Horror Actressing: Florence Pugh in "Midsommar"

by Jason Adams

There is a lot of bodily violence seen on-screen in Ari Aster's Midsommar -- a certain mallet comes to mind. But nowhere at any point did I wince harder than I did during a scene simply involving two people having a conversation in a college dormitory. I often reference the moment that the little ghoul girl crawls through the television screen in Ringu as being the apex of cinematic revulsion for me -- that I very nearly crawled backwards up and over my seat the first time I saw that. Midsommar's dorm scene dropped the same sensation, just emotionally...

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Horror Actressing: Luiza Kosovski in "Sick Sick Sick"

by Jason Adams

Anyone who's ever seen a Horror Movie surely already realizes that this genre is a good place to see Actresses really give it their all. Whatever the reasons are that connect the female experience with cinematic trauma -- and it's not that I don't know the reasons, it's just that there are too many to list -- no other genre has spent more time rooting around in what it means to be a woman than the Horror Genre has. From Carrie White to Rosemary Woodhouse to Mother Abagail and Annie Wilkes -- you name her, she's had her Horror Movie...

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Horror Actressing: Charlotte Burke in "Paperhouse"

by Jason Adams

Even though I've already admitted I can get pretty broad on defining movies as "Horror Movies" when other people might not consider them as such, I for some reason always hesitate when it comes to calling Bernard Rose's 1988 film Paperhouse a "horror film." The first two-thirds of the movie, yes, for sure. But -- without getting into spoilers because lord knows how many of you have had the luck to see this extraordinary film a first time yet -- the movie makes decisions, and comes to a point, that ultimately shows its intentions were not horror. 

That said there's enough of a Horror Movie in there for me to justify directing you towards one of the most foundational films and performances of my life, which I've just today discovered is available for streaming on Amazon here in the US. Rose directed Paperhouse two years before Candyman (a film we've already touched upon in this series) and you can see some of the same fascinations -- a female entering a Freudian Netherworld where her darkest fascinations consume her... just think of Paperhouse as Candyman Jr, I guess... 

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"Incitement" will represent Israel at the Oscars while Thailand sends a horror film.

IncitementWe are now up to 73 films competing for those coveted 5 nominations in Best International Feature Film at the Oscars. Submissions are due to the Academy at the end of the month.  Israel's Ophir Awards were held over the weekend with Incitement taking Best Picture, making it their submission. The film tracks the year leading up to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin from the point of the view of the assassin. Curiously the film only one two Ophir Awards, the other being Best Casting. The acting prizes largely went to Peaches and Cream and the craft prizes largely went to The Unorthodox but neither could muster up the support to take the top prize. The two Israeli pictures of 2019 with the arguably highest US profiles, festival hit Synonyms (at NYFF next) and currently in release Tel Aviv on Fire (nearing half a million at US arthouses) took Cinematography and Screenplay respectively. You can see all the winners here on the updated nominations post.

Other updates? Argentina is sending the pleasant heist comedy Heroic Losers starring their ubiquitous top film actor Ricardo Darín (The Secret in Their Eyes, Wild Tales) and his son Chino Darín (El Angel, A Twelve-Year Night), neither a stranger to headlining Oscar submissions. We saw that one at TIFF and it could make the finalist list if Oscar voters are in the mood for charming 'light' entertainment.

But the real curveball, and there's always one or two true oddities in the submission list, is Thailand's choice of the horror film Inhuman Kiss (starring Oabnithi Wiwattanawrang and Phantira Pipityakorn) which is about a girl whose head detaches from her body to hunt human flesh. Has there ever been a purer form of Oscar bait? Kidding but... wow. Want to see. 

TIFF Midnight Madness: "The Vigil", "Saint Maud", and "The Vast of Night"

Chris Feil takes a look at a few of the genre offering of TIFF's Midnight Madness section...

Safely the most terrifying Midnight Madness I’ve seen in my years at TIFF, Keith Thomas’ The Vigil is a visceral dive into Jewish tradition and the effects of antisemitic trauma. Dave Davis stars as Yakov, a man struggling with his mental and financial health after leaving his Hasidic community. For a little quick cash, he accepts an overnight position as a shomer (an Orthodox traditional role for watching over the recently deceased) to a former Holocaust survivor. With the widow (Lynn Cohen) asleep upstairs, Yakov is visited by a demonic force that antagonizes Yakov’s already broken spirit...

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