Posts by Chris Justice

Three chapters define Wes Craven’s storied directorial career: the early years, the Elm Street years, and the Scream years. The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes were pivotal because they not only shoved modern horror into its current existence, but helped shape the American New Wave that emerged during the late 60s and early 70s. The Elm Street franchise revitalized slashers and revolutionized the commercial and aesthetic aspects of horror. No villain has captivated audiences the way Freddie Kreueger has.(read more...)

Ahhh… the world would be so boring without Roger Corman directing movies like The Wasp Woman.(read more...)

Studying a genre is like studying a species. You learn its diversity, habits, evolution, demise, and idiosyncrasies. You learn its strengths, weaknesses, and characteristics. You learn its habitat, context, and place in the ecological, social, and historical order. Regardless of the genre, the exercise is challenging and engaging.

Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film does an admirable job of surveying the genre’s breadth and commercial value, but its analysis of the genre’s aesthetic and cultural importance screams for more details, and ultimately, it becomes a victim of its own fascination. Standing in awe of the slasher film’s appeals, the film and its makers forget to fully document its hypothesis, that slasher films are complex films rich with political, historical, and aesthetic value. Thus, we’re left tantalized, but rarely convinced.(read more...)

I dreamed last night that I broke a mirror, and among the shards, I found Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 classic Don’t Look Now.

Then, the dissonance hit.

A dead daughter, drowned in an English lake. Red, red, red. Two old sisters, one blind, one not, summoning premonitions, dead, dead, dead. Restoration. A dwarf serial killer. Red, red, red. The streets and canals and buildings of Venice. A dilapidated church. Dead, dead, dead.

Donald Sutherland. Julie Christie. Tucked in an emotional blanket of fear, anger, guilt, love, and psychic curiosity.(read more...)