is primarily just movie clips and interviews with black scholars, filmmakers, and actors, Burgin weaves it all together into an engrossing story of American cinema. Horror Noire never professes to be a complete history of black cinema, but it does show how certain tropes appear in horror films with regards to black characters. By analyzing these tropes, Burgin, along with writers Ashlee Blackwell and Danielle Burrows, emphasizes not only a lesson in black representation, but the importance of analysis in making sure that representation is accurate and equitable.
As they announced last month, Arrow Video is bringing Hideo Nakata’s Ring to Blu-ray in the UK with both a standalone release and a Ring Collection set this coming March, and the Japanese horror classic has been restored from a 4K scan of the original negative in glorious high definition. This week brings the trailer for that 20th anniversary restoration.
Ring returns to UK cinemas March 1 and hits Blu-ray, DVD & Digital HD on March 18.
In the film, remade for American audiences in 2002, “A reporter and her ex-husband investigate a cursed video tape that is rumored to kill the viewer seven days after watching it.”
Continue reading “[Trailer] The Original ‘Ring’ Returns 20 Years Later With Brand New Restoration”
January is a time of fresh starts and new beginnings. The way we kick off a new year informs the months that follow and that’s why we’re living our best Capricorn-season lives and declaring it the Month of the GOAT, celebrating the Greatests of All Time in genre. From the best Star Trek captains to our favorite strong female characters, we’re honoring the greats all month long.
