Many were introduced to the world of Jane Shoenbrun through their 2021 indie feature, We Are All Going to the World’s Fair. This quaint low-budget debut had big ambitions. The film attempts to tackle internet culture, modern coming-of-age, and gender dysphoria in one swoop. Starring Anna Cobb as Casey, an isolated young girl who finds solace through strange YouTube-style videos and chat forums. The internet depicted in World’s Fair is not the one that we use day-to-day; rather, this internet has much more in common with the internet of the late 2000s. Most of the content was inconsistent in theme or subject; algorithms had not yet dominated all digital consumption, and creators were not being paid, so everything was fueled by either pure creativity or intense boredom and usually involved a bit of both. Casey finds herself lost in this widely unregulated world that she had stumbled upon.

While it’s their first narrative feature, World’s Fair is not Jane Schoenbrun’s first-time tackling internet video creation or media consumption in their films. Before they made their indie debut, Schoenbrun had a few experimental documentaries under their belt. The School is Watching, an eye-opening compilation of local High School morning announcements, and A Self-Induced Hallucination, a third-person view of the Slenderman phenomenon and the waves it sent rippling through the internet, are both precursors to Schoenbrun’s narrative filmography in their own ways. The School is Watching is scrappy and unpolished but angry enough in delivery to make it a compelling watch. In terms of how Schoenbrun views and depicts screens in their films, this short is about the blatant debauchery that is not only allowed among our youth but also encouraged by society. What starts as a pretty standard set of high school morning announcements quickly descends into a display of casual misogyny that gets ignored daily.

A Self-Induced Hallucination has similarly anthropological instincts; this time, Schoenbrun set their sights on the modern folklore that is Slenderman. Made a few years after the Slenderman craze of the early 2010s, A Self-Induced Hallucination serves as a postmortem on how the iconic cryptid spread through the early internet in the way it did. As the film states through a Google Doc in the opening, everything that we see past that point is from videos that were uploaded to YouTube between 2008 and 2018. The film starts innocently enough, showcasing several passionately but amateurishly made fan films that helped cement the Slender Man mythos early on. If you know anything about Slender Man, then you likely know where this one is headed. The back third of the film is dedicated to the infamously tragic event in which two teenage girls lured their friend to the woods and stabbed her dozens of times as a sacrifice to the digital myth.

Without shooting a single second of footage, Shoenbrun develops their cinematic mission seamlessly in A Self-Induced Hallucination. These early docs may seem incredibly niche and a little narrow in scope, but they laid the foundation for Shoenbrun’s work, most explicitly World’s Fair.

Throughout World’s Fair, we are experiencing Casey’s digital life alongside her. Many of the fictional videos that she comes across feel perfectly in line with the real-world examples that are shown in these earlier docs. Casey’s experience feels so lived-in, probably because of how closely it resembles Shoenbrun’s actual run-ins with this type of content. The stuff Casey watches isn’t even particularly entertaining, not to any modern standards at least. The era that this film is pulling from is one that existed before online content was perfectly packaged with algorithmically formulated thumbnails and salacious titles designed to draw your eye. These videos are not made by professional content creators who treat the video creation as a form of employment; they were made by people like Casey, just seeking acknowledgement in a world so eager to ignore anyone slightly different.

The environment that Casey must grow up in informs more of the narrative than you might realize on first glance. Most of the substance takes place on her computer screen, but that isn’t for lack of trying. Casey actually spends a large portion of World’s Fair outside ‘touching grass’; the only problem is that Casey’s outside has nothing to offer. Her grass is either dying or has already been demolished for parking lots and retail businesses. Whenever we spend time with Casey outside of her room, the vibe is very uncomfortable. Her surroundings look and feel like a post-apocalyptic film, so much so that the odd or eccentric personalities that live on her computer screen start to feel consoling to the audience. We understand why she begins to envelop herself in this digital world because it’s the only thing in her vicinity with any ounce of authenticity. It isn’t that her attempts to express herself to the world aren’t rejected; they’re simply never even considered. Online she’s a creative, a peer, and almost a real person until the screen is shut and she’s back to being invisible.

The struggle for identity in a digital age comes from the real experiences of director Jane Schoenbrun. When discussing their early years of creating with The Hollywood Reporter, they said, “I wasn’t being encouraged to express myself. And so you learn to put it away, and you learn to log online and write stories on the internet, disconnected from your real life, and you learn, basically, to be ashamed.” For Schoenbrun, coming out as trans and finding themselves went hand in hand with a newfound creative confidence. “The process of starting to put language to who I was, and to become who I needed to be, was a process of unraveling my relationship to that shame and overcoming it. I think that’s what allowed me to make a movie like this one, make a movie like my next one, and make all of the things that I’m going to make,” they stated later in the interview. While all of Schoenbrun’s films grapple with the struggle of blending your internal world with the more unpredictable realm of reality, Worlds Fair is most in line with Schoenbrun’s comments here. The horror of the film doesn’t rely on creepy internet aesthetics; it comes from the emptiness Casey feels as soon as she logs out. That overwhelming sense of dread that comes with her only sense of comfort being intangible sneaks up on you throughout the film, leading to an emotionally stunning third act in which she metaphorically and literally destroys her childhood in the form of a stuffed animal she’s owned her whole life. By tearing up her last physical connection to her childhood, Casey is choosing her digital serenity over the mundanity that she suffers day to day, getting lost in the escape and risking never achieving her true self.

Jane Schoenbrun’s second feature, I Saw the TV Glow, takes this same concept of escapism and a search for one’s identity, this time pointing the focus towards television (more specifically, 90s cable TV). We follow Owen (Justice Smith), who, much like Casey, is isolated and has no idea how they fit into the world around them. Based in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Owen didn’t have access to online communities at their fingertips. Instead, Owen finds solace within the world of network TV, most intensely obsessing over The Pink Opaque (this universe’s blend of 90s classics such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Are You Afraid of the Dark, among a smorgasbord of inspirations). Owen’s love for this show leads them to the human connection that he desperately wanted but was too afraid to search for in the form of Maddy (Jack Haven). Their friendship isn’t your typical dynamic; they don’t hang out together, not in the real world at least; they hang out in the world of The Pink Opaque.

The sections of TV Glow that showcase this fictional program are intoxicating in their inherent campiness. I can totally see how a bored, dejected 90s kid could become absorbed in this world. It appears to be competent enough to hold a youth’s attention for multiple episodes but just off-kilter enough that the adults around Owen would just write it off as weird — the only time that being misunderstood feels good, as it allows the show to be his own personal escape. It isn’t until Owen shares this escape with Maddy that he starts to question the show’s place in his life and the disconnection they felt with people around them. Owen’s relationship to the show remains just as strong even when life forces it to take a back seat to their priorities. Even after Maddy leaves, both of Owen’s parents die, and the show is abruptly cancelled; The Pink Opaque is all that Owen can think about. No matter how hard we try, it is impossible to remove these cultural touchpoints from our DNA, no matter how poorly they may have aged.

TV Glow uses hazy, dream-like cinematography and an emotional yet ominous score to grab the viewer tightly from the very first frame and refuse to let go. Schoenbrun expertly crafts a dreary rendition of a 90s childhood that ditches the usual gloss that goes into depicting the era for surreality. The film exudes the same level of detachment and confusion that our characters are experiencing, forcing you into their shoes. Schoenbrun once again drew heavily from their adolescent experiences for TV Glow. Schoenbrun’s early creative work actually took place online as they were active in various fan communities for topics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or different bands that they were into. This experience with media is a very specific one that Schoenbrun discussed intimately in an interview with BFI. “ I wasn’t a child of arthouse cinema. I wasn’t a child of novels. I was a child of television, and of the video store and of the early internet. I was on forums for The X-Files and Buffy message boards. It’s a language that I live in and breathe as much as Martin Scorsese lives and breathes classic Hollywood,” they stated when asked about the role that fandom plays in their films.

In the 21st Century, our relationship with the stories that we love doesn’t have to end when the book is closed or the credits roll; now there is a large ecosystem of communities to share passions with. Schoenbrun understands that parasocial and emotional connections to media are now the norm when it comes to media consumption, and they came of age right as the transition was happening. For an alienated and sheltered youth, finding community through the things you love feels like striking gold in a coal mine; there’s a euphoria for finding something that you didn’t even know you were looking for, but there’s also a strong sense of skepticism as you know it is out of place.

I Saw The TV Glow is not solely about screens, escapism, and our troubled relationship with both; it’s also a deeply personal tale about finding who you really are after a lifetime of performing as something else for society. The film and Owen’s struggle obviously speak to the trans experience without ever stating so abruptly. Owen’s identity crisis does not strictly revolve around gender, though; it’s fueled by their dissatisfaction with reality. When Maddy returns from a long hiatus years later, she hastily explains that in her attempts to run away, she actually found herself consumed by the world of The Pink Opaque, only not as Maddy but Isabelle, one of the main characters of the show. Later in the film, Owen has a similar experience appearing as Tara, the other lead of the show. Their connection to these characters goes beyond simple fandom or relatability; they feel as if the experiences of the characters are also their experiences. The sludge of everyday routine like work or school is just the intermediate between their real life and The Pink Opaque. The film is not explicitly about being trans but rather a trans artist’s vulnerable way of grappling with their alienation.

When asked if they wanted to be known as a trans filmmaker, Schoenbrun goes on to say, “No artist wants to be known just for their identity, but at the same time, transness is not just an identity; it is a state of being and a perspective and a gaze on the world, and one that is so intrinsic to my life. The reason that I didn’t stay in the closet or stay repressed is because I wanted to become, I needed to become, to fully exist in the world. And so the work is going to be reflective of that gaze and that desire…” Schoenbrun’s refusal to sand down their own experience is why I Saw the TV Glow has connected so hard in so many unique ways. Schoenbrun’s perspective is both distinct and universal to so many. It’s unapologetically for and by the trans community but doesn’t stick itself in a box. A trans experience does not have to be a niche or narrow one; it can also be a universal experience, and Jane Schoenbrun’s films are proof of that.

If We Are All Going to the World’s Fair established Schoenbrun as a filmmaker to watch, then I Saw the TV Glow cemented them as a generational voice. The much-awaited follow-up, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, continues this thematic ‘screen trilogy’ in Schoenbrun’s most audacious, horny and vulnerable effort to date.

Camp Miasma also uses the thread of media as escape, flipping the perspective from the other two features in the project. Unlike Casey, Maddy, or Owen, Camp Miasma’s protagonist, Kris (Hannah Einbinder), is not an isolated youth; she is an emerging artist who has followed her passions to a path of success — that doesn’t mean she’s any less confused about her place in the world. Her overreliance on escapism is no longer a place of solace; she now must continue it to fund her actual survival. Kris’ struggles have less to do with her identity and more to do with sexual expression.

When Kris lands the gig of directing a reboot for a problematic slasher franchise from her youth, she visits Billy Presely (Gillian Anderson), the now reclusive star of the franchise’s infamous first entry. She quickly discovers that Presley has seemingly dedicated her entire life to the series that she once was a part of, going so far as to live on an actual filming location that is stuffed with memorabilia. The two have an awkward but charming dynamic, appearing as polar opposites of one another. Kris is meek and closed off, using intellectualism to shield herself from anyone trying to pry deeper into her private life. She describes her relationship with this campy slasher series like she’s giving a college dissertation rather than describing her favorite flick. Every description of Camp Miasma sounds like it came from a Carol Clover essay. Billy, on the other hand, refuses to entertain Kris’ esoteric views on the film and its place in pop culture; Billy is only concerned with how the film makes her feel. Just because Billy views these films from the surface doesn’t mean she doesn’t understand them— in fact, she has a better grasp on them than Kris. Kris may have found a way to turn her obsession with art into a career, but she may have also stripped her ability to truly enjoy it from herself in the process. She cannot allow herself to be aroused or thrilled by what occurs on screen without having to analyze it through a cultural lens, to the point where her feelings toward the franchise become a muddled mess that she can barely describe without contradiction.

Much like The Pink Opaque in TV Glow or the YouTube videos in World’s Fair, the ‘movie-within-a-movie’ structure is very central to Camp Miasma. Early in the second act, Billy and Kris watch the former’s personal cut of the film together. We actually see a pretty significant chunk of this fictional Camp Miasma film. The film mixes elements from several different franchises that horror fans are sure to recognize. It has that claustrophobic summer feel of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the lustful violence of the Friday the 13th series with some problematic sauce from Sleepaway Camp thrown in for good measure. I absolutely loved this segment and was so enraptured by it that I occasionally forgot that I was not watching a real movie until Kris or Billy would briefly appear on screen. The fictional Camp Miasma film is so schlocky that it ends up as artful in some instances. Some of this stems from Schoenbrun being too competent of a visual stylist to make something truly low-rent in appearance; however, I do think it is intentional. It’s what these films felt like to us when we went to them in our darkest moments. Little Death’s (Jack Haven) euphoric killing spree set to A Long December by Counting Crows (which, fun fact, was my mother’s ringtone for years) probably didn’t happen on screen but exclusively in Kris’ head. Does that make it any less real?

Revisiting foundational classics is simultaneously rewarding and endlessly torturous. It can place you in shoes you don’t want to return to and expose the flaws behind something that became central to your personality. Owen from TV Glow experiences this toward the end of the film as he revisits The Pink Opaque on streaming just to find that it does not hold up to the fond memories he held for it. I think that Kris is so scared to go through this that she purposefully distanced herself from it before it could happen naturally— yet as we watch her watch the film, her excitement for the film is uncontrollable and infectious. Any attempt for her to intellectualize, whether that be pointing out a split-diopter shot or voicing her concern with a transphobic moment, is instantly shut down by Billy, who forces her to finally interact with the film as a film and not a think piece to be dissected.

Watching the film she’s remaking didn’t just give Kris creative inspiration; it excited her sexually. Kris surprises Billy (and the audience) by appearing topless in attempts to seduce the scream queen. This out-of-character sexuality does not last long for Kris, whose insecurities take over at the worst moment. This scene unravels the asexual academic facade that Kris tries to keep up; a facade that Billy saw through right away. Kris has branded herself as someone who is not inherently sexual as a choice, when in reality avoidance is how she deals with her fear of intimacy. Even when finally connecting with someone who sees beyond her presentation to the world, she can never feel safe enough to trust them with her body. She reveals that her sexual block is linked to the Camp Miasma franchise, as the only way she’s been able to get off has been through envisioning herself as the victim of a slasher film. Much like Owen, Maddy, and Casey, Kris cannot function unless she partially lives in unreality; she’s just better at hiding it than them.

Schoenbrun clearly has a deep reverence for the type of trashy 80s horror that Camp Miasma is meant to represent, as much as they lampoon it in the film. The tone surrounding the characters’ relationship with their respective screens is much different in Camp Miasma than Schoenbrun’s previous output. World’s Fair and TV Glow are patient, metaphorical coming-of-age films that carry an underlying sadness within the surreal horror. Camp Miasma, on the other hand, is a fun romp that is freeing in its absurdity. The film can switch from cutting industry satire to campy blood spurts on a dime without ever losing focus on Kris’ personal journey. While TV Glow and World’s Fair represent the struggle of finding yourself, Camp Miasma is the freedom of finally living as yourself.

Schoenbrun’s films, whether they focus on internet folklore, old TV shows, or slasher villains, always find a way to investigate our relationships with media and storytelling as a vehicle to investigate our relationships with ourselves. Who are we? Who do we want to be? Is any of it achievable? These are seemingly unanswerable questions that sit at the heart of Schoenbrun’s work, but the real question is: what if the answers we seek are all hiding behind a screen?

I honestly never looked at my love for basketball and cinema as all that different; not just because I watched both on a screen, but because at their core, both basketball and cinema are storytelling. The rivalries, upsets, and unlikely heroes mirror those of cinema’s greatest tales. So, what about when the two worlds collide?

Unlike boxing and baseball, basketball has been underrepresented in cinema. A young sport, not truly gaining mainstream status until the late 1970s, basketball is still establishing itself on the big screen. Despite this, there have been a wide variety of films, shows, and documentaries that explore the sport from different perspectives, even the perspectives that would be deemed unsavory. I’ve gathered fellow writers and basketball fans and to highlight our favorite game and its representation in film.

Welcome to Hoops On Screen!

Lenny Cooke - Dir: The Safdie Brothers

When you think of athletes, a certain lifestyle probably springs to mind. Huge houses, expensive cars, and ridiculous contracts seem to come with the gig. Behind all of that luxury is a whole lot of luck and sacrifice. What happens when you’re so close to the mountain top that the way down may kill you if you don’t make it? Lenny Cooke knows the answer to that question.

As we see in this probing doc by the Safdie brothers, Cooke was a top prospect coming out of high school. Being compared to top stars and watched closely by scouts was everything that Cooke ever wanted—it also ruined his entire life.

Lenny Cooke is a film of two halves: the first following Cooke as a promising prospect, while the second catches up with him in modern day. What we see in the latter half of the film is nothing short of heartbreaking. Cooke is a broken-down version of the young, excited kid from the first half. In the film’s most harrowing moment, Cooke breaks down into tears while he drunkenly sings a love song to the camera.

Lenny Cooke’s story serves as a stark reminder of the athletes who are discarded every year. For every LeBron James or Kobe Bryant, there are dozens of Lenny Cookes, kids with all the talent in the world yet no resources to make it mean anything.

• - Matthew P (TheHumanGaze)

Sneakerheads (Series) - Creator: Jay Longino

What’s the price of connection?

Sneakers connect fans to basketball in a way few objects can. Think about the moments. Every iconic basketball image carries the Big Three: the player, the shot, and the shoes.

Nike’s iconic ad campaigns turned shoes into mythic objects and molded a generation to believe that owning a pair of Jordans could make you play like Michael Jordan.
The slogan: “It’s gotta be the shoes.”
The unspoken promise: “Wear the shoe, become the hero.”

So, what happens when one man risks his marriage for a pair of Jordans?

Sneakerheads, a comedy series on Netflix, drops viewers into the sneaker world and the chaotic, high-stakes resale economy that basketball helped create. After losing thousands of dollars in a shoe deal gone wrong, Devin, a recovering sneaker addict, teams up with a misfit crew of collectors to earn it back one flip at a time.

They encounter a community of casual fans, hustlers, athletes, celebrities, and collectors, all chasing the sweet aroma of premium leather. But beneath the comedy is a sharper story about identity, nostalgia, and aging.

What makes Sneakerheads work is that it understands that for many basketball fans, sneakers aren’t just merchandise. They’re memory, aspiration, status, and self-expression.

Ironically, in 2026, Nike is fighting to sell more shoes and reconnect with the culture it helped shape. But the series reminds us that for fans, sneaker value isn’t confined to the leather, the logo, or the resale price.

It lives in the dream that comes with the box.

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Love & Basketball - Dir: Gina Prince-Blythewood

Even through financial hardships and widespread ignorance surrounding women’s sports, the WNBA has made some truly impressive strides in the past decade. Amazing talent like A’ja Wilson, Napheesa Collier, and Caitlyn Clark, among many others, have taken what was unfortunately seen as an afterthought (even to “die hard” basketball fans) to a league that gets more popular every season.

It’s great that today’s WNBA athletes can get the attention and praise they deserve; it must be bittersweet for the women who were never able to experience it. Gina Prince-Blythewood’s cult classic Love and Basketball beautifully captures the disappointment and frustration of being an elite women’s basketball player in an era that didn’t value them.

Monica (Sanaa Lathan) and Quincy (Omar Epps) formed a connection through their mutual love of basketball. As they get older, they both discuss dreams of playing the sport professionally. This film expertly weaves their pursuit of athletic greatness with the magnetic pull they have over each other. Sports and romance may seem like an odd couple, but they certainly looked great together here.

• - Matthew P (TheHumanGaze)

He Got Game - Dir: Spike Lee

Spike Lee is just as much an icon in basketball as he is in cinema. The legendary director is a staple at Knicks games and can be seen courtside at most of their home games. He also directed the iconic Air Jordan commercials in which he portrayed the character of Mars Blackman (originally featured in Lee’s student debut, She’s Gotta Have It). It’s no surprise that a director so synonymous with basketball would go on to create what is probably the definitive film about the sport.

He Got Game shows reverence for basketball while not being afraid to portray its more exploitative elements. Imprisoned deadbeat dad Jake Shuttlesworth (Denzel Washington) is offered freedom if he can convince his estranged son Jesus (Ray Allen) to commit to “Big State”.

Lee shows us how the powers that be treat these young athletes less like people and more like assets. Jesus Shuttlesworth is stripped of his autonomy and is treated like an avatar for the rich men in suits that secretly pull the strings. Culminating in a climactic father vs son 1-on-1, He Got Game perfectly balances family drama with institutional critique all while celebrating the great game that sits at the center of it all.

• Matthew P (TheHumanGaze)

Teen Wolf - Dir: Rod Daniel

Wolfman’s Got Balls?

In 1985, Canadian actor and international treasure, Michael J. Fox, exploded into the pop cultural stratosphere, with two hit movies spawning multiple sequels, television series, and an eventual Broadway musical, while simultaneously co-leading one of the biggest hits on broadcast television. Family Ties, gave America, Fox’s stand out mega wattage charm and almost infinite marketability, and Back To The Future, further launched him into the biggest star on the planet. But as this series’ theme is basketball, and not time travel or being a republican with liberal parents, the smaller yet no less subtle hit, Teen Wolf, is the home court in which we will play.

Teen Wolf is a beloved movie in my house. Basketball is my favorite sport, the werewolf is my favorite monster, and I watched Teen Wolf countless times as a kid in the late 80’s and 90’s. I even loved Teen Wolf 2 and the terrible cartoon series that lasted only one season. Even today, Michael J Fox is my daughter’s favorite actor besides Bruce Campbell and Kurt Russell (scientific proof she is biologically my child), and she also shares my loving DNA for a movie simply about a kind of nerdy, struggling athlete inheriting lycanthropy, transforming into a furry, pointy eared Howlem Globetrotter, while also van surfing, buying kegs of beer, and scoring girls and countless fans with ease.

Teen Wolf is objectively not a great movie. I can’t credibly argue that it’s even good. In fact, the premise is so ludacris, so howl the fuck did this get made, that in no other decade outside of the deliciously synth heavy, coked fuel insanity of the 1980’s, could a coming of age werewolf, high school sports comedy (that wants to so badly be a Fast Times At Ridgemont High, raunch-fest, but transforms back into PG-13 territory before letting the story ever get truly hairy) be made. Teen Wolf as a concept, morphed from some inebriated idea, blurted out in the bathroom of some Hollywood mansion, into some fools writing an actual to god script, and then other fools in charge saying “fuck it, take our money and make it”, as they snorted a line with $3,000 hookers on Mulholland Drive. Teen Wolf is basically, I Was A Teenage Werewolf and Full Moon High, but the star werewolf dunks a ball while wearing a headband and 5” shorts.

As a werewolf movie, it is not scary, and lacks any teeth or tension. As a teen comedy, many of the jokes fall flat as Tom Brady’s game ball, and scores way more points in unintentional comedy. As indicative of the decade, the actors playing high school students, look to be at least 25 years old (receding hairlines and burgeoning crow’s feet abound), and the scenes of actual basketball play is maybe the worst I’ve seen put to film. Not an irl athlete in the troop.

Fox as Scott, is not the most credible point guard, and the majority of the starting varsity team physically appear less athletic than the extras seated second string on the bench. Not to mention, everyone in the town seems to not be terrified at all and is immediately accepting of, an actual, previously believed to be, mythical werewolf in their midst. No, almost everyone is down to fully celebrate teen wolf’s arrival and turnaround of a losing season against other rival teams that confusingly seem like they all go to the same school. Also shockingly, there is not one media source, including print or television, outside of the small, Nebraskan town, that is remotely interested, or ever shows up to report on, the existence of lycanthropy, let alone a werewolf’s three-point shot. Odd, yet all this is wildly awesome.

Teen Wolf does pull off a sincere, pubescent, coming of age narrative about struggling with the horrors of a changing mind and body, in maybe the most vunerable four years of our lives, that the gender swapped, Ginger Snaps, perfected in truly horrific fashion, less than twenty years later. As a traditional underdog sports movie, it is middling, but on rewatch, what I find most interesting, is its accidental take on what would become an ongoing international controversy of performance enhancing drugs being taken by athletes, especially within modern professional and Olympic sports.

A pro baseball player may take steroids to improve their batting average, a cyclist to ride longer and faster. Scott does not take PED’s, and his lycanthropic enhancements are strictly genetic and not injected or ingested, but he quickly learns to conveniently flip the switch from teenage boy to wolf at will to gain the advantage over his peers. His athletic skills and popularity increase with each winning game, but at a dark price his fellow werewolf dad warns him of, to help Scott avoid the same mistakes. Throughout the movie, Scott loses sight of what matters and relies on “the wolf”, creating an environment of vanity and inequality, leading to losing friends, the respect of his teammates, and the right girl for him; he’s been blinded to the whole movie, and ultimately, himself.

Scott, at a crossroads, learns that by shedding his unnatural advantage, winning at basketball and life in werewolf form against humans, is not really winning. It’s not conquering fears or goals or dreams as yourself. To truly prove what we can really accomplish by pushing our mental and physical abilities without supernatural or pharmaceutical assistance. The game must be fair to count. That makes an even playing field, and that’s how we measure greatness on and off the court. Real basketball. Scott’s humanity is what truly earns a “W”. For win not werewolf, guys, c’mon stay with me!

Outside of the obvious, bucket-filled with nostalgia I carry for it, Teen Wolf is a confidently sincere cheese-fest with a fantastic soundtrack, where everyone involved knows the assignment, which is to just let Fox be Fox, and make us, the audience, love The Wolf along with his whole fictional town. The basketball doesn’t really matter technically, other than the novelty of watching a werewolf ball, but like any good sports movie worth playing with, the game of basketball is strangely the perfect vessel to dribble the metaphorical catalyst of lycanthropy and growing up. Teen Wolf tries for nothing and still succeeds in putting forth no effort other than being just fun and competent enough to push it over the line from “so bad it’s good territory” into the 80’s weird, sports cult classic it has become. A true underwolf story.

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Uncut Gems - The Safdie Brothers

Sports gambling is a cancer, not just in the context of sports, but to the world as a whole. Parasitic “prediction market” companies like Kalshi and Polymarket have taken the same tendencies into the wider world. Now you can make money by predicting the next war crime! Set in 2012, Uncut Gems explores the world of sports gambling before all of this madness started but you could already see the seeds that were planted.

The gambling-as-cancer metaphor is more literal than we may think in Uncut Gems— the film’s creative title sequence taking place in our protagonist's colon. Howard (Adam Sandler) isn’t just addicted to gambling; it’s the only real motivator in his life. Everything else—his business, wife, and children— takes a backseat to the possibility of a quick fortune.

The most tragic thing about this story is how many breaks Howard is granted just to fumble them all into an even worse situation. He’s not a guy with bad luck who can’t learn a lesson like you might expect from a story like this; he’s a narcissist who abuses his own luck until it becomes a punishment from the universe. A psychedelic soundtrack and an amazing performance from Kevin Garnett as himself give this film an almost mythical feel, as if the supernatural exists in this world without being explicitly stated.

• - Matthew P (TheHumanGaze)

Thank you to and for your wonderful contributions to this piece!

Want more of the On Screen series? Check out the first two installments below!

In a flashback sequence, we see Odysseus (Matt Damon) explaining to his trusted servant Eumaus (played wonderfully by John Leguizamo) why he plucks his bow before he hunts, stating that he fights with honor. When Eumaus says that hunting is not fighting, Odysseus replies, “It’s just fighting with stealth.”

I couldn’t keep this line out of my head every time the film cut back to Troy. As the town is being sacked, it looks less like an epic battle and more like an outnumbered chase. The few Trojan Soldiers who can fight back are dispatched instantly, and the ones who run away don’t fare much better. You can see in Odysseus’ face right there as he realizes the difference between fighting and hunting, and what his army did in Troy was certainly the latter.

The Trojan War haunts this film throughout, despite not being the focus of the narrative. Even when we’re in the perspective of Menelaus (John Bernthal), a man who believes the war was ordained by the gods, the scenes are tense and at times hard to watch. His wife Helen (Lupita Nyong’o) is scarred (physically and mentally) by this war that brings such pride to her husband. When the gates come down, revealing a monstrous Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) in a daunting set of armor with a fleet of soldiers behind him, the tone is downright terrifying. Agamemnon is extremely well done in his short amount of screen time. When we see him in the armor, he’s intimidating as he moves slowly through a collapsing Troy, but the moment he takes it off, we see just how vulnerable and human he actually is. The casting of Benny Safdie and the hulking figure of Agamemnon made me roll my eyes when I first saw the trailer. After seeing the film, it may be the cleverest casting decision in a film full of them. Safdie perfectly embodies an entitled man-child without even needing to speak. He hides himself behind the men he sacrifices but is killed when he least expects it. The man who started this bloodbath of a conflict didn’t even live to see the full extent of his victory. In that case, was ANY of it worth it? What was any of it for?

This question is at the heart of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. The film shifts Odysseus into a guilt-ridden shell of himself. This version of Odysseus never mentally made it out of Troy. His unwavering overconfidence is stripped away, exposing him for what he is: just a man, and sometimes, a man operating through fear. The original epic has the character grapple with his hubris by leading his men from dangerous situation to dangerous situation out of a sense of superiority and control. Damon’s portrayal is not sure of himself. Every choice comes with hesitation and heavy scrutiny from his men, especially Himesh Patel’s Eurylochus.

Eurylochus, in Nolan’s film, undergoes the opposite development of Odysseus. There’s a visible tension between the two men from the first moment they share the screen. When they leave Troy, Odysseus is driven by nothing but his desire to get home. When asked what they’ll do if the people on the island of Ismarus were unwilling to give them supplies, he coldly says, “How badly do you want to get home?” Odysseus leads the early part of this journey with a heartless focus that seems to disturb Eurylochus. He cringes before they land in Ismarus, and every time his leader discusses sacrificing men for survival, he pushes back. Patel plays these scenes wonderfully and is a huge reason why the character stands out in this telling. As the journey continues to get more dire, Eurylochus is possessed by his desire to get back home. He becomes reckless and attempts to take control over Odysseus’ fleet.

The moment these two characters completely switch perspectives happens to also be my favorite moment in the film.

After a few close encounters and bad decisions, the crew winds up on Circe’s (Samantha Morton) island. They force Odysseus to stay back with the boat as they attempt to scavenge the island for supplies. While his men confront Circe, Odysseus hunts down a deer for them to eat upon return. Instead of just shooting the deer when he has the opportunity, he plucks his bow and gives the animal a fair chance. At this point, these men are starving and beaten down. This is the moment where he finally chooses honor over survival. When the dead deer is revealed to be a man, there’s a realization in Odysseus’ face that this is what he’s always been, a hunter of men. It’s when he fully adopts the law of Zeus as his men are devolved into pigs for their unflinching barbarity. Odysseus doesn’t argue with Circe about the men’s true nature; he agrees with her but ultimately believes that it isn’t their fault, it’s his. He gives them chances to find their humanity, even when he’s told by the undead that it isn’t possible.

The biggest change that Christopher Nolan makes to the story is giving Odysseus full agency over everything that happens. In the epic, gods such as Poseidon and Zeus loom largely over the narrative and are responsible for many of the events. Here, they’re more of an invisible force that our characters believe in, interestingly mirroring modern religion. This world shows us monsters, a land of the dead, and witches, but never goes out of its way to confirm the existence of the gods, just the characters’ belief in them. It doesn’t matter if the audience believes in these gods; we must believe that the characters do, though.

As exciting as this journey is to watch, it’s what happens back on Ithica that grounds us. Between all of the monsters and wars is a broken family trying to function in a broken world. It’s not that Telemachus (Tom Holland) doesn’t have the qualities of a king or that Penelope (Anne Hathaway) is weak-minded without her husband; these characters were blindsided by a rapidly changing culture that didn’t allow them to flourish. The ironic part is that it was the very man they’re mourning at the forefront of this shift. The suitors, led by Antinous (Robert Pattinson), are deliciously vile while not being over-the-top villainous. These are just opportunists taking advantage of an already bad situation. They’ve seen countless numbers of their peers sacrificed for a war that has proven meaningless and are sick of participating in a system and believing in gods who seem to shift their rules every other moment. The suitors are symptoms of the gods and their laws being used to justify murder and pillaging.

I really like what this film does with the character of Antinous. He’s given more of a connection to the Trojan War and Odysseus this time around, making their eventual confrontation more exciting and satisfying than it is in the epic. We see that Antinous has been a manipulative opportunist since he was a kid, using a scheme that forces a young boy, Sinon, to take his place in the Trojan War. Sinon is not a character in either of Homer’s epics; instead, Nolan lifted the character from Virgil’s Aeneid. Elliot Page plays Sinon in a small but monumentally crucial part. One of the first moments we see is Sinon being impaled on the Trojan horse. It’s a powerful image that only gets more tragic as we learn his backstory. Sinon’s sacrifice and the conversation he has with Odysseus from the afterlife (replacing Achilles from the epic — a change I’m sure the online right is being completely normal about) help Odysseus find himself again.

In the original epic, Odysseus is disguised by Athena as a beggar to assess the situation and test the loyalty of his former servants. Nolan’s Odysseus is not as concerned with loyalty as he is with making amends. He won’t reveal himself until he has apologized and admitted guilt. It’s such a slight motivation shift that transforms how the character is perceived both within the story and by audiences. His confrontation with the suitors is pretty shaky and hard to comprehend (in Nolan fashion). Still, the emotional core is so strong that it’s hard not to get excited watching Odysseus and Telemachus take down these suitors and reunite as a family.

The Odyssey is everything you expect a Nolan film to be for better or worse. It’s loud, it’s gorgeous, and it attempts to ground the fantastical. Above all of that, The Odyssey captures something that can be rare Nolan: the frailty of humanity and the armor we put on to protect ourselves from it.

Thank you for reading TheHumanGaze! If you’re interested in reading more reviews on current cinema, check these out:

I understand the appeal, and I believe that when approached respectfully, true crime can be a legitimate way to study and analyze human behaviors from a safe distance. At its best, true crime can look at heinous crimes, why they’re committed, and how they suck communities into a vicious cycle of exploitation. We live in a scary world full of death and grief on a mass scale; true crime can certainly be a way to intellectualize this.

But I draw the line when it becomes entertainment.

I think we’ve all fallen victim to a true crime phenomenon or two. These cases can often transcend the local newspapers or YouTube videos that gain them traction and transform into full-blown pop culture events. Conversations about the brutal murders of people like Tamla Horsford or Gabby Petito get sandwiched in between brunch conversations about the Met Gala or the Super Bowl. No matter how many good intentions are in the recipe, the need for likes or engagement will always be enough to spoil the stew.

These real-life tragedies becoming pop culture don’t bring awareness or support; they simply reduce them to talking points. Suddenly, macabre details become meme fodder. Diddy’s reign of terror is reduced to a bunch of high schoolers yelling “no Diddy” at each other. Uttering the name Epstein is enough to send a group of internet-minded Gen Z kids into a fit of laughter. When the president makes crude statements about sexual assault, more than half the country is willing to excuse it as a joke. If we can’t even put the irony on pause for the darkest moments, can we take anything seriously anymore?

Obviously, the roots of these problems go much deeper than how we interact with true crime, but the genre continues to be a fascinating mirror to our sensationalized society.

True Crime and documentaries have always been adjacent, but it felt like they each had their own distinct corners. If anything, true crime was viewed as low-brow—something you’d catch on cable in the evening while you cooked or did some other household tasks. Somewhere around the early 2010s, this line started blurring.

Now there is no line.

Every documentary is true crime. I mean this both literally and stylistically. If you scroll through any streaming service’s documentary section, you’d be hard-pressed to find a doc that doesn’t have some true crime slant. Even sports documentaries have adopted the aesthetics and editing cadence. Why did this happen? Unfortunately, the answer is pretty simple.

We eat that shit up.

As someone who thinks (obsesses?) about films a lot, I always find it interesting to hear which films or shows pass the cultural gates and make it to workplace or bar conversations. Over the last ten years, I’ve heard more casual discussion about these true crime documentaries than any other piece of media. In an age where we are yearning for monoculture, we seem to have it in the form of murder.

Netflix, in particular, has mastered this formula. It’s gotten to the point that when a tragedy happens, the first thing some people say is “I can’t wait for the Netflix Doc about this!” This is no longer about awareness or psychological exploration; we just want the next hit.

The current true crime obsession bleeding into mainstream conversation is the case of Makenzie Shirilla and the suspicious deaths of Davion Flannagan and Dominic Russo. After Netflix covered this already widespread case in their documentary, The Crash, the internet caught fire with theories and hidden information, as if it were a new Marvel trailer.

After avoiding it for weeks, I eventually gave in to the hype cycle. I needed to check out this glimpse of someone’s grief for no other reason than the selfish notion that I should participate in this discussion.

The Crash is not a documentary; it’s a vanity piece. Social media fodder. A low effort montage of the victims with sad music at the end is not enough to distract me from this fact.

TikTok videos and useless interviews about them take up more time in this film than anything about the victims of their families. Makenzie’s “reveal” in the back half of this thing is played up like the entrance of a Disney villain as we watch her center herself in frame. She keeps a wide, smug smile on her face because she knows exactly what this is: her star moment disguised as an exposé. The victims get lost in the shuffle while everyone gets their hot takes off about the perpetrator and their friends.

The internet’s infatuation with this case mirrors an ongoing trial.

In late 2025, singer and live streamer, David Burke (D4VD), made headlines as a dead body was discovered in the trunk of his Tesla. What was already a shocking and surreal situation just got worse with each new piece of information. We would soon come to find out that this wasn’t just a murder or a wild misunderstanding—Burke had been grooming a fourteen-year-old Celeste Hernandez for as long as he’d had a platform, resulting in her vicious murder.

While the police and Burke’s team were being vague (at best), the internet attempted to take this investigation into its own hands. While this did result in some genuine revelations, it mostly muddled the whole thing. Misinformation was being spread and accepted as concrete facts. Tons of dates, details, and names were misconstrued to create a Frankenstein version of events.

The revealing part to me is that these people think they’re helping. They feel a part of something real and important. Many comments on these theory videos are statements like: “Smile, guys, we’re in a Netflix Documentary!” There’s a palpable excitement there that ignores the cold, hard facts: a teenager is dead, and now she’ll probably never get a chance to properly rest. She’s kept alive by any meme, documentary, or think piece (including this one, probably) that is made about the case.

As these sensationalized documentaries flood algorithms, other docs just don’t stand a chance. A patiently paced documentary about something more esoteric or immediate just can’t compete in this landscape of instant satisfaction and dopamine hunting.

I don’t have a solution; if anything, this is just going to get worse. I naively thought that as news headlines get worse by the day, this hunger for depravity and violence would subside; yet it’s only seemed to fuel it.

How dark and confusing does a world have to be to seek comfort in someone else’s nightmare?

Author’s notes:

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed the cultural critique of this piece, I recommend an older piece of mine about sports docs:

I had the honor to participate in ’s new debate series, this entry all about the films of Steven Spielberg! Alessandro gathered the film nerd Avengers for this one; it’s well worth your time even if you don’t agree with any of us.

Why We Go To The Movies

The Debate: What is the best Spielberg film?

The Debate is my attempt to bring fun film arguments out into the open. A simple idea: one question with multiple answers. A group of writers makes the strongest case they can for their position, and the readers decide which argument survives…

Read more

3 months ago · 34 likes · 15 comments · Alessandro Di-Girolamo

The internet is a liminal space.

It mimics reality, distorts memory, and provides an endless loop of discoveries to get lost in. You will interact with people on the internet, thousands of people in fact, but you’re not truly sharing a space with them. These people manifest themselves into a string of loose thoughts and performance that overshadows any humanity that is lying behind the screen. So, it’s no surprise that liminal spaces have become a point of fascination for many internet users.

By far, the most infamous “liminal space” is the Backrooms. The concept of the Backrooms, originating from a simple image of an uncanny office building, exists in many different forms. Everywhere, from Reddit threads to Roblox, they have captured the imagination of many online circles.

I’m sure most of the people reading this knew what the Backrooms were to some capacity, but where they found it will differ wildly from person-to-person. There are dozens of subcommunities dedicated to discussing different interpretations of this concept. The one version of the Backrooms that has cemented itself as at least a starting point was a web series created by an ambitious (and at the time, 16-year-old) YouTuber by the name of Kane Parsons (under the handle: Kanepixels).

I didn’t have much of a relationship with The Backrooms prior to A24 and Atomic Monster announcing a feature-film version. I had seen the original image and was aware of the Kane Pixel web series, but I never felt compelled enough to dive in. Something about it struck me as juvenile. I lumped it into the same bucket as children’s horror properties like Five Nights at Freddy’s, where I recognized it as decent gateway horror but assumed it was too immature for my tastes.

Boy, was I wrong.

After catching wind of some (frankly outrageous) rumors that Kane Parsons had not actually directed the Backrooms film. This compelled me to finally check out his YouTube series— I was blown away by how singular and assured it was. It takes clear inspiration from the likes of David Lynch and early 2000s found footage, yet still feels perfect for our current cultural moment. It feels like footage ripped straight from a Gen Z kid’s nightmare. These shorts aren’t perfect; some moments feel like cheap video game cutscenes, and the scares can fall into some student-film style traps, but Parsons undoubtedly had a great foundation to work with. He obviously had a vision for this world, and now A24 had put the ball in his court to fully realize it.

Does he succeed? I think so, for the most part.

For better or worse, Backrooms is dripping with ideas. Every scene presents something thematic to chew on, but often leaves meat on the bone when it comes to actual story/character progression. Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is almost an intriguing protagonist. His palpable loneliness and obsession with the titular Backrooms make him an easy character to follow, but I found myself wishing for a deeper investigation into him that the film never gave me.

Clark’s therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve), is more fleshed out; unfortunately, her presence is pretty scattered and inconsistent. I like what they did with her backstory and wish that the film had explored more of it. There are a lot of parallels to be made between the Backrooms and the current state of mental health care that feel like missed opportunities.

The film is about the fake lives we must keep up with to maintain our actual survival. Whether that be due to capitalism, the internet, or just simply to impress others, we all own a few costumes, whether we want to admit it or not. Clark’s grizzly fate at the hands of his own ‘copy’ displays this idea perfectly. Clark wants to remain in the Backrooms because there, he doesn’t have to change. It’s not until his worst instincts and behaviors (literally and metaphorically) consume him that he realizes. By then, it’s far too late.

This climactic moment and the chase that ensues are great, but we definitely skipped some steps to get there. The biggest flaw that I can attribute to this film is its lack of patience. There’s a strong desire to get us from moment to moment that can take the eeriness down a peg. Certain scenes don’t get enough time to breathe before they are flipped on their head. Clark’s heel turn in particular could have used more detail. As is, it just feels half-baked and out of nowhere.

Where Backrooms may lack in character development, it more than makes up for it with atmosphere. This film is doing its best work when it gets to play in the Backrooms. You can see how comfortable Parsons is in this sandbox. I particularly liked the found footage segments that take place in these liminal spaces. They place you right in the character’s shoes during this almost Kubrickian journey through a distorted reality.

The use of space here, even when we’re not in the Backrooms, is impressive. The whole film has an uncomfortably liminal feel to it that gives the entire film a sense of dread. This film feels so uniquely generational in a way that doesn’t date it or make it feel juvenile, like the Minecraft movie or Five Nights at Freddy’s. Backrooms has a point of view and is expressing a particular brand of loneliness. Parsons clearly understands this mood and how to build a scare— if he can hone those instincts and learn a bit of patience, he will be a filmmaker to watch for decades to come.

Thank you so much for reading! If you want more of my thoughts on 2026 releases, check out my reviews on Obsession and Michael!

I actually like the idea of remakes.

Now, before you light your torches and sharpen your pickaxes, I certainly share common frustrations with modern remake culture. I think that mainstream film studios rely way too much on previously established IP and that audiences have trained themselves to seek out nostalgia over substance. It makes total sense why the word “remake” is enough to make many filmgoers uninterested. However, when done right, retellings can be one of the purest forms of storytelling.

For me, remakes are at their best when dealing with similar themes and visual motifs as their source material without retreading the same story beat-for-beat. One of my favorite remakes of all time, John Carpenter’s The Thing, has almost no resemblance to its 1950’s inspiration, The Thing from Outer Space, but it perfectly captures the sci-fi paranoia fest that the original was attempting. Each version of A Star is Born tackles a different version of the music industry that changes the central dynamic in each film. Remakes can be great ways to gauge cultural shifts and evaluate how far film has come as an art form. Unfortunately, they’re usually just cheap cash grabs.

Nothing illustrated this greedy cinematic trend more than the horror genre in the 2000s. The decade was a transitional one for the genre. We were seeing the return of grindhouse aesthetics under a new name: torture porn, which acted as horror’s grizzly response to the 9/11 attacks. Around the same time, filmmakers were experimenting with found footage in the wake of the Blair Witch Project. While these sub-genres would go on to be pivotal to the genre’s evolution, the remakes defined what mainstream horror was.

The 2000s would not be the first time that the genre saw a ‘remake boom’. In the 70’s and 80s, many classic B-movies were being remade with modern technologies. This era produced many all-timers, including The Fly, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Blob— some of which are better regarded than their originals. For the most part, these remakes were welcome and brought a previous generation’s nightmares to the screen in a contemporary way. Respected directors usually made these with real vision and respect for the genre. What we got in the 2000s was much more cynical and orchestrated.

Multiple trends collided to create this horror remake culture. Hollywood had caught wind of promising horror scenes bubbling up in Japan and Korea and wanted their own piece of the pie. What followed was a stream of Americanized J and K-horror remakes. As this was happening, 80s nostalgia was beginning to plant pop cultural seeds. This was long before Stranger Things would explode it, but the romanticization of the 1980s slowly began here. This is where all of our 80s slasher remakes come in. As these two trends peaked around the same time, it was hard to find a weekend in the 2000s that wasn’t premiering a new horror remake of some sort.

2002’s Ring is probably the film that stamps this trend. There were remakes before, but the success of this one feels like the moment studio execs around the world started to see dollar signs.

Ring is a great film. As far as these J-horror remakes go, it’s head and shoulders above the rest. Gore Verbinski understands what makes Ringu so unsettling. His version is not a cheap imitation; it actually feels like it’s in conversation. You can’t say the same for most of these J-horror and K-horror remakes. They’re usually just jump scare fests that strip the mystique of their stories away completely. Most of these films have the exact visual palette (cold blue tones with hazy lighting), which undermines the original aesthetics of these stories.

The Grudge remake from 2004, for example, plays out like an SNL parody of the (terrifying) original, and I struggle to take it seriously. Outside of the two mentioned, most of these remakes crashed and burned. They were either complete misfires (One Last Call) or bland retellings (The Uninvited) that didn’t stick much beyond their theatrical runs.

It’s a shame that so many American horror fans still have no idea that these films are remakes. Every time you tell a fan of The Uninvited about A Tale of Two Sisters, an angel gains its wings. The Americanized remakes of these films are cynical cash grabs meant to undermine the Japanese originals.

While these attempts were floundering in the states, Michael Bay and his production company, Platinum Dunes, had different plans up their sleeves. They set out to modernize iconic horror flicks that had overstayed their welcome with increasingly ridiculous sequels. The goal was to strip these stories back to the recognizable parts and resell them to audiences. The first remake to come from Platinum Dunes was 2003’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

The Texas Chainsaw remake is pretty divisive in the horror community. I know many who regard it as the best horror remake (especially of this era), while others blame it for the deluge of mediocrity that came after. It’s not a perfect remake, and it doesn’t hold a candle to the original when it comes to social commentary or the claustrophobic feel, but it nails the look and vibe of a Texas Chainsaw film. It knows what you want to see: a group of clueless teens stumbling upon a murderous family. The film gives you that by employing new ideas and pulling unexplored threads from the original. It’s shot by the same DP, Daniel Pearl, so while it may lack some of that 70s grit, it still puts you back in that disgustingly intriguing world seamlessly.

Texas Chainsaw’s success started a chain effect that would dominate the decade. They didn’t just come from Platinum Dunes either; pretty soon, every filmmaker was pitching their own retelling of a horror classic. Just between 2003 and 2006, we got remakes for Willard, House of Wax, Amityville Horror, When a Stranger Calls, and The Fog, just to name a few. Some of the remakes brought fresh ideas to the plate, like Zach Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead or Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, but those were few and far between in the sea of generic retreadings.

I do enjoy a few of the films from this early phase of remakes. Alexander Aja’s The Hills Have Eyes stands out as a gem among the junk. It carries Wes Craven’s mean streak and is somehow even more shockingly violent. It doesn’t feel like a director trying to modernize a cult classic; it feels like someone who really understands what made 70s horror so timeless and applied it to the modern day. More remakes need to take the latter approach.

Funnily enough, a majority of these remakes have garnered cult followings of defenders. You never know when you’ll run into someone whose favorite movie is The Omen (2006). I get it. These films are practically time machines to a bygone era. They’re extremely nostalgic and employ a dated but novel style that we don’t see anymore. Many of these films look and feel like music videos for death metal songs with their flashy zooms and quick edits—which makes sense considering the number of music video directors responsible for these films.

Platinum Dunes led the charge through the mid 2000s as this trend was really heating up. After a prequel to their Texas Chainsaw remake (that’s how confident they were), the studio released a remake of The Hitcher, a 1987 cult classic starring Rutger Hauer as a murderous hitchhiker. The 2007 remake has nothing to offer other than a fun performance from Sean Bean, but it’s the perfect example of why a majority of these remakes failed the test of time. The Hitcher was so interested in modernization that it instantly dates itself. From the misplaced Nu-metal needle drops to the trendy casting (sorry, Sophia Bush!), this film was already tacky by 2010, while the original holds up to this day.

Besides Texas Chainsaw Massacre, none of these films touched the impeachable classics. Specifically, the ‘big three’ of slasher franchises (Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween) seemed untouchable for a while. That was until 2006, when Rob Zombie would open the floodgates with his reimagining of Halloween.

Rob Zombie’s Halloween is a fascinating object. It’s clear that Zombie was passionate about the franchise and had a concrete vision. His version of Halloween is overly stylized, more reliant on gore, and frankly just much meaner than the original. The idea to explore Michael Myers as a sympathetic villain is a flawed one, as the robotic behavior is what has cemented him as a legendary villain, but you have to give ole Rob some credit for trying. This film (and the straight-up bizarre sequel) has some real shooters in the horror community, and I can’t necessarily blame them.

I think Halloween’s success gave Platinum Dunes the confidence to tackle these classics. In 2009, we would see their Friday the 13th remake, directed by Texas Chainsaw 2003’s Marcus Nispel.

I actually quite like the Friday the 13th remake. It’s sneakily a remake of pt.2, using the events of the original for a fun opening montage. This allowed the remake to employ its iconic slasher as much as possible, skipping the Ms. Vorhees twist. This remake completely understood what made the original pop in the late 70s. These films were never trying to be prestige. Unlike its peers, the Friday series was never attempting any social commentary or subtext—they were fun summer slasher films where hot twenty-somethings got killed in creative ways. The remake is unapologetically schlocky, but it’s so in on the joke that it circles back to clever. The very next year, Platinum Dunes tried again. This time, the result was so bad that it basically single-handedly ended this trend.

Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street is the most unique of the mainstream slasher franchises. Unlike Jason, Michael, or Leatherface; Freddy Krueger is explicitly paranormal and speaks almost as much as he kills. Where the others get by on physical intimidation, Freddy’s brand of terror comes from his cruel sense of humor. The jokes may seem like comic relief, but they actually add a deeper layer to the horror. The remake omits almost all of this, turning Kruger into a cliché demonic villain. Jackie Earl Haley does his best to fill Robert Englund’s iconic shoes, but the material gives him nothing to work with. The film does attempt a new backstory, but it fails to commit before anything interesting comes of it. This is easily the worst of this era and one of Hollywood’s most confounding blunders.

The late 2000s saw what I call the ‘extinction burst’ of horror remakes. Audiences were catching on to the formula and starting to feel duped. For every auteur-driven or fun remake, there were ten Amityville horrors. The big ones, like Friday or Nightmare, made money, but those franchises have decades of goodwill and name value behind them. The rest of these films were dead on arrival.

There are two remakes from this era that personally offend me. Nightmare on Elm Street 2010 is bad, yet I understand why it was made from a financial perspective. When it comes to Prom Night and The Stepfather, those felt like personal jabs against me specifically.

As far as 80s slashers go, Prom Night might be the most underrated. I think the film is just an iconic slasher mask away from being canonized alongside Halloween or Friday. The revenge-based slasher set during prom night is flooded with 80s imagery, resulting in an aesthetic that should be dated but ends up mesmerizing. So, what does the remake decide to do? Make the whole thing gray and lifeless, of course!

Prom Night (2008) is shot like a bad episode of Law and Order: SVU. The characters are all cardboard cutouts, and the killer is so generic that I couldn’t tell you a single visual identifier. It abandons the original’s pulpy revenge plot for a cluttered story about obsession. It spits in the face of Prom Night and uses the title to lure in audiences.

The Stepfather (2009) is a bit more faithful to its zany 80s original, but it lacks all charm. It’s a soulless retelling of one of my favorite horror films ever. The choice to change our protagonist from male seems small, but it takes away the layer of commentary that hits so hard in the original. In the original Stepfather film, the gender roles make the “father-daughter” dynamic so tense. There are also some laughably bad scenes here, particularly from the titular Stepfather. The “Who am I here?” delivery is so fumbled that it almost makes that brilliant line come across as cheesy.

These remakes didn’t really die; they just evolved into “legacy-sequels”. The IP/nostalgia strategy remains the exact same, just in a different package. While these legacy sequels are generally higher quality, something in me misses the remake phase, as unsuccessful as it may have been. They were at least pretending to be fresh takes on the material while the legasequels market themselves strictly off of nostalgia. Scream 5 or Halloween (2018) are essentially reboots that are too afraid to cast new characters.

Like most of you, I do have a soft spot for a few of these 2000s remakes. Nobody thinks that they’re all terrible; the problem is that we can’t agree on which of them are the gems and which of them should be forgotten entirely. Horror’s remake phase may have been the result of Hollywood greed, but it helped me differentiate art from product during an impressionable time in my cinematic evolution.

That has to count for something.

Most young men have no idea what they want from life, but they sure know what they want it to look like.

They’ll seek out the prettiest girl or the six pack, not because it’s what they truly desire but because they think it will impress others. Insecurities act as parasites that don’t just affect how these men view themselves, it distorts how they interact with the world. Curry Barkers’ theatrical debut, Obsession, doesn’t hold back in showing how much collateral damage that doubt can bring with it.

From the first scene, one thing is clear: our main character, Bear (Michael Johnston), has a huge crush on his childhood friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette). The first fifteen or so minutes of this film play like a romcom. There’s no violent cold open to get us acquainted with the horror before we learn our characters; we are plopped right into the friend group dynamic. Barker trusts the audience to be patient as he builds out these characters.

There is so much to chew on in this friend group. They seem like a close-knit group of coworkers on the surface, but it doesn’t take long at all before the toxicity begins to show itself. They sort of remind me of the groups of teens from 90s slasher movies. They’re connected through years of friendship, but all hide subtle grudges toward one another.

Bear’s best friend, Ian (Cooper Tomlinson), is the complete opposite of Bear in every way. He’s boisterous, outgoing, and most importantly, confident. It seems like Bear sort of looks up to Ian’s ease in conversation. Sarah (Megan Lawson) rounds out the group as the friend who both has feelings for Bear and a strong desire to better her life through academia.

They all seem to revolve around Nikki, as if she is the group’s power source. None of them really treats her like a friend. To Bear, she’s something to lust after. To Ian, she’s a casual hookup. To Sarah, she’s competition. The base dynamics are already so tense that you’re on edge before the first scare ever happens.

This distant relationship to Nikki is adopted by the audience as well. We don’t get much time with (pre-possession) Nikki, which helps to give her that mysteriously desirable mystique that Bear views her with. The one thing we do learn about her is how unhappy she is with her current lifestyle. She tells Bear that she’s quitting her job to fully pursue a career as a writer. Her struggle for autonomy was already beginning before she would lose it in the most horrific way possible.

Obsession is being marketed as a “crazy girlfriend” movie—it’s really a film about sexual assault and the men who we might not expect to commit it. Possessed Nikki may be committing most of the violence here, but Bear is Obsession’s monster.

Bear is defined by his passivity. He’s the chronically terrified nice guy that we’ve all encountered a few times in our lives. These guys are usually subtly likable; the awkwardness can even be charming in some cases. In the first couple of scenes, I found myself slightly rooting for him to ask out his crush. He’s even given the perfect opportunity when Nikki asks him to come clean about his feelings for her. His choice in that moment foreshadows every other decision to come. He caves and says no, only to turn to magic in one last desperate attempt. This mirrors his final decision. When you finally think he’s going to do the selfless thing, he opts out again at the last minute, only this time it was too late.

He has no idea who he is or wants to be outside of being perceived by others. On an awkward dinner date, he is asked by Nikki what he wants to do in the future. He carelessly replies, “food critic,” and makes up some idealized scenario about getting free food to rationalize it. I doubt his future endeavors have really even crossed his mind much. A food critic is just what sounded most impressive to him in the moment. He thinks that his cure for internal anguish is external validation, but he’s too scared to pursue it organically.

It’s clear that Bear was never interested in Nikki romantically. He saw her as social currency. Her around his arm was guaranteed to make Ian and the other guys around them jealous. That power is what keeps him holding on so long, even after learning the disturbing nature of the wish. Even early on, when their “relationship” is somewhat normal, he doesn’t seem happy. He’s annoyed with her constantly before her first real outburst. He doesn’t do anything to help Nikki; everything he does is about appearances and selfish motives.

Inde Navarette is phenomenal here, genuinely an all-timer horror performance. She’s essentially playing two characters, the entity and the real Nikki—sometimes having to portray both in the same scene. Her naturalistic dialogue early on only makes it that much scarier when it all flips. The facial expressions and body language that she can employ make every scene she’s in unbearably tense. That being said, the scariest moment in the film doesn’t even feature the entity.

As Bear tries to sneak out of bed, he’s stopped in his tracks by Nikki’s voice. Only, she sounds much different from what we’re used to. The bursts of anger and uneven vocal tones are replaced by a pleading cry. “Just kill me,” she begs after explaining that the entity is temporarily asleep. Bear’s response is the line that has run through my head since the credits rolled.

“What’s so bad about being with me?” he asks coldly and leaves her in that state of agony. This is not the first time he’s been made aware of the real Nikki’s status. He knows that he’s simply using her body as a vessel for self-improvement and a confidence boost. He’s fine with torturing her as long as it’s fun for him.

Nikki’s fate in this film is brutal. Her infrequent outbursts and cries from within are what elevate this film above similar stories. The corrupted wish is not a new idea in horror, but the way it’s executed here is nearly flawless. Barker uses the “be careful what you wish for” trope for incisive commentary, shocking scares, and an uncomfortable sense of humor.

Obsession is exactly what I want in a horror film. Willing to delve into important social dynamics without forgetting to bring the scares along. Barker seems to be continuing the sketch-comedian-turned-horror-auteur lineage, and I look forward to what he makes in the future.

This piece is a part of the ‘Spring of King’ project, hosted and organized by the brilliant . I’m truly grateful to write about one of my favorite authors alongside some incredible writers. These collaborative projects have been so fun to be a part of. Please go check out the other pieces in this event. Kyle put together a killer group of writers for this spooky celebration.

Now, here’s Creepshow 2!

I love Stephen King’s short stories.

For an author who infamously tends to go long, I’ve always been drawn to his shorter tales. They not only helped me explore my favorite author, but they also introduced me to the entire medium. Naturally, this love for short-form storytelling has extended to my film taste. Short films and anthologies are a significant part of my cinematic diet. I love it when seemingly separate stories are connected through shared themes and aesthetics.

In 1982, a film that combined both of these loves was released. Written by King and directed by horror legend George A Romero, Creepshow has always been a favorite of mine. It’s a fun and memorable homage to the EC horror comics from the 50’s and one of the best horror anthology films ever made. Strangely, when I was asked to pick a film, I couldn’t get the mostly forgotten sequel out of my head.

Creepshow 2 is so underseen that this may be the first time a few of you have even heard of it. I wish I could say that’s because this is an underrated B-movie gem—but I can’t because it kind of just sucks. The comic book flair is gone. Romero steps out of the director’s chair. King was only (fairly loosely) involved in two of the three segments (rather than the originals 5). Basically, everything that makes Creepshow such a memorable cult classic is unfortunately absent here.

What fascinates me about this film is how bleak these stories are. In the original Creepshow, comedy and camp lead the tone of most of the segments. The sequel opts for a much bleaker bunch of stories. They’re gorier and pretty mean-spirited. The darkness of Creepshow 2 clashes with the cheesy 80s music and animated intro that try to recall the original’s charm. It results in a weird mess of an anthology that just so happens to feature one of my favorite short films ever made: The Raft.

The Raft, first a short story featured in King’s collection, Skeleton Crew, has a truly horrifying concept. When two young couples decide to swim out to the titular raft, they realize that the water houses a bloodthirsty organism that moves through water like an oil slick. This is one of King’s most effective short stories, and Creepshow 2’s rendition of it doesn’t disappoint.

The creature design is so simple but so terrifying. The thought of something that could melt your skin away with one touch is unnerving. Now add the claustrophobic nature of the raft, and you have the recipe for nightmares.

King is so good at layering these genre stories with real emotional and thematic weight. The Raft uses the lake monster conceit to explore adolescent insecurities and the limits of masculinity. We read (and watch) as these kids lose their carefully crafted personas and are stripped to their bare instincts. The dynamics established early on completely invert themselves once the monster appears. It’s brilliantly subtle storytelling that sets us up for some horrific scenarios (holy shit, her hair is in the water!)

The film flips some of these moments, making them even bleaker than the source material. A divisive change turns a memorable encounter from the short story into something much more sinister. Instead of embracing consensually as they try to avoid the monster, the film turns this into an assault. This choice takes the adaptation down a peg, but I still find the segment to be a worthy adaptation. I think it does add an interesting layer to the teenage boys’ dynamic with their girlfriends, but it wasn’t completely necessary and adds a blemish on an otherwise phenomenal segment.

Unfortunately, this segment is sandwiched between two relative clunkers and a wraparound segment that exited my memory bank as soon as it entered.

Creepshow 2 opens with an embarrassing first segment. Written by Romero with no involvement from King, Chief Wood Head starts this film off on the wrong foot. The segment follows an old couple whose wooden statue protects them and their store from harm. It’s overly sentimental, culturally insensitive, and most of all, it’s just plain boring. The whole segment is shot and scored like an after-school special. The attempted scares either fall flat on their face or serve as unintentional comedy. This short is painfully dated, too long, and tonally inconsistent, which unfortunately sets the stage for the entire film.

The final segment, The Hitchhiker, isn’t too bad. It becomes a repetitive slog after a certain point, but the concept of the short is pretty solid. After accidentally killing a hitchhiker on the road, Annie is haunted by the life she just ended. If this segment had been about ten minutes shorter, it’d be an all-timer. The special effects are gnarly, and the atmosphere is the creepiest of the three; it unfortunately overstays its welcome to a frustrating extent.

Creepshow 2 showcases both the limits and the benefits of anthology-style storytelling. It’s inconsistent and unable to come together as a concise piece, but I would still recommend it to most horror fans. The fun of anthologies for me is the mixed bag. You never know how the next segment will hit you. Even when 2/3 of the film is a snoozefest, a segment as good as The Raft makes the whole thing worth it. I will never forget The Raft, I will never forget Creepshow 2.

The fun isn’t over! Be sure to check out the rest of the Spring of King event!

5/1 It miniseries- Sahar Khan

5/2 Pet Semetary- JHong

5/3 Pet Semetary 2- Horror Hangouts

5/4 Cujo- Kyle Ryan

5/5 Creepshow- B-Movie Tea

5/6 The Outsider- Sean Mo

5/7 Gerald’s Game- H. H. Duke

5/8 The Mangler- Timothy Atkinson

5/9 Maximum Overdrive- Yanni Hamburger

5/10 Salem’s Lot 2024- Meat Head Media

5/11 Silver Bullet- George R. Galuschak

5/12 Creepshow 2- Thehumangaze

5/13 Carrie- Hellish Views - Harry Evans

5/14 Christine- Emma

5/15 Big Driver- Molly O’Blivion &

Stand By Me- Matt Cyr

5/16 The Shining- Jamie B.

5/17 The Long Walk- Decarceration

5/18 King Of Home Video- Jean-Pierre Diez

5/19 The Langoliers- Beverley’s Horror Corner

5/20 Sleepwalkers- Brandon Rae

5/21 The Running Man- Stevie Duffy

5/22 Misery- Skyla

5/23 The Night Flier- Bryan Wolford

5/24 The Shawshank Redemption- Genevieve Brock

5/25 Dreamcatcher- Kimberly B🌴👻🌴

5/26 The Mist- Cedric

5/27 The Dead Zone- Offscreenshaman

5/28 Cat’s Eye- Backyard Movie Critic & Graveyard Shift- Liam Palmer

5/29 Rose Red- Kristen (Blood,Blush ,& Guts) & Storm Of The Century- Adam Hunter

5/30 It Chapter 1- That Horror Lesbian

5/31 Dolores Claiborne- Kimberly Ramsawak & The Lawnmower Man- Mike smith

Michael is a film about an imaginary person.

Sure, we recognize this person’s songs, outfits, and vague demeanor and equate them to Michael Jackson, but the person depicted in that film never existed, at least not in real life. It’s because this film wasn’t interested in a person, only emotions and ideas.

There’s a great character study about the cycle of abuse and how fame can expedite that process, to be made based on the Michael Jackson story, but that film will never be made. For that film to be a reality, a filmmaker would have to be willing to address the thorny and unsavory parts of this man’s history— more importantly, the estate would have to sign off on that portrayal. It would be one thing if the film were just uninterested in these blemishes; Michael is straight-up antagonistic to anyone who may want it addressed. Even if you legally can’t address the biggest elephant in the room (The film scrapped an entire third act that reportedly revolved around Jackson’s infamous 1994 court case), you can still make him flawed.

As a huge fan of music history, I know plenty of Michael Jackson stories that would have been more interesting and thought-provoking than watching a recreation of a music video we’ve all been watching since we were toddlers. To say that a biopic is just a rundown of a Wikipedia page with glorified music videos thrown in to wake the audience up every other scene would not be a new criticism, but there is no other way to describe what happens in Michael. This is someone who was notably difficult to work with, someone who both wore his insecurities as a badge of honor and let them destroy his life at the same time. This is one of the most divisive figures to ever grace planet earth, and this film boils it down to “Michael Jackson was literally god and anything bad he ever did was because of the people around him”.

Focusing on Joe’s dynamic with his children is actually a great foundation for something real, especially with an actor as talented as Coleman Domingo in the role. The Jackson Five’s journey from Motown to stepping stones on the path to Michael’s superstardom is one of the most fascinating parts of the Jackson story. So much of what came in his later years can be informed by Michael’s experiences at a young age.

What we get instead is Joe as a cartoon villain who loves jump scares as much as an 80s slasher does, and a Jackson Five dynamic that makes the brothers feel even more irrelevant than afterthoughts. The family dynamic is so simplified that it minimizes the abuse plot when it thinks it’s bringing awareness to it. The abuse scenes feel ripped out of a Lifetime movie, and any of the tension is immediately undercut by another musical sequence. This film is too scared to paint anyone as an actual human being with complexities, so everyone that isn’t Michael kind of just stands there and looks impressed by his singing. These characters aren’t one-dimensional; they lack dimension to begin with. We have well-known and legendary actors like Nia Long, and Larenz Tate reduced to glorified extras. When you manage to turn Barry Gordy or Don King into boring, one-note characters, you know something’s wrong. It got to the point that I was experiencing the uncanny valley effect in that theater.

Jafar Jackson’s performance as his late uncle seems to be the only consistent point of praise that this movie has received. I’ll concede that he resembled the man’s movements, cadence, and speech patterns to perfection, but his performance honestly just made me uncomfortable. I’m not saying he was bad; encompassing not only a family member but one of the most popular musical artists ever is no small challenge, but what exactly about this performance told us anything about the man Michael was that we couldn’t have gathered from watching his television interviews or performances. There are hundreds of street performers reenacting the same spots on a daily basis. It’s a good re-enactment, but just that at the end of the day. I felt more connected to Juliano Valdi in the Jackson Five portions as he brought more depth to the scenes rather than pure imitation.

This film reminded me a lot of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. Both of these films use uncanny replication to make vague attempts at humanizing their controversial subjects by focusing on the forces behind the scenes that get lost in the waters of hero worship and bland recreations. “Hurt people hurt people” is a real thing that should be explored, but the way these films approach it is only harmful to the conversation. Both of these films paint their subjects as soulless puppets who hold no accountability for their wrongdoings. Where that film at least gets by with a committed visual flair, Michael flounders in its own blandness.

I think it frustrates me so much because these films don’t have to be this lazy. I’m not someone who thinks that a Michael Jackson movie shouldn’t be made at all—but if you’re going to do it, actually do it. There are hundreds of fluff-piece documentaries and YouTube videos that accomplish what this film does. If you’re going to make a completely nostalgic movie about Michael Jackson, this doesn’t even do that well. We skip most of the Motown years, his purchase of the Beatles catalogue, a majority of his important collaborations, but a CGI monkey can get a whole scene dedicated to it.

Musical biopics are a longstanding point of contention between critics and audiences. It seems like Bohemian Rhapsody was the last film critics let get away with the cookie-cutter cradle-to-grave formula these films adopt. I remember being so confused as I read positive review after positive review for what I found to be a painfully generic butchering of Queen’s legacy. In the years that followed, the backlash Bohemian Rhapsody received for its Oscar wins and the litany of copycats in its wake, critics have largely been a lot harsher on these films. That doesn’t really matter to the studios when their target audiences are eating it up.

Rotten Tomatoes is not my favorite website, but I do find it useful when discrepancies like this happen. As I’m writing this, Michael is currently sitting at a 37% with critics and a 97% with audiences. I find these gaps so fascinating because I think it shows that the audiences for these films aren’t expecting movies; they want nostalgia. They want a concert. So, when they get that in spades, of course, they’re satisfied.

I think biopics frustrate me so much because there is so much potential to mine from real life, but we’re often stuck with just the surface level. I go to films (sometimes not even consciously) to explore different perspectives of the human experience, where better to get that than from real lived-in perspectives? Shouldn’t those be the most universal stories? Unfortunately, films like Michael or Elvis aren’t interested in being stories because they’re too busy being advertisements. They don’t care if you take anything away from these experiences as long as you have that Spotify page loaded up to stream their music on the way home.

If you want more of my thoughts on music biopics and how they can be better, check out this older piece of mine:

I also made a visualizer for a really dope underground rapper by the name of MoisturizedKev. If you’re into politically charged hip-hop in the style of Earl Sweatshirt with some Griselda thrown in for flavor, this one is for you:

That’s enough self-promo from me.

Thank you for reading! Apologies for the hiatus. I have been working on so many exciting projects that I can’t wait to share with you! I have many things coming soon. Have a lovely week; take care of yourselves and each other!

It feels like you arrived too late; everything important and cool has already happened. Every great classic has already been made. This is far from the truth. It doesn’t seem like we have a generational film as Gen Z, but we also don’t have the history and ability to look back like previous generations. Our cinematic legacy is still being built. Filmmakers and showrunners are slowly but surely starting to represent our generation in authentic and recognizable ways.

I’ve brought together a great crew of fellow writers to help me curate this list. This is Gen Z on-screen.

Shithouse - Dir: Cooper Raiff

Shithouse is a 2020 film directed, written and starring Cooper Raiff. It tells the story of a college freshman grasping his first year in college and the loneliness that comes with it. Everything might change, though, when he meets someone with whom he shares a connection. What I really appreciate about Shithouse is how real everything feels. There’s a lot of awkwardness in scenes that feel realistic to the story. You feel a sense of cringe with some of the actions Alex takes, but it’s exactly what someone his age would do. I also appreciate a college story that’s not just about everyone partying, but about the loneliness that comes with it as well especially when you’re somewhere far away from where you grew up.

There are times when everything feels overwhelming and you just want to go back home where you know everyone. This film perfectly describes that feeling and it really hit hard for me as someone who entered college around the time this came out. It’s nice to see a Gen Z college story that doesn’t feel like it’s trying too hard to force a connection with that audience. Cooper Raiff was 23 when he made the film, and it shows in the best way possible. It’s a movie I’ll be looking back at as an important one to me.

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The Society (Series) - Creator: Christopher Keyser

I don’t remember much about being a teenager. I do remember how restrictive it felt. How much it felt like life was something that happened to me rather than something I had an active role in. I remember not having much control; as a teenager I didn’t even schedule my own doctor appointments. I remember clinging to the aspects of life that I did have control of: the way I dress or the music I liked. I remember wishing I could just skip my way to adulthood, to freedom.

Then you get there, and you just want to be a child again.

The Society takes a look at this dynamic. When every adult in a town disappears, the children are left to fend for themselves and rebuild humanity as they know it. The first season was beaming with potential and great character dynamics. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled and left unresolved. I still think the first season is worth a watch.

- THG

My Old Ass - Dir: Megan Park

I can’t think of a better melding of the millennial and Gen Z generations on film than My Old Ass. As a millennial myself, I deeply appreciated Aubrey Plaza’s character (“Okay, fuck you. I am 39 years old. That’s not middle aged.”) Written and directed by filmmaker Megan Park, My Old Ass is thoughtful, hilarious, and wildly inventive. (A drug-induced Justin Bieber fantasy performance in the woods? Yes, please.)

The two leads (with Maisy Stella as the Gen Z character) are masterful in the telling of this story together. What I love most about this film is that you think it’s going to be your standard “coming of age” comedy, but then it takes a turn and slaps you (complimentary) with something so much bigger than that. And any chance to be surprised by how incredible of an actor Plaza really is is always worth a watch in my book.

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Bottoms - Dir: Emma Seligman

Few films capture the chaos of being in Gen Z quite like Bottoms, a satire about a group of lesbian friends who start a fight club at their high school in the name of female empowerment. The two lead actresses, Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri, have become Gen Z icons from starring in everything from Shiva Baby to The Bear, and embodying Gen Z’s hyper-aware humor and digital-native sensibilities in popular culture. I mean, Ayo Edebiri even has Letterboxd. This movie is layered, “like an onion” (I’m looking at you Donkey), with the reality of what it is like to grow up as part of this generation. The chronically online, awkward queer romance is something that never would have been seen in any other generation. Simply iconic.

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Bodies Bodies Bodies - Dir: Halina Reijn

A generation once beloved for its open-minded brand of rebelliousness has revealed itself to be just as shallow and insecure as the predecessors they claim to stand against. Halina Reijn’s Bodies Bodies Bodies captures what makes our generation really tick, for better or worse.

Bodies Bodies Bodies is a horror comedy about a ‘hurricane party’ turned deadly. When a group of college-aged kids discovers one of their peers has been killed, the night devolves into panic as they accuse each other of being the killer. Half 90s-style slasher, half murder mystery. This film is funny, clever, and cuts to the heart of my generation.

Something I’ve noticed in my generational peers is their desperation for fitting in but being unwilling to visibly put in the effort. We want community without the work required to build one. What results is a bunch of selfish babble and performative nonchalance. Does that mean our characters in Bodies are unlikable? Surprisingly no. Despite their annoying and selfish antics, there’s still something about this friend group that feels alluring. Under all the yelling, finger-pointing, and name-calling is a group of kids that just want to be accepted. To them, being deemed an outsider is a fate worse than death. - THG

The Fallout - Dir: Megan Park

Gen Z has silently had to bear more than people are willing to grapple with. Every generation has its world events and tragedies, but Gen z has experienced them with a level of immersion that’s still new to us. The invention of smartphones has given us front row tickets to these events. Our parents thought war footage on the news was bad; try stumbling upon a beheading video. There’s potential to see extreme violence everywhere—multiple times a day, depending on how you spend your time online. For the Americans of this generation, extreme violence has even leaked into our schools. A problem that had been ramping up for decades is now an almost weekly occurrence.

Most films that attempt to grapple with these tragedies tend to focus on the shooter, and/or their upbringing (Elephant, We Need To Talk About Kevin, The Dirties). They very rarely touch on the victims and how the town reacts to the tragedy. Megan Park’s The Fallout is a tender and heartbreaking exploration of how trauma and grief affect everyone in different ways. Extremely nuanced (and overlooked) performances from Jenna Ortega and Maddie Ziegler are the cherries on top of this sobering but important film.

-THG

Anora - Dir: Sean Baker

A FRAUWD MARRIAGE? More like the fraudulent promise of economic mobility! In Anora, we follow sex worker Ani (an enthralling Mikey Madison) as she’s swept away by the promise of a better life with a rich client, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn). But before all of that — before the shimmery delusion of Las Vegas, before the After-Hours-esque odyssey through Brooklyn, before it all comes crashing down — we meet Ani on a typical day. We see her performing at an upscale Manhattan club by night, and we see her commuting back to her small Brighton Beach home, exhausted on the train in the dim light of the morning.

As a card-carrying member of Gen Z myself, I completely understand why Ani is so eager (desperate, even) to fall for Ivan. I mean, we’ve hardly had a moment of political or economic security in our collective adulthood. It’s the perfect set-up for my generation’s “Cinderella story” — but it’s not the sharp, foul-mouthed Ani who falls for the fairytale. It’s Anora, the girl trying to squeeze in a few moments of rest during her commute as she grinds for a better life. (Pun intended!)

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American Vandal (series) - Creators: Dan Perrault and Tony Yacenda

Generational attitudes and trends are usually established during our youth. School is where culture is cemented and passed down. No piece of media has captured the Gen Z (and late millennial) high school experience quite like American Vandal.

American Vandal explores how technology has completely changed the way teens interact with the world, both digitally and physically. The “mockumentary” style is perfectly modernized for the iPhone generation. To this day, this series is incredibly accurate in its portrayal of how Netflix docs look and feel. To the point where I can’t take some of their docs seriously; You know you’ve nailed satire when it becomes hard to distinguish it from the real thing.

The character of Dylan Maxwell (Jimmy Tatro in the role he was born to play) is tragic. He’s obviously the butt of many jokes. His crude drawings and mean-spirited pranks are ridiculously over-the-top. Behind all the antics, though, is a kid who’s been dismissed as stupid. A kid trying to prove everyone wrong in his own way. Now, we might not all turn to “dad pantsing” or “baby farting” to achieve that, but I know most of us can relate to that desperation to rise above our mistakes.

-THG

Huge thanks to Caleb, Nic, Colleen, and Benjamin for their wonderful additions to this piece. Subscribe to them if you like what you see here.

As always, thank you for reading!

I would ask my mom endless questions about these covers. “Why are the pets in a cemetery?” “Is that clown nice?” “Why can’t I read that book about a dog? I like dogs!” These books remained objects of fascination and fear until I was finally old enough to read one.

The Shining was my first, and it was off to the races from there. I definitely didn’t understand most of what I was reading. I didn’t at the time understand the nuances of concepts like addiction, grief, or domestic abuse. The old school references went over my head. But I just couldn’t put these books down.

One thing I’ve always loved about King’s writing is his ability to capture Americana, or rather, the ghost of Americana. His view of small-town America is like no other. He created a style on the page that was practically begging to be put on screen.

Stephen King’s name is synonymous with horror films. Even people who have never read a single word of his could name at least three of his stories. He’s been able to carve out a separate legacy through adaptations of his work. Today, I’ve gathered a few of my favorite horror writers to highlight the best of these adaptations!

The Mist - Dir: Frank Darabont

As a young kid, I had intense arachnophobia. Really, it extended to all insects, but spiders got an extra rise out of me. It didn’t matter what type of spider it was, black widow or daddy longlegs; I didn’t discriminate. I didn’t even care if they were poisonous or not. If it was a spider, it scared me. It got much better as I aged— by 12, I was basically over it. Then, my dad sat me down to watch The Mist. I’m still terrified of spiders to this day.

Stephen King is known for his prolific output and long novels, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t keep it brief when needed. King’s short stories are among his most effective. The one that always stuck with me the most was his novella, The Mist. This might be one of the few instances where the film serves the story better than the original novel did.

Frank Darabont is the Stephen King director, as far as I’m concerned. He’s great at capturing the small-town aspect of King’s work. Before you get to the mysterious mist and the horrifying creatures it brings with it, you’re really immersed in this town and the small, petty conflicts that guide it day-to-day. A lot of apocalypse/invasion films forget this part. Life flipping on its head is a hell of a lot more effective when you know what life looked like for our characters originally.

Cujo - Dir: Lewis Teague

If we’re talking Stephen King adaptations that quietly wreck your nervous system, I’m picking Cujo (1983) every time. Not because it’s flashy, it isn’t. Not because it’s the most iconic, it’s not. But because it’s mean in the most mundane way possible.

A broken-down Pinto. A brutal heat wave. A rabid St. Bernard. That’s it. No haunted hotel. No psychic prom queen. Just a mother and her child trapped in a car while the world goes about its day.

What makes Cujo unforgettable is Dee Wallace. Her character Donna Trenton isn’t glamorized or framed as some polished action heroine. She’s sweaty. Sunburned. Panicked. Dehydrated. On the edge of collapse. And still…she fights. There’s something deeply unsettling yet strangely empowering about watching suburban motherhood stripped of comfort and illusion. No cavalry is coming. No husband bursting through the dust. No miracle.

Just instinct.

The horror isn’t the dog. It’s the isolation. The slow realization that help isn’t arriving. That survival depends entirely on the person everyone underestimates.

Cujo understands something brutal about women. Empowerment doesn’t always look cinematic. It doesn’t wear armor or deliver speeches. Sometimes it’s cracked lips, shaking hands, and a mother deciding she refuses to let her child die in the heat.

And that kind of ferocity is scarier than any monster.

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The Long Walk - Dir: Francis Lawrence

If Stephen King is hard to adapt, Richard Bachman is almost impossible.

For those unaware, Richard Bachman was a pen name that Stephen King wrote and published under from the late 1970s to the mid 1980s. The work published under Bachman was often meaner, grosser, and more confrontationally political in nature. King largely retired the Bachman name (though he brings it back sporadically) once Bachman’s true identity was outed by a bookstore clerk. These books have since taken on a mythical status among King’s readers.

There have been very few attempts to adapt Bachman, and honestly, for good reason. Thinner proved too strange and nasty for wide audiences, and The Running Man (1987) had to “popcornify” the source material and is essentially a different story. It’s really just an Arnold Schwarzenegger flick that borrows the death show premise. Since then, it’s been crickets — until 2025.

Last year, we saw two film adaptations of the Richard Bachman books. One was a thrilling, emotionally compelling tearjerker with committed performances and an important message that is being recommended on this list. The other is Edgar Wright’s Running Man.

This film is a hard sell, honestly. It’s brutally violent, prescient, and walking really does take up a majority of the runtime. This film is more than that. It’s a compelling look at a community born under the boots of authoritarianism; that’s a tale we could really use right now.

The Shining - Dir: Stanley Kubrick

Sure, The Shining is the Stephen King adaptation we’ve all heard discussed into the ground. And yeah, plenty of King diehards still reject it, because Kubrick didn’t really adapt the novel so much as hijack it and rebuild it in his own cold, precise image. But whatever it “gets wrong” on a faithful-reader checklist, it makes up for by being unbearably effective. It doesn’t rely on jump scares or explanations. It manufactures dread like a slow leak you don’t notice until you’re already breathing it in.

I first saw this at age twelve because my dad decided I was ready. I wasn’t. No one really is. The Overlook isn’t a haunted hotel so much as a machine designed to trap you in your own anticipation, to make hallways feel predatory and silence feel loud. And Kubrick’s iconography—the carpet, the twins, that elevator of blood—lodged itself in our culture and rewired the language of horror for everyone who came after. That much is undeniable, no matter how anyone feels about it.

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Doctor Sleep - Dir: Mike Flanagan

It would be enough to watch Doctor Sleep for its compelling story, brilliant villain, or the “shining” young heroine, but there’s another reason. It gives answers for the weirdos like me who watched Danny Torrance ride away from the Overlook and wondered if he stood a snowflake’s chance in hell of having even a moderately happy ever after. Well, no and yes.

Danny, like his father, tortured by his addictions and choices, runs. However, by luck, he finds support, quite literally on arrival, for both his struggles and his gifts. “Medicine” for Jack Torrance was alcohol. For Danny, it was accountability. In his role as Doctor Sleep, we see Danny shining with a new sense of purpose as he helps others to pass peacefully. Halloran shines in his role, which has shifted from guardian angel to stern angel on Danny’s shoulder. He reminds Danny, “You owe a debt.” Danny ultimately pays with his life, but it also brings redemption along the way. Like Halloran, Danny grows from (slightly awkward) mentor to the gifted Abra, to heroic rescuer.

I enjoyed seeing The Overlook, Ground Zero for so much of Danny’s trauma, become the place where he truly conquers his personal demons. Our Danny didn’t get a long life or the father-son moment he desired. What he did find was purpose, fulfilment, redemption, and support, including a touching gift in his final moments. He becomes a breaker of generational curses and takes up the torch of guardianship for Abra.

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Carrie (1976) - Dir: Brian De Palma

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining gets a lot of credit for starting the wave of King Adaptations; four years earlier, Brian De Palma showed us the cinematic potential that sat within the pages of Stephen King novels. His adaptation of King’s first novel is empathetic and surreal. I love how much this film feels like a dream, especially the prom sequences.

While watching Carrie, it can be easy to forget that it’s a horror film. The coming-of-age conflict is great, and you really find yourself rooting for Carrie to have a great prom. When that happens, you’re so elated that the pig blood spilling all over her catches you off guard, despite the pig blood being heavily foreshadowed throughout the film.

Carrie may be the cause of destruction, but she is far from the villain of this story. It’s one of those stories that makes you root for the “monster”. Those can be tough sells, but not with Carrie. It’s not just typical Hollywood bully stuff either (though there is plenty of that). The subtle ways that the adults in her life minimize and disregard her are scarier than the high school bullies or the telekinesis.

1408 - Dir: Michael Hafstrom

1408 isn’t about a haunted room. It’s about a man whose primary survival strategy is leaving.

When conflict intensifies, Mike Enslin exits. Cigarettes become permission, a socially acceptable way to end a conversation before it can turn back on him. He records instead of responding. He turns pain into material.

The room’s cruelty is precise: it removes exits. Doors lead nowhere. Windows don’t open. Accurate maps become useless. Even escape itself turns out to be another chamber. The film doesn’t argue with Mike’s skepticism; it traps him inside his own coping strategy and refuses to let him deploy it.

The real damage in 1408 isn’t supernatural. It’s relational. Mike can manage logistics, research treatments, and make decisions. What he cannot endure is sustained emotional need with no solution. That burden falls on his wife, Lily, the one who stays, who absorbs absence without spectacle.

The film briefly imagines redemption. Success, reconciliation, authorship restored. Then it retracts it. Survival hasn’t changed him.

The ending gestures toward heroism. Lily’s quiet refusal of his possessions says otherwise.

1408 isn’t about ghosts.

It’s about what happens when leaving has always been your last word, and suddenly, you can’t.

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Graveyard Shift - Dir: Ralph S. Singleton

Following the critical and financial success of Mary Lambert’s Pet Semetary (1989), Graveyard Shift was quickly optioned and became the first Stephen King film release of the 1990’s. Based on a short story of the same name from King’s 1970 short story collection “Night Shift”, Graveyard Shift tells the story of a drifter named Hall (David Andrews/Stargate) who gets hired at an old textile mill infested with rats, in a small town in Maine. Warwick, the evil foreman running the mill, puts together a crew of employees to team up in the basement to rid the mill of the rats once and for all. As workers keep turning up missing or dead, we soon learn there’s something much larger and more monstrous than mere rats living under the mill.

Graveyard Shift, directed by Ralph S. Singleton, is not technically a well-made film or one of the stronger King adaptations. The acting is inconsistent, overall, and the story can be a repetitive drag in some sections. But for fans of movies of that era that contain some of that so bad their good qualities, mixed with some genuinely effective practical effects, a rad looking monster, and off kilter-go for broke performances, there is a lot to dig into. Stephen Macht (The Monster Squad), as Warwick, gives a menacing and eventually unhinged performance with a wildly uneven and bizarre New England accent. He’s fantastic.

But the major reason to dive into this leaky pit is my favorite actor, Brad Douriff (Child’s Play), thanklessly playing local exterminator, Tucker Clevand. Warwick hires Tucker, a sweaty, ponytailed Vietnam vet, to exterminate the rats, which leads to a scene with Hall, where Tucker recalls a POW experience during the war involving torture with rats that rivals Quint’s (Robert Shaw) USS Indianapolis speech in Jaws, for its harrowing reality of unflinchingly hopeless horror.

Douriff delivers his lines with a wirey draw complimented by cagey, restless movements, staring at Hall with wide, glassy eyes, that produce one solitary tear that rolls down his face during their intense talk. Douriff is Haunting. In the course of two minutes, he shows you deep-seated anger and the thinly repressed pain of regret, fear, and why Cleveland “seeks revenge” on vermin to fill a hole left by the brutal terrors of war. Douriff acts his heart out here as if he was in Jaws himself and not Graveyard Shift, elevating the film and everyone else, in what few scenes he has.

I give Graveyard Shift a light recommend. To catch this rat shit crazy flick on a lazy, fall weekend during a Stephen King spooky season marathon would be a pretty Horrorble time!

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Thank you to Kimberly (X2), Shaman, Sean, and Kyle for your wonderful contributions to this piece! If you enjoyed what you read of them here, do yourself a favor and subscribe!

Thank you all for reading!

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair - Dir: Jane Shoenbrun

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair captures the uncanny sense of loneliness that the Internet can drench lost youths in. The feeling of being enveloped in a warm blanket of obscenities and darkness is relatable. I would find myself many sleepless nights, as a 12-16-year-old, down some creepy YouTube or Reddit rabbit hole at 2 AM, permanently scarring my brain in the process. There’s a melancholy that mixes in with that sense of discovery. The one world you feel belonging in is completely digital. It can be washed away with the press of a button. That’s a type of malaise inherent to the 21st century that Shoenbrun pinpoints here.

Nickel Boys - Dir: RaMell Ross

Shot in an immersive first-person style, Nickel Boys follows teens Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson) as they navigate youth and friendship in Jim Crow-era Florida. I love how you’re forced to see this entire film through the character’s eyes. This isn’t some cheap gimmick; it makes the narrative unflinchingly focused and emotionally poignant. This is a film that everyone needs to experience. It saddens me that it was largely ignored in its year.

May December - Dir: Todd Haynes

Where do you draw the line between pathetic and predatory? When does the pity make way for genuine concern? Situations like this can be difficult to parse, particularly in the realm of cinema. May December walks it with precision. This film has a stacked cast, including Charles Melton, who gives one of this decade’s most striking performances as Joe Yoo, a young man who was groomed into marrying his former schoolteacher. Watching him come to this realization throughout this film is heartbreaking. We see Joe grieve his youth in real time as he comes to terms with his life. A particular scene on the roof of their house is incredible.

Nope - Dir: Jordan Peele

Nope floors me every time I watch it. Everything from the shortest shot to the most minuscule piece of dialogue holds a riddle. I’d never quite had a movie-going experience like it. The first watch knocked me over with its spectacle and themes. The second viewing was much different, much slower. I watched it at home the second time around, so I found myself pausing and rewinding scenes. You know, when you read a book, and the author’s prose is so gorgeous that you have to reread the entire page just to make sure you got everything? Nope had me doing that in every single scene. It’s a visual feast but a thematic marathon.

There isn’t one single reading of this film. There are at least a half dozen fully articulated themes swirling around this narrative. The forgotten contributions of black filmmakers, the casual animal exploitation our country thrives on, the fading dynamism of aging siblings, spectacle being valued over substance, the way we traumatize child stars, and how those people flip their trauma for profit. It’s all here while still delivering on a Jaws-style blockbuster with crazy set pieces. I’m pumped to watch it again and pick up on more details.

Past Lives - Dir: Celine Song

Past Lives absolutely blew me away. We’ve all had that one “what-if” in our lives. It circles your head at the most inconvenient times. Even when the timing is wrong. Even when you’re completely settled, those thoughts can sneak up on you. Celine Song captures that feeling of expired yearning with overwhelming clarity. This film is difficult for me to watch. It conjures memories and emotions that only truly surface in quiet moments of introspection. Past Lives is the cinematic equivalent of the internal anguish that can exist in these calm moments.

Zola - Dir: Jancinza Bravo

A film about a Twitter thread should not work. It should be corny, instantly dated, and the type of thing youtubers make snarky videos about five years later. Zola shows what can happen when real artists get hold of these stories.

Overlooked due to its pandemic release. Zola is a real person’s accounting (based on a Twitter thread) of a wild “hoe” trip to Florida gone wrong. The film is shot in gorgeous 16 MM with amazing wardrobe and stylistic editing. It’s like Spring Breakers fed through a surrealist lens and probably has a little bit more to say about the lifestyle than that film does. Two knockout performances from Taylour Paige and Riley Keogh. Also, the score is killer. Enjoyed this one quite a bit. If only the ending were as good as the actual story’s ending.

DiDi - Dir: Sean Wang

I was a real shit head in middle school. I was entitled, introverted, and went out of my way to impress others. Watching Didi was like watching my younger self through a mirror. I don’t think there was a single scene in this film that I didn’t spend with my entire body tensed up— that’s the middle school experience. The lies, the awkwardness, the undefined but still extremely rigid social hierarchy. While you’re living it, you’re in constant discomfort; when you look back at it, though, you can’t help but see the beauty in it all.

Bottoms - Dir: Emma Seligman

I miss when we collectively decided to sit in a theater and laugh at something stupid together. That experience is starting to feel rarer and rarer as comedies are seen as streaming fodder by the masses. Bottoms is a perfect film for an audience that no longer seems to exist.

Bottoms doesn’t take a single aspect of itself seriously, which is what makes it brilliant. The film pokes fun at the emotional clichés that old-school comedies would shoehorn in. Seligman knows that her characters’ (Ayo Edibri and Rachel Sennot) quest to get laid is just that: trying to get laid with no deeper motivation underneath. This allows the film to maintain a surrealist tone and laugh-a-minute pace.

Sinners - Dir: Ryan Coogler

Beyond all of the award races, nasty hit pieces, and online discourse, let’s just be simple about this— Sinners fucking rips.

The ancestral music scene is pure magic. This is a rare modern blockbuster that features morally grey characters while not bashing you over the head with how ‘edgy’ it is for doing so. I love how fear means different things to each character depending on their past experiences. I really hope all of this awards hubaloo doesn’t continue to distract from how special and singular this effort from Coogler really was.

Sorry, Baby - Dir: Eva Victor

Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby isn’t about trauma; it’s about recovery. I think that’s beautiful. The film is an empathetic look at the worst moments in our lives and how they can stunt our future. Victor takes on the starring role in this confidently vulnerable debut feature and is our perfect guide for this gentle but thorny tale. This is a film that will sneak up on you with a gut punch, but is always there for a hug afterwards.

Aftersun - Dir: Charlotte Wells

I’ve never seen a film capture memory quite like Aftersun does. It’s not often that a film has me sobbing and smiling ear to ear within the same sequence. Charlotte Wells crafted something deeply personal and relatable with Aftersun. So much so that even typing about the film conjures an intense pit in the middle of my body. I admire a film that can bury itself inside me like that — almost as if it’s become part of my DNA.

Decision to Leave - Dir: Park Chan-Wook

Park Chan-Wook has quickly become one of my favorite filmmakers. He has a way of searching for the beauty within the disturbing. His films are unapologetically human. Decision to leave follows a detective who begins to fall for the suspect he’s investigating. I don’t want to reveal any more of this film; just turn it on and let the master speak for himself.

X & Pearl - Dir: Ti West

Yes, two movies taking up one slot is a cheat. Yes, it technically makes the number of films 21 instead of 20. No, I am not taking anything else off or changing the title of this article.

Ti West’s X is a return to the scrappy grindhouse style that made 70s horror so recognizable. Pearl, written during X’s production and filmed directly afterward, takes more influence from silent films and early Disney productions to create a dreamlike atmosphere. Both films are clever subversions of their chosen subgenres and work as an amazingly disturbed double feature. (I wish I liked Maxxxine more than I did.)

Pavements - Dir: Alex Ross Perry

Modern documentaries tend to disappoint me. The medium has such a rich history and holds so much potential as a vessel for stories. Often, this potential is barely explored. The film will throw some talking head interviews over some archive footage and call it a day, hoping the vague sense of education or nostalgia will be enough to keep the viewer hooked. Alex Ross Perry’s Pavements rejects all of this. Pavements is equal parts documentary, musical, biopic, museum piece, and concert film all rolled into one. It has to be seen to be believed (and probably still not fully understood).

Godzilla Minus One - Dir: Takashi Yamazaki

Kaiju films have been entertaining audiences for decades. These films have survived as long as they have because of their potential for thematic depth. Sure, it’s really fun to watch two giant monsters fight each other, but that only goes so far. What has made Kaiju (Godzilla, in particular) so iconic is the cultural tragedy and memory baked into the monster’s history. Godzilla Minus One reminded us that these films are more than giant monster fests, even if that’s what gets you in the theater to begin with. Minus One is a gorgeously shot adventure about redemption, camaraderie, and collective action.

They Cloned Tyrone - Dir: Juel Taylor

They Cloned Tyrone is everything you want in a satire. It’s got laugh-out-loud moments, sharp critiques of American society, and a trio of fantastic performances. This film is full of twists and turns and leaves you on the edge of your seat for the entire runtime. Unfortunately, this film was dumped on Netflix on Barbenheimer weekend and was overlooked. If you haven’t seen They Cloned Tyrone, do yourself a favor and check it out; you won’t regret it. What a confident debut from writer/director Juel Taylor.

Blackberry - Dir: Matt Johnson

I thought I’d hate this film.

Brand biopics were a huge trend a few years ago. Brands and corporations like Tetris, Nike, Flaming Hot Cheetos, Pop-Tarts, and even Beanie Babies got their own inspirational film. Blackberry was announced amongst this deluge of biopics, and I rolled my eyes at its announcement. I was a stupid idiot. Blackberry is one of the funniest satires I’ve ever seen. Where most of these brand films drown you in mythic stories of success, Blackberry revels in failure. It’s about what happens when the world advances past you with no discretion.

Old - Dir: M Night Shyamalan

Sorry. Old rules.

It’s no secret that I’m a big M Night Shyamalan fan. His mischievously silly approach to horror filmmaking is like catnip to me. Despite being a huge fan and defender of Shyamalan’s work, I can recognize that some of it feels empty and stilted. Not Old, though. I think Old is his modern masterpiece.

This film is depressing and disturbing. It’s Night at its most cerebral. The image of the children in the film slowly then quickly maturing in front of our eyes is psychological horror at its finest. These are children’s brains trapped in adult bodies. Body horror at its rawest because we all actually experience it. Aging is a gross, long, and scary process. Old deals with many of the fears around aging. We have characters with Alzheimer’s, teen pregnancies, and the overall breakdown of our senses and faculties.

Challengers - Dir: Luca Guadagnino

There’s something deeply sensual about competitive sports. Especially individually focused sports like Tennis or Boxing. It’s literally just you and another person in an enclosed space, trying to assert physical dominance over one another in the form of a game. If the other person is bad, you may not feel the spark. It’s just another match. But when your opponent is on your level? That’s the sweet spot, that’s when it feels like a dance. When you’re both so in sync with each other that, for a brief moment, you forget that you are two separate people competing and not one harmonious entity performing a ritual. This feeling only strengthens when you have an actual history with your rival. Every past grievance, every small argument, is channeled into the competition. I’ve never seen another film capture the intimacy of sports quite like Challengers did.

Bodies Bodies Bodies - Dir: Halina Reijn

Bodies Bodies Bodies is a horror comedy about a ‘hurricane party’ turned deadly. When a group of college-aged kids discovers one of their peers has been killed, the night devolves into panic as they accuse each other of being the killer. Half 90s-style slasher, half murder mystery. This film is funny, clever, and cuts to the heart of Gen-Z.

Something I’ve noticed in my generational peers is their desperation for fitting in but being unwilling to visibly put in the effort. We dream of community without the work required to actually build it. What results is a bunch of selfish babble and performative nonchalance. Does that mean our characters in Bodies are unlikable? Surprisingly no. Despite their annoying and selfish antics, there’s still something about this friend group that feels alluring. Under all the yelling, finger-pointing, and name-calling is a group of kids that just want to be accepted. To them, being deemed an outsider is a fate worse than death.

I knew I’d eventually have to explain death, sex, and taxes, but aliens weren’t on my radar. He has a concept of aliens in his head. The little green men from the sci-fi movies my husband insists on showing him. If we said alien, that’s what would come to his mind. This thing in my backyard wasn’t that, yet alien seemed to be the only word that accurately described it. Maybe that and gross.

“Avery, you have to see this!” My husband, Terrance, rushed into the living room yelling. “Come on, you have to see this!”

I rolled my eyes and followed him to the backyard. I had played this game a dozen times. It was usually something he had spent the afternoon building. The worst times were when it was a dead deer or a poor rabbit that coyotes had torn apart. Either way, I was never enthusiastic to get out of my chair for it. This time, I was a bit more intrigued than most. There was something about his voice. It wasn’t the usual childlike glee. There was something else there. A raw exhilaration that I wasn’t used to seeing. I was actually attracted to him for a second. Probably for the first time since I had Charlie.

Terrance ran so fast ahead of me that it was hard to keep up. I was out of breath. He would turn around and look back to make sure I was following like an overexcited dog. “What is it?” I asked, half out of frustration and half out of actual curiosity.

“You just need to see it,” he said. Something about my asking made him walk even faster. I had to basically jog to keep up with him. I hadn’t jogged in almost a decade. We finally made it out to our property. It was a humble few acres in Guthrie, Oklahoma, but we loved it. Terrance took particular pride in the place. It was ours. That day, we learned it might be a shared space.

“Terrance!” I complained. “It’s so cold! I don’t have a jacket!”

He said nothing. He kept trucking towards the east end of our property. Charlie calls it the ‘crooked trees’ because there’s been some storm damage in that area that we’ve been too lazy to deal with. Terrance bent down towards a puke-green colored tarp. He threw it back and revealed the…thing.

It was about the size of a large dog. It was slimy like a worm and had giant scales running along its sides. The face was the worst part. Oh god, the face. It was human. Even now, that word sounds wrong, but there’s no other way to say it. This thing had the face of a person. The more Terrance looked at it, the more of his features it adopted. A harsh sound was coming from the mouth. It wasn’t like any animal I had ever heard before. The closest thing I can compare it to is a tornado siren, but that wouldn’t even do it justice.

“What the hell is that, Terrance!” I screamed, both hands on my cheeks like a Home Alone poster.

“Don’t freak,” Terrance said as he bent down to pet the creature.

“Oh my god! Don’t touch it!”

“Avery, it’s hurt,” he said. “We have to help it!”

“I don’t know how to help that thing! What if there’s more?”

“It seems harmless,” he said, gently rubbing what probably was its belly.

“Yeah, because it’s dying!” I argued. I wasn’t crying, but tears flew down my face anyway. That didn’t happen before I had Charlie, but now I could barely even get through a movie with dry eyes. “What if some healthy ones show up and think you’re the one who did that?”

“Please, just go get some water,” he pleaded.

The alien’s face was now just Terrance’s. I couldn’t look at it without throwing up. He couldn’t much stand the sight either. He was mostly looking back at me, or off into the distance. I can’t say that I really blame him; I wouldn’t stare at my own face either. I followed his orders and went inside for water. I rustled through the cupboard for a glass. I grabbed one and quickly poured tap water into it. I turned around for a quick breath while the water filled the glass. I was greeted with Charlie’s wide eyes, peeking right through me as if he were a startled owl. He had a death grip on his stuffed lion, Larry.

“Charlie, baby, what are you doing up?” I asked. He nonchalantly shrugged. “It’s late, baby. Do you know what time it is?” He shook his head, no. “Well, it’s late.”

“I heard you and Dad yelling,” he said sheepishly. “I thought something was wrong.”

“Oh no, honey!” I said, hugging him. He dropped Larry like a piece of trash and hugged me back. He buried his head in my stomach, and I couldn’t hold back a smile. “Nothing’s wrong, I promise. Your dad just found something.”

Charlie immediately separated from me. His eyes, now as full of curiosity as they were innocence, glared up at me. “What did he find, mommy?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you in the morning. For now, you need to get your butt in bed!”

I tickled him, and he laughed hysterically. His laugh brought me out of the situation. And then he walked away, and I was left with the water glass overflowing in the sink. Back to reality. I grabbed the full glass of water and all but ran outside. I could feel my heart beating in my toes. The water sloshed around in the cup and fell to my feet as I made it out back. Terrance was still kneeling with the alien. It was whining still, but much quieter. It wasn’t much more than a whimper now. I handed Terrance the water.

“Thank you!” he took the water from me frantically. He poured the water down its mouth. The alien seemed to be drinking it just fine. “I thought it might die on me before you got back with it.”

“Sorry, we woke Charlie up,” I said.

“What did you tell him?”

“That you found something.”

“Huh,” he said, slightly amused. “You’re so good at lying to kids.”

We shared a loving smile that was spoiled by the alien. It screeched even louder than the last time. A slimy goo, the color of snot, was excreting from the gills. The goo was steaming hot as it poured from its body. It writhed around in pain until the goo was finally done coming out. Terrance’s fingers went for the goo, but my hand stopped him.

“Do NOT touch that!” I scolded him. “What if that burned your arm off?”

The right side of Terrance’s lip shot up. His signature smirk. He would always employ it any time he felt embarrassed or nervous. I figured he was probably a mix of both. He spent most of our first date with that smirk on his face. I always loved that smirk, and it was extra comforting then. His smirk quickly went away in favor of confusion. He cocked his eyes toward the house and pointed.

The light was on in Charlie’s bedroom. We could see his tiny silhouette watching from his window.

“I’ll go deal with that,” I said, marching back towards the house. “You watch our new pet.”

I didn’t get very far. I don’t even think I took a full two steps. The ship stopped me right in my tracks. It was huge. A deep roar came from the engine. My hair was bashing me in the face. I could barely even see the thing. What I did see looked a lot like something from Terrance and Charlie’s movies. It hovered over our house and made the ground rumble around us. A beam of bright, blinding light erupted from it. A harsh buzzing sound accompanied this unexplained band of light. I saw two shadows within it when I could stand to look at it. Two shadows that slowly descended the beam. The aliens’ screaming was so loud we both had to cover our ears. It was like an air raid siren turned up all the way in a pair of headphones.

The light dissipated, and in its place stood two green men. They had the form of a human, but their faces were nothing, just blank green blobs. They walked towards us. I couldn’t tell if there was menace or curiosity in their body language, but either way, they scared the shit out of me.

“Terrance, I think they want their baby,” I said, my voice trembling. “You might want to step away.”

“Yeah,” Terrance agreed. He stood up and put his hands in the air like he was being held at gunpoint. “Good idea.”

As they approached, their faces started to form. One of them was mimicking Terrance, the other was turning into me. I was half-horrified, half-entranced as I stared down a semi-formed version of myself. Terrance bent back over and picked the screaming baby up. The sound just got louder and faster when he did that. He walked toward the two green men, holding their strange young ling in his arms. A clear, wet residue soaked his once-white shirt. The green goo from earlier was all over his arms.

“Babe, what are you doing?” I asked. I walked backwards because I couldn’t take my eyes off those things. They were repulsive, but they hypnotized me. I backed up until I rammed myself against the tree. My back hurt like hell the next day, but in the moment, I couldn’t focus on anything but the green men in front of me. “Put it down!”

Terrance slowly approached them. They stopped walking and let him come. I was sure that they were going to incinerate him on the spot. Turn him into Terrance soup. But they didn’t. They just stood there patiently. Toothy smiles sat on both of their —no, our faces. Terrance got about a foot in front of them. He held out the screaming alien. As soon as the green man took their baby, it stopped crying. It was as if a flip had been switched, or a button pressed. It just stopped, like that. Terrance didn’t know what to do after that. I could see his legs shaking in his jeans. The being that had his face gently took Terrance’s hand. He opened it, placed something I couldn’t see inside, and closed it back.

Both of the green men nodded, then they took another ride on the bright beam of light. Once they made it up, the ship zipped away quicker than it arrived. I ran over and nearly tackled a still frozen Terrance with my hug. We laughed, shared a few hurried kisses, and laughed again.

“What did it give you?” I asked.

He opened his hand. Sitting in his palms were two glowing seeds. They looked just like corn seeds but were neon and pulsed as my husband held them.

“I think we should probably plant this,” he suggested.

I smiled a bright smile and nodded. He was a mess, but he’d never looked better to me. Gooey arms and all.

“Mommy! Daddy! What were those things?!” Charlie screamed and ran from the house. Terrance and I shot glances at each other.

That brings us back to the question: How do you explain aliens to a six-year-old?

On January 21st, Netflix announced the cancellation of The Vince Staples show. When this news was announced, I was in the middle of writing a piece on Vince. I’ll admit that the headline kind of shook me at first; After a few seconds of thought, I realized it really shouldn’t have.

Netflix gave this show little to no exposure, and according to Vince Staples himself, the marketing budget was low. Aside from hip-hop listeners and Vince’s fanbase, most people haven’t even heard of this show (probably including most of my reader base). If I hadn’t been actively seeking it out as a fan of Staples music, I likely wouldn’t have heard about it myself. This lack of visibility isn’t any fault of Vince or the creative team. The show was getting better every episode and really starting to hit its stride in the second season. I thought it showed a lot of potential to be something truly brilliant.

Hip-hop on TV is not new, but it often meets this fate. Rap sh!t was abruptly cancelled after two successful and critically acclaimed seasons. Netflix didn’t greenlight season 2 of The Get Down despite it being one of their buzziest shows at the time. It doesn’t matter how well-regarded the show is or how loyal a cult fanbase they garner; these shows are often fighting an uphill battle.

Producers don’t seem interested in funding or marketing hip hop central (or black-led) projects long term; at the very least, they don’t have the patience to let them grow organically. Most of these shows are set up to fail by their networks. There is one huge exception.

Over the last fifteen or so years, FX has been releasing interesting, innovative, and diverse TV. One of their biggest successes is Atlanta, spearheaded by Donald Glover. While not every season is universally agreed upon (season 3, looking at you), they all contain nuggets of genius. The show proves whats possible when artists are given time to grow on their own terms.

Glover’s cultural power collided with FX at the perfect time. Hip-hop was reaching the peak of its mainstream popularity, and FX was rebranding from dude bro programming to thoughtful and art-forward. Glover used his previous screenwriting experience to create an anti-Tv show in a lot of ways. It’s a show that refuses to take the easy way out or spoon-feed the viewers.

What makes Atlanta work is that it’s not a show about hip hop. Atlanta is a show about America that hip hop happens to play a role in. Another show that attempts to do this is Dave, created by joke rapper Lil Dicky. On paper, Dave does everything Atlanta does, but from an outsider perspective, in a “Don’t I look so silly next to these rappers?” way. Where Glover’s show is about using hip-hop as a lifeline, Dave is about using hip-hop as a leg up. Whether that’s to mask his insecurities, earn him money, or perform coolness. The only problem is, I don’t think Dave knew he was making that show. I find the whole thing self-aggrandizing and inauthentic. Regardless of my feelings about the show, Dave was another runaway success for FX. It had three acclaimed seasons and a successful soundtrack album.

Atlanta concluded in 2022, and Dave was not long after it in 2023. That left a gap in the market. A gap Netflix was ready to fill. They just forgot that effort was included on their part.

The Vince Staples Show was officially released on Netflix on February 15th, 2024. I’ve always been a fan of Vince, so this news excited me. His album Summertime ‘06 came out at a formative time for me. I wasn’t just drawn tothe music, the entire worlds he created within his albums are what made me a fan. All of his albums are trying something new. Whether that’s collaborating with hyperpop producer Sophie or recreating a radio station sound, he’s not afraid to break new ground.

If any rapper was going to fill the gap left by Atlanta, there really wasn’t a better choice than Vince Staples. Not only is he hilarious and charismatic, but he’s always been cinematically minded.

To dig deeper into Vince’s journey to the screen, here’s the always eloquent John Noire:

“[The] Joker, to me, is always the opposite of Batman. He’s always presenting Batman with his worst fears...That’s kind of what a Joker card is, right?...[taking] on any value you need in a game.” – Scott Snyder Talks DC And Absolute Joker, ComicPop Returns

Vince Staples is whatever you need him to be: a hardcore gangster rapper, a budding thespian, or, on occasion, just a regular guy.

While comparing Vince to The Clown Prince of Crime is a bit extreme (especially the Absolute version who might simply be evil incarnate), it is because both characters serve a similar function within their respective stories: the role of the court jester.

In Shakespearean drama, the court jester or ‘The Fool’ is a person unafraid to speak their mind. A character that often uses humor as cover for harsh truths that nobody else dares say aloud. You don’t have to look further than Vince’s early features with Odd Future or his recent interview with Ziwe, to see that this is how he operates (at least publicly).

For me, this perspective of Vince’s work was confirmed the moment I saw his 2015 music video “Señorita”.

Filmed in black-and-white, “Señorita” is filled with stereotypical imagery largely associated with ‘hood movies’ or exploitative Noisey documentaries. One-by-one the personifications of these stereotypes are gunned down until a bald, tattooed preacher reaches the end of his journey, pressing his head against a glass window. The breath from his nostrils immediately implicating us in the spectacle of watching a ‘human zoo’, casually consuming people’s lives as ‘content’ from the comfort of our homes.

“The way I look at music…is that we’re all in the zoo, and the listeners are the people outside of the cage. You can look at five lions that could literally destroy you, but since you’re looking through the glass, it’s fun and cute. You point at the glass. You wave at them. But you’re not going to step inside that glass, because you know what’ll happen to you. Rappers are making this shit a petting zoo. They’re like, ‘It’s cool, you can walk up, we’re not threatening, we’re just musicians, it’s all an act.’ But it’s actually a very real thing. It’s not a game.” – Vince Staples’ Interview With Pitchfork (2014)

This is a theme that Vince would regularly revisit with music videos for his 2016 EP Prima Donna and his 2018 single “FUN!”. The latter being particularly important as it would be the moment when Vince met with someone (i.e. Calmatic) who would push him to translate his thoughts for a wider audience.

Similar to what Spike Jonze did with commercials, Vince Staples used his music videos as proof-of-concept for his artistic vision and the visual foundation to The Vince Staples Show. You can see the seeds start to grow with his three-video series “So What?”, “Sheet Music” and “Hell Bound” in 2019, each clip stretching the boundary of realism and effortlessly conveying his unique comedic style (something that would, arguably, reach its peak with the music video for his 2022 single “Magic”).

Due to a bunch of shared creative DNA (e.g. The Coen Brothers, David Lynch and a variety of late-90s-to-early-2000s TV animation), it is easy to compare Vince Staples’ creative trajectory with Donald Glover and the masterpiece that was Atlanta. However, as the title of this essay series suggests, the key difference and, in my opinion, major flaw with the latter’s approach is in where the gaze is applied.

As great as Donald Glover is, one longstanding criticism that still holds weight to this day is his need for external validation. There is an insecurity that seeps through his work and it, occasionally, makes even his best material seem cliché in hindsight. For example, Season 3 of Atlanta, and its tired attempts to tackle well-worn, hot-button topics like ‘reverse-racism’ and ‘cancel culture’.

Vince Staples doesn’t have this problem. He is sure about who he is and what he wants to communicate to his audience. It’s the reason why the standout Season 1 episode of his show (“Black Business”) was so successful and why the scathing satire of Season 2’s fourth episode (“Anti-Social”) rings true for anyone who was active on Twitter during the Roc Nation brunch days.

“Now that I’m older, I try to just make sure that while we have people who may not be aware of what is going on in our communities and they’re looking at it from a voyeur perspective, what can you showcase to these people to help them understand?

That’s what art is, right? Art is translation. You’re translating your emotions, your environment, your point of view, your perspective to outside people. I think because that is a fact, the things that you say are important, and what you want to get across is important, and as an artist, you can get across whatever you want. But for me, I just try to utilize that in a very specific way.” – Vince Staples Interview With Rolling Stone (2024)

Like his music, it seems that it will take some time for Vince and his team to truly find their voice on TV (so long as Netflix or some other streaming service is willing to fund it). However, despite this reality, one can’t help but be impressed by Vince’s growth. From making records as a way to stay out of trouble to using music videos as a testing ground for his boldest ideas, The Vince Staples Show is a testament to the long arc of creativity and that, in the words of the legendary André 3000, great things can start in little rooms.

Further Reading

[1] Craig Jenkins, Vince Staples Is Just Happy To Be Here, Vulture

[2] Karla Rodriguez, How Vince Staples Made Netflix’s ‘The Vince Staples Show’, Complex

Further Watching

[1] Vince Staples Thinks Funerals & Chuck-E-Cheese Are the Same Thing, Good One Podcast

[2] Why The Vince Staples Show Is The Most Disruptive Thing On TV, Please Explain

Author’s Note:

The future of TheHumangaze will be a collaborative one. Expect more guests in the future. It’s an honor to host John Noire as my first guest. Huge thanks to John for his wonderful contributions to this piece. Please check out his writing if you enjoyed him here or are at all interested in music analysis or storytelling. You won’t be disappointed.

Thank you for reading!

Enjoy!

Like every year, 2025 had some very divisive films among the crowd-pleasers and prestige films. Films that were shit on by most critics but passionately defended by others. We will look at some divisive 2025 releases that I had a soft spot for, for one reason or another. I want to challenge the idea that because a film doesn’t completely land every plane, it should be discarded entirely. Not every film can be a 5-star auteurist masterpiece. Sometimes you need a messy, but thought-provoking film. Sometimes pieces of a film work while it doesn’t come together as a whole. A lot of these films fell victim to anticipation. Some of them swung too big. These are my favorite films from this year that deserve a reevaluation.

Materialists - Dir: Celine Song

Making a debut film is a Herculean effort. So many unpredictable factors have to go right for the thing to even get made, let alone seen by anyone. Making a great debut—One that receives acclaim and awards buzz — can seem downright impossible.

What if you do accomplish this task? What if your first film is showered in praise and awards before you get a chance to catch your breath? How are you supposed to follow that? The first time around is grueling, but at least the expectations aren’t there. When you’ve already made a piece of art as universally effective as Past Lives, people are going to keep a very close eye on what you do next. For Song, that was her version of a rom-com.

Materialists was screwed from the jump by its own marketing. The trailers for the film promote a light, glamorous rom-com, harkening back to the ones we’d get in droves during the 90s and 2000s. It had hot actors (both physically and career-wise), a familiar premise, and an interesting director t the helm. Topped off with a May release date, people expected a breezy, glossy, pre-summer flick that would send them home with a smile on their faces.

Instead, Song made us look at ourselves in the mirror for two hours.

Materialists is not a comedy, and it’s honestly not very romantic, either. It’s a film analyzing why those two things don’t really match. How social media has encouraged the worst behaviors and packaged them as a form of freedom. How individuality has been pushed so much that we’ve lost track of what interacting with people even means. Transactions have replaced connection, and that’s apparent in the modern dating scene.

Is Materialists a perfect film? No. It’s meandering, full of itself, and severely miscast (seriously, who’s buying Chris Evans as a down-on-his-luck loser? Not me). Is it one of the worst movies of the year and a step backwards for Celine Song? Absolutely not. Materialists was everything it needed to be for both Song and our society at large. Song needed to get this story out, and we needed to hear it, warts and all.

Warfare - Dir: Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza

Warfare was maligned as soon as the trailers were released. After nominating a war-hungry regime into the white house, I completely get why a film about the Iraq war is the last thing American audiences would want to see. We know how these Iraq films usually go anyway. We’re meant to sympathize with invaders as they destroy a land inhabited by others in the name of ‘freedom’.

I had these low expectations going into Warfare last May. I was ready to roll my eyes and groan as Garland and Mendoza tried to make me feel bad for US soldiers as they carried out vicious orders. That’s not what Warfare delivers, at least not for 99% of the film.

You don’t sympathize with these soldiers in the way that Hollywood war films have trained us to. These soldiers are mostly antisocial assholes. We see them as immature, impulsive, and guarded, not the stoic heroes we’re used to. The decision to open up on the music video scene was a smart one. It not only offers a slice of humanity in a film largely devoid of it: the opening shows us how trivial war really is to the people involved in it.

Warfare doesn’t have a protagonist in the traditional sense. The only sympathetic characters are the family whose house the soldiers use for cover. This poor family must obey orders from their invaders as they destroy their house and neighborhood for a mission that is never made clear to the audience. We’re just as blind to why they’re there as the family is. The shot of them finally being able to leave their house that has been reduced to rubble is powerful. The booms and bangs we’ve been assaulted with throughout the runtime are gone. Now, in the wake of destruction, the neighborhood is left in ruin as the US soldiers go on to the next.

I have mentioned the very ending of the film, because it essentially throws a middle finger up to everything I just wrote about. Had the family exiting the house been the last shot, it’d easily be among my favorites of the year. Instead, we get a montage of the real soldiers (with absolutely no mention of the Iraqi family or translators), thanking them for their heroics. This kind of undoes everything that the film did right in the manner of a few minutes.

I’m not anti-soldier by any means. Many of them are manipulated and groomed from lower-income areas to become cannon fodder. But when you make a movie about the US military as a destructive force and then cap it off with a hero montage, you lose me a bit. It’s obvious to me that Garland and Mendoza were approaching this film from two distinct perspectives. Garland wanted to explore the horrors of combat, while Mendoza was interested in a tribute to his friends. The result is something almost special.

Mickey 17 - Dir: Bong Joon-Ho

If following a great debut is impossible, how the hell are you supposed to follow a Best Picture win?

Bong Joon-Ho’s Mickey 17 was watched with bated breath since its announcement. The film was pushed back multiple times, and that just gave it more expectations. Nobody really knew what this film was; they just knew they were excited to see Robert Pattinson in a Bong Joon-Ho film. Yet, when the film was released in March of 2025, it landed with a dud.

Critics didn’t hate Mickey 17; they were indifferent to it, which might be worse. I must admit, Bong’s brand of socially clever genre films is like catnip to me. He’s easily one of my favorite working directors today, and there’s not a single film of his that I don’t adore. Maybe I’m just a biased fan, but I think Mickey 17 RULES!

You can read my full defense of the film here.

The Smashing Machine - Dir: Benny Safdie

Nothing happens in this film; I think that’s the point.

Since Josh and Benny Safdie announced their split in 2024, there has been tons of conversation about which one of them has it. This is a reductive conversation that ignores the spirit of collaboration that makes cinema work. After the release of Benny’s The Smashing Machine and Josh’s Marty Supreme, the internet has largely decided that Josh was the “victor”.

This discourse isn’t fair to either party, but it’s especially unfair to Benny and his film. When people hear “directed by a Safdie brother,” there’s a specific style you expect. A frantic, anxious, exploitative romp through a grimy version of New York City. That’s not at all what this film is. It’s slow, unconventional, and focuses on a divisive, niche, and brutal sport. Benny Safdie directs The Smashing Machine with confidence and restraint. The fights are shot from a distant and cold perspective. The camera never goes inside the ropes.

Unlike others on this list, I completely understand why someone would hate this film. It doesn’t operate like a film. There’s not a 3-act structure here, or any structure really, aside from being bookended by fights. That lack of structure mirrors Mark Kerr’s life. From the outside, these fighters feel larger than life. Their lives feel so exciting and dangerous. Outside of the ring, it’s just as mundane and stressful as any life; you just wear a few more bruises in the process.

Highest 2 Lowest - Spike Lee

Similar to Bong Joon-Ho, Spike Lee is a director I’ve always had a relationship with. Even when he misses, it’s always interesting. There’s always something to sink your teeth into. Add his frequent collaborator Denzel Washington and a reimagining of a masterwork, of course, I was intrigued by Highest 2 Lowest.

Highest 2 Lowest starts extremely slowly. The first act is melodramatic and overwritten. I get why the film lost people before it got rolling. It really does feel like a soap opera. The performances are heightened, and the score is over the top. I remember thinking “uh-oh” to myself around the thirty-minute mark. Damnit if the second half isn’t a thrill ride!

As soon as Denzel Washington steps foot on the subway with raging Knicks fans, Spike Lee puts a brick on the gas pedal, jumps out of the car, and watches as it crashes. Denzel Washington and A$AP Rocky together in a scene is magic. When Spike Lee is trying to mimic the dramatic chops of High and Low, he kind of falls flat on his face. When Denzel Washington is chasing down A$AP Rocky through New York, it's some of the most fun you’ll have in a movie from 2025.

Not every film can be a homerun, but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be considered.

“Ah, it has Jack Black and Paul Rudd!” he said as he watched the trailer on his phone. When he said it, I realized how much of a novelty that was in 2026.

Two comedy stars in a studio comedy is now a novelty. We had the opportunity to see Paul Rudd and Jack Black in a broad comedy. Not Paul Rudd lost as the 8th member in the Avengers ensemble. Not Jack Black playing a video game character. Two comedy stars in a stupid, high-concept joke fest. So, we skipped the table tennis and the blue people and saw Anaconda. It was aggressively mediocre; we laughed the entire runtime.

I’ve seen a lot of vitriol thrown this film’s way. Critics I know and respect have called it cynical and soulless. I think this is a misreading of the film’s intentions. Underneath all of the snarky IP satire is a story about two childhood friends trying to achieve their dreams of making a feature film together.

Maybe my friend and I (currently in development of our own short film) are a little biased. We went in with that emotional connection to the film already baked in. We saw Paul Rudd and Jack Black’s antics as silly and juvenile, of course, but there was a real sincerity behind it that rang as both authentic and sympathetic to us. The film communicated what it felt like to reconnect in ways we couldn’t verbalize to each other. The rest of the audience was on the same page; nearly every joke got a laugh from at least someone. This laughter became increasingly contagious as the film progressed.

Why use the Anaconda IP? Because that’s the only way a film like this would ever get made. Mid-budget comedies don’t have a place in a cinematic ecosystem defined by connected universes, name drops, and cameos. Anaconda is not conforming to this; it’s rebelling against it. The film endlessly pokes fun at reboot and nostalgia culture while being forced to take part in it.

On the car ride back from the theater, we discussed the comedy films we used to watch together. Films like Stepbrothers or Tropic Thunder (which Anaconda takes influence from). These stories with outrageous concepts and committed performances used to fill cinemas like flies to an unattended picnic basket. Now, a mediocre one riffing on a 90’s creature feature feels like a breath of fresh air.

Ironically, comedy is alive and well, just not in movie theaters. Comedians like Tim Robinson and Nathan Fielder have shown that comedy not only survives but thrives on the small screen. It even appears in other genres. Action comedies and horror comedies are both among the most popular subgenres under their respective umbrellas.

Audiences want to laugh. What they’re willing to pay for that laughter is the real problem we’re running up against. Studios and audience members of the last few decades value spectacle over genre. Movie theaters are for events, and anything deemed non-events should be reserved for background noise on Netflix.

This thought process isn’t just bad for comedy films; it’s harmful to the entire artform (and the industry that shackles it). If every film is an event, then none of them are. Screaming and cheering at ‘chicken jockey (which I still don’t really understand) or every Marvel character appearing through a portal is fun, but it’s far from the only emotional reactions that films can offer. If you’ve never laughed, jumped, or bawled with a room full of strangers, then you’re missing out on a true human experience.

Though these films couldn’t be more different, my experience with Anaconda reminded me of my first viewing of Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet (no, I’m not joking). Going into Hamnet, I was expecting an emotional onslaught. I was aware of the novel by Maggie O’ Farrell and knew this film was about tragedy and grief. Normally, I’m pretty good at holding myself together during these types of films, but I was a teary mess thirty minutes in and only got worse as the film went on. I looked around the theater and noticed I wasn’t the only one, not by a long shot. There were more wet eyes than dry ones in that theater.

The online reaction to Hamnet opened my eyes. People admitted to crying, but instead of citing that as a reason for connecting with the film, they were downright angry about it. I’ve seen many people (even esteemed critics) calling the film ‘emotionally manipulative’. There are critiques of Hamnet that I can get behind; the emotionally manipulative angle isn’t one of them. I believe if films have a sole purpose, that purpose is to distill indescribable emotions into a series of emotional images. It’s to make you feel something through someone else’s eyes. Empathy machines, as I’ve heard Ryan Coogler call them.

Is Hamnet emotionally manipulative, or did it successfully make you uncomfortable? It’s rare for many filmgoers to experience discomfort. People go to films expecting action figures to be mashed together and keys to be dangled in front of them for two hours. This isn’t really the fault of audiences. We’ve been trained this way by the major film studios. Comedies, romances, and dramas that have no awards hope all get dumped straight to streaming. It’s been this way for years now. This has wired our brains to view these genres as lesser, or at least not worth the price of a ticket. They’re essentially marketing these films as afterthoughts.

I’ve been guilty of chasing convenience over these communal experiences. I’ll often see films alone, midweek during the daytime, just because fewer people mean less hassle. While I might be saving myself minutes’ worth of stress, I might be robbing myself of an unforgettable experience. On worse occasions, I’ve skipped theatrical releases altogether and opted to wait for streaming or VOD.

Why do these two theatrical experiences feel so linked? Two films that probably have never been (and probably never will after this) written about together. One is an intense, humanist look at loss, art, and how those two things intertwine in our lives, while the other is a raunchy comedy parodying a (kind of) beloved cult classic from the 90’s.

The audience around me roaring in laughter as Jack Black pulled a dead squirrel from his mouth, just as hard as the chorus of sniffles that filled the theater as the closing credits of Hamnet rolled on. They both reminded me why I love film and the irreplaceable magic of seeing them in theaters with a crowd.

It’s so tempting to go after convenience in an age where it’s everywhere, but art was never supposed to be convenient or comfortable. Art was never supposed to fit neatly into our daily lives. It’s supposed to disturb our routines and make us think about what the routines even mean. We were always meant to seek it out, to submit ourselves and allow it into our DNA, not mindlessly consume it like a greasy hamburger from a fast-food joint.

Anaconda is not a cinematic masterpiece. It’s not on the level of Hamnet in terms of technical craft or storytelling chops. It won’t appear on anyone’s best of decade, year, or century list (as Hamnet likely will). The film will probably be forgotten as soon as I publish this (if it hasn’t already). All of this is true, but for those 90 minutes, my friend and I experienced the full magic of film. That shouldn’t just get tossed away because it’s not worthy of an award conversation.

A film like Anaconda may seem like perfect streaming fodder. Something to just throw on for noise while you clean, work, or doomscroll. If I had watched it this way, I probably wouldn’t have ever thought about it again. Honestly, I might not have ever fired it up. There’s a world where my friend was down for Marty Supreme, and Anaconda joined the mountain of films I would never watch.

Perhaps all the weight that I’m giving it solely lands on the memory it’s attached to. Maybe the plot of the film, lightly mapping onto my real experience, is swaying me. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t take away the power of communal experience that was in full force in that regal theater on a Monday evening. There should be a space for films like this to live in theaters, not just living rooms.

There has been a lot of finger-pointing about what’s causing the death of movie theaters. Many people blame COVID, and even the audience themselves (which are both factors). Late last year, we got the real answer: this is being orchestrated by the people who run this industry. This does not boil down to audience disinterest or the price of concessions; those are all just symptoms of institutional rot.

Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos has been aggressively angling to purchase Warner Brothers studios. This not only eliminates some competition but adds an entire catalogue to their streaming service. Sarandos hasn’t been shy about his strategy around theatrical releases. Not only stating that they’re outdated but going so far as to declare Netflix as the savior of cinema. These CEOs are not only killing theatrical experience; they’re dancing on its corpse.

As I get older, I’m realizing that the context in which we view films is almost as important as the films themselves. You could watch a five-star masterwork on your thousand-dollar TV with the greatest sound system known to man; that still wouldn’t beat out the sold-out chain theater with sticky seats and a room full of people experiencing art together.

Don’t let them convince you to trade that for convenience.

There’s nothing more illuminating than a good sports doc.

Even if you don’t like sports, there’s something you can learn about the human condition. You see the true toll these bodies take for our entertainment. You see the pressure they are under and all of the people relying on their potential success. These documentaries have undergone a fairly straightforward yet interesting evolution. To understand how modern docs are failing the format, we need to understand how that format was built.

A Brief History

The visual language of these docs is forever evolving. NFL films pioneered what we think of as a sports documentary in 2026. Founded by Ed Sabol in 1962, NFL Films was an attempt to market and legitimize American football at a time when it lacked the reputation and respect of sports like boxing or baseball. They used 35 MM film to capture the sport in all of its rawness. Under that grimy violence was a sense of prestige being introduced to the sport for the first time. The combination of gorgeous footage, silky narration, and operatic music helped define what sports look like in documentary form.

Ken Burns is where a lot of people experienced a ‘cinematic’ sports doc for the first time. Where NFL films sought to spotlight the more grandiose aspects of organized athletics, Ken Burns was more interested in the quiet sadness that lay underneath it. His films highlighted sports as cultural mirrors. Reflections of what we want but can’t have. The leftover evidence that hard work does not always equal success. His films were about collective memory; the things we remember and what we agree to forget. This was the seed of the authorial intent that we would start to see in spades.

From the 1970s to the 1990’s, sports documentaries were building a name for themselves as cinema. Critical darlings like When We Were Kings, Hoop Dreams, and Pumping Iron, along with HBO sports programming, proved to general audiences that sports docs were more than just highlight reels or fluff pieces; they could tell fully developed stories with emotional punch.

The 30-For-30 Era

I used to live on ESPN in the early 2000s. What sports-obsessed kid didn’t? They had everything you could ever ask for: A debate show between two middle-aged men. Actually, that was pretty much it. Just that in however many variants they could think of, with actual highlights and coverage sprinkled in occasionally. I noticed a shift in the late 2000s. A shift that a young sports nerd appreciated towards more serious content. It wasn’t a replacement of the loudmouth style that made the network, but rather a piece of counterprogramming to win back the die-hard sports fans they had run off over the years. To this day, the most successful and influential of these additions was the 30-for-30 documentary series.

Not every 30-for-30 doc is equal. They vary in quality, budget, and style, which is what made the initial runs of this series so special. The idea behind 30-for-30 was to bring that scrappy, auteur-driven indie spirit that revitalized the film industry in the 90’s to the world of sports documentaries. The bones were already there for the genre’s elevation. Directors like Ken Burns and Steve James had been mining sports for art for years at that point. HBO was basically doing this at a smaller scale, but as a paid service, it was only going to be so popular. The genre just needed a larger canvas to really spread its legs.

30-for-30 aired its first episode in October 2009. The first season (or volume) ran until December 11, 2010. This initial batch of 28 documentaries included films from proven filmmakers like Berry Levinson and Peter Berg. These docs often offered raw looks at these leagues and athletes that ESPN audiences weren’t accustomed to seeing.

These docs weren’t afraid to show the dark, exploitative nature of these leagues and owners. Broke opened many people’s eyes to the financial reality of young stars. Many of these athletes come from nothing and then are catapulted to generational wealth basically overnight once they go pro. Add predatory agents to those waters, and it’s no wonder many young people drown in them. The U is an unflinching exposé on one of the wildest organizations in all of sports.

Lenny Cooke is not a 30-for-30, but it is from the same era and comes from the same creative ethos. The Safdie brothers cleverly spliced 2001 footage with footage they shot in 2012. Lenny Cooke focuses on the former phenom by the same name. For a time, he was seen as the next superstar. In his senior season, he ranked above future stars like LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony. The story among hoops fans was that after Cooke was outplayed by LeBron at a basketball camp, he never recovered. The doc shows us this isn’t the whole story.

These documentaries formed the foundation of how I viewed both sports and movies. I remember watching 30-for-30’s or Ken Burns docs and thinking that I wanted to make one. I wanted to capture the moments nobody else thought to capture. It was pretty obvious to me that playing pro sports as an adult was out of the question, but a sports documentarian? That was still on the table. I followed my friends around with cameras and made some truly awful stuff, but at least it was the start of me making something.

Netflix’s Untold

Sports documentaries have become comfort watches. When I’m sick, I’ll binge-watch them. When I’m writing, I’ll put on my favorite 30-for-30’s in the background. I realize this makes me sound like a middle-aged, divorced dad, but it’s just how I work. If a sports documentary exists, I’m interested in it. Which is why it pains me to say that the Untold series on Netflix is terrible.

I was excited when I discovered it. The premises are all topics that should make great docs: Malice at the Palace, Johnny Football, and Manti Te’o. These should be homeruns. And lord knows Netflix has the resources to get any interview or footage they could ever want. So, off the back of The Last Dance, I was excited to see some of these. These are just high-budget YouTube videos.

I don’t mean to hate or discredit any filmmakers involved with making these docs. There are editors, researchers, and interviewers who obviously put countless hours of effort into these productions. The problem I come up against is the Netflix house style. Once you’ve seen one Netflix Untold documentary, you’ve seen them all. Hell, once you’ve seen a well-done YouTube video, you’ve seen every Netflix Untold documentary. They use social media videos over actual archive footage. The guests they have are biased, and the interviews with them are chopped to shit. That’s another thing! These things don’t get to breathe for a second!

The best moments in sports documentaries are the moments when nothing is happening. Lenny Cooke singing Usher songs until he cries on his birthday. Sheila Agee addressing the camera in Hoop Dreams. The Untold docs never get these moments because they refuse to ever take their foot off the gas. They go from TikTok videos to aggressively clipped interview segments with no real transition.

I’ve unfortunately seen most of these Untold documentaries. Out of the nineteen films, I’ve seen a solid twelve of them. That’s around fifteen hours of content. Fifteen hours of content that gives you no new information, no emotional connection to its subjects and very little flash when it comes to filmmaking.

I’m not going to bore you by taking my frustrations out on twelve documentaries (which all look, feel, and sound the same). I’m going to focus on one in particular from volume 4: Sign Stealer.

The story of Connor Stallions and his time at Michigan was nothing short of a phenomenon in the college football fandoms. Whether you love him and think he’s a genius, or hate him and think he’s a dishonest cheater, you probably have a strong opinion on him. I’m not huge on college football, but even I was glued into this story when it first broke in 2023. Beyond all of the arguments about NCAA rules and school funding was a story about pure obsession. A guy with such tunnel vision that he’s willing to do anything to accomplish his goals. like a Safdie bros protagonist come to life.

This is a guy who wanted to be the head coach of Michigan so bad that he pursued military service because the former Michigan coach had done so. A guy so dedicated to helping his hometown college team win that he sacrificed weeks’ worth of his own time to photograph thousands of hand signs on his iPhone. This guy breathes Michigan football, and it didn’t just come from nowhere. He was raised in this obsession. We see footage of Connor as a child, playing with Michigan gear. His mom proudly boasts about a childhood Halloween when a seven year old Connor went as former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler. Her eyes are crazed and filled with pride as she recounts this memory. The strangeness of this family unit is 10X more interesting than whatever the doc chooses to center on.

Does Netflix focus on any of that? Not really. This background is rushed in five minutes while quirky music which tells our brains, ‘this part isn’t serious’, drones on in the background. At least they got the barstool pizza guy to comment for some reason. I’m sure his genius insights (mostly just going ‘I’m a Michigan fan!’) were worth the fat check they probably sent his way.

Why is Netflix afraid of actually delving into these stories? Why make an episode about Johnny Manziel or Jake Paul if you’re going to just let people in their camps tell the most sanitized version of events possible? It’s because I don’t even think Netflix views the Untold series (or any Netflix original doc series for that matter) as a series of films. They’re viewed as easy content. Instant views and money. Hey, it seems to be working out for them. Every time I check in on the Netflix top ten charts, there’s always at least two of these docs in the rankings.

What does this mean for the future of sports docs? Unfortunately it’s looking pretty bleak. In the past five or so years, all of that work filmmakers put into legitimizing these films have gone to the wayside in favor of fast-food style content. Consumed and then forgotten instantaneously. We’re back where we were before 30-for-30. Low-effort, hollow fluff pieces meant for mindless second-screen watching.

Sports docs have gone the way of true crime podcasts; they’ve become insignificant background noise while you do something better with your time. It won’t always be this way. The next Ken Burns will come along eventually (I hope). But, for the time being, we are going to have to be much more selective about these docs. Maybe we even need to start making our own. You don’t need the budget or production quality that Netflix or HBO has to do so. You just need a camera, a point of view, a subject, and most importantly, curiosity.

Long live the sports doc!

Thank you all for an incredible 2025 on Substack! Thank you for sticking with TheHumanGaze! I will continue into this new year with more film essays and short stories! I have many exciting collaborations planned and look forward to interacting with you guys in 2026!

This year was rough.

We all know it. We all feel it. Most of us admit it. So, let’s just lay it out there. 2025 was a shit show. I don’t need to list the reasons. You see it. You see the rising divide within our communities. You see the billions of dollars poured into artificial life while millions of real people go jobless, and children lose access to food. You see the job market crumbling. You see the people being ripped from their homes and shipped to camps. You see the mockery being made of our entire nation by the people in charge of it. Shit, I just listed the reasons.

Throughout all of this, horror is one of the few things that have kept me sane. That sounds silly, but horror is a safe space. It’s the only genre that can dig into your chest, pull out your deepest fears, and show you them. It can help you understand what actually scares you. It can also help you understand what scares us collectively.

In 2025, there was no lack of things to be afraid of. What I’m looking for is which fears were represented on the big screen. We will be looking at some of the most notable horror films from 2025 to analyze what each entry means about our collective psyche. While analyzing the fears, we will celebrate a great year in horror, highlighting what I dug and what I didn’t.

Let’s dig in!

Technology/Surveillance

AI is overtaking our material reality. As you read this, a dozen more data centers were probably approved. Billions of dollars have been invested in this technology. No matter how much backlash there is against it, they will continue shoving it down our throats until they run out of human beings to sell to. Companion takes a look at where this tech could truly lead us.

Companion was the first horror film of 2025 for me. These early-year releases are usually just studio dumps, so I wasn’t expecting much from Companion. I went in mostly blind; I knew robots were involved somehow, but I didn’t know to what extent. What I got was one of the most pleasant surprises of 2025. The AI bots in Companion aren’t the cold, emotionless, metal boxes that we’re used to seeing in these types of films. In fact, we have no idea that our main character, Iris, is a robot until about halfway through. Compared to her peers, Iris is actually the most humane being there. The rest of them have been so numbed from the debauchery and emptiness in their lives that they’ve become the artificial ones. They are externally motivated, while everything Iris does comes from survival. We’ve created beings and damned them to the same fate that we were trying to escape in the first place.

M3gan 2.0 takes a more comedic approach against AI. Its genre swing from low-budget horror to action-comedy was a questionable one. 2023’s M3gan was a refreshingly campy exploration of AI’s ubiquity in everyday life. In 2023, that was still the near future. In 2025, however, it’s simply our reality. M3gan 2.0, unfortunately, undermines the AI critique by turning the titular Megan into a quippy action hero. There are still some generic tech bro villains and lines like “If you wouldn’t give your kid crack, why give them an iPhone?” in the mix, but the sequel lost its teeth. Still, the fact that a franchise like this is popping up now is no coincidence.

Our fear of technology doesn’t end with AI. In 2025, shady tech companies like Palantir have come out of the shadows and overtaken the world under our noses. Surveillance is no longer some conspiracy you’d see in a 70’s thriller. It’s something that’s closing in on us.

Amazon’s War of the Worlds was pretty instantly deemed one of the worst studio films ever made. The low-budget COVID production starring Ice Cube is a schlocky mess that acts more as a commercial for Amazon than it does a film. I don’t want to talk about the bad FX, the stilted dialogue, or Ice Cube’s effortless (negative) performance. I want to talk about the character’s job. Our main character, Will Radford, works for the Department of Homeland Security. His job (as we see it, at least) is to surveil for potential threats. Instead, he mostly spends time spying on his children.

While watching Ice Cube stalk his daughter, we see what Radford truly has access to. He can see everything about his children’s (mostly his daughter, dude doesn’t care about his son at all) lives. He can see what’s in their fridge, what they’re doing at work, and every single person they’ve ever texted or called. In the film, this is played as some sort of cutesy slice of life before the real alien horror hits. To me, though, that is the terrifying part. Radford is presented as the hero. He’s never questioned for misusing his power outside of a “maybe I should trust my kids more.” Radford’s job and access to everyone’s privacy are presented as benevolent and necessary rather than privacy-invasive. To me, that normalization is way scarier than some CGI alien ships.

Grief

Grief is probably the most universal fear. Even if you’ve never experienced a major loss in your life, you know what it feels like to anticipate it. To have paranoid thoughts swim around your head. Grief is so scary to us because it’s the one thing we all know to expect. Death is the only inevitability. It’s hard enough to accept that for your own existence. It’s almost impossible to accept it for someone you love.

As Kendrick Lamar once rapped, “Everybody grieves different.” Many 2025 horror films capture grief. What’s beautiful to me is how different each approach has been. There’s been your gut-wrenchingly sad (Bring Her Back, The Shrouds), comedic approaches (FD: Bloodlines, The Monkey), and poignant looks at what death means to those left behind (28 Years Later, Sinners). Grief may be universal, but it is not monolithic. Some people grieve by crying every day, others do so by laughing at old inside jokes. 2025 horror showcases how broad the process can be.

Sinners is a flashy, blockbuster flick featuring vampires, musical numbers, and a very good-looking cast. It’s rightfully noted for its palpable energy, lovable characters, and fast pace. There is a quieter moment here that I want to highlight. It actually comes after one of the loudest and most triumphant moments in the film. Right after Smoke has defeated the legion of Klan members sent to destroy his juke joint. He’s been shot, so he just sits there, trying his hardest to roll and smoke a cigarette. It’s just him now. His brother, his lover, and all of his community have been killed right in front of him. Add to this the fact that he was already grieving a son; this moment should have been absolutely gut-wrenching. Well, it is, but it’s also inspiring. Smoke doesn’t scream and punch the air like we’ve come to expect from distraught male protagonists. He doesn’t stoically walk it off either. Smoke stares off into the distance and smiles, finally rejoined by his wife and son.

28 Years Later is another film that depicts death and grief as beautiful. Filmmakers Danny Boyle and Alex Garland slam their feet on the brakes in the third act. We go from top-tier tension and horror to something much more esoteric and meditative. This is a brash move for a zombie film. A move that could feel unearned and muddy the entire story. 28 Years Later doesn’t give us two disparate halves, though (even if it seems like it). We watch Spike go from an impressionable kid who views his parents as all-knowing mentors to a young boy discovering what it means to be alone for the first time.

The Monkey and Final Destination: Bloodlines are two sides of the same grief coin. They both use the absurd randomness of death as a punchline. They both opt for a comedic tone that purposefully undercuts the extreme violence on screen. These films use the same approach but end up in two different places. The Monkey is much more cynical. It takes the stance of “Death is coming for us all, so why does any of this matter?” Final Destination: Bloodlines is much sweeter. “Death is coming for us all; let’s embrace the things that matter before it does.” FD: Bloodlines is easily my favorite Final Destination film for this reason. Despite all of the carnage and gore, it’s still able to connect you to a family and their relationships within. It even features some real-life grief, giving horror legend Tony Todd one last monologue before his untimely death.

Weapons shows a different kind of grief. In this case, the kids aren’t considered dead. The ambiguity is somehow worse than the confirmation. In Weapons, we see a community reacting to a school tragedy. It cleverly uses imagery we would all recognize. School vigils, grainy security footage, crying parents, and teachers who get blamed for it all. We watch one of the parents, Archer, attempt to take his pain into his own hands. He harasses local teachers and other grieving parents to try to solve the mystery of the missing kids. This communal grief exposes the rot that sat under the foundation of suburban communities.

We all experience grief, but what lengths are we willing to go to avoid it? This is a theme central to many 2025 releases (even outside of horror). In Bring Her Back, Laura is willing to murder someone else’s child to bring hers back. She’s willing to burn everything down if it means she can emerge from the ashes holding her loved one. In The Long Walk, Garraty puts himself in the death game for the sole purpose of avenging his father. In The Woman in the Yard, Ramona shelters her children to avoid her own guilt and grief. She uses the small amount of control she has over her household to heal herself, but it never works. The darkness is always there. In I Know What You Did Last Summer, the killer is motivated by her grief to pick off her old friend group. In Cronenberg’s The Shrouds, Karsh creates a way to view the decomposing bodies of loved ones. Grief was a central theme in horror this year.

Individualism

Losing one person you love is hard enough. What if you lost the entire support system? What if you lost the interactions and connections that make us human? That’s exactly what we’re losing going into 2026. Everything from the lack of third spaces to the various ‘loneliness epidemics’ is evidence that we are losing community in favor of rugged individualism.

Back in August, I wrote a piece about Weapons, and its depiction of our selfish moment. Weapons is far from the only film that has this on its mind. It even comes up in Sinners, a period piece. Smoke and Stack open a juke joint for multiple reasons. They want to promote togetherness within their oppressed community, while also making a few bucks in the process. Why couldn’t the two go hand in hand? The brothers quickly find out why when most of their patrons pay in plantation coins instead of US currency. This need for profit is ultimately what disrupts the night and invites the vampires in. It was already doomed the second they chose profit over people.

I see this type of selfishness promoted to many athletes and artists. It’s touted as the cure for insecurity. Him is a film about where that me-first attitude can land you if you aren’t careful. We follow a college football star, destined for the big leagues until he suffers a traumatic brain injury that jeopardizes his dreams. He’s sent to recover and train with his hero, Isaiah White. While there, he realizes that making it to the league means getting rid of any distractions. No family, no love, no fun, just football. In this pursuit of individual greatness, Cam unknowingly aligns himself with an elite cabal that has been exploiting young athletes for centuries.

I spoke about the rise of AI in an earlier section. This reliance on artificial interaction is obviously a factor in the erosion of personal connection. Is AI the cause, or just a freaky symptom? Companion shows a world where we don’t even need to socialize. Why go through the unpredictable troubles of social interaction when you can just program the perfect mate? You’d never have to address faults. You’d never have to apologize. You still get the social capital of friends without the effort involved.

Zephyr from the shark slasher, Dangerous Animals, falls victim to this individualist culture. She’s a wandering loner, constantly looking for the next adventure. The next escape. She’s pushed everyone in her life away to pursue this lifestyle. When she winds up in the clutches of a deranged killer with some other victims, she must rely on her humanity and collaboration to survive.

Authority/Power

Humans are naturally wary of power. It’s scary no matter who holds it. Even in your own hands, authority can look formidable. It can also be intoxicating. Power doesn’t usually end well, for anyone. That’s why the people with power are so desperate to keep it. They’ll do, say, and kill whatever they need to maintain it. Horror has always explored this. Actually, it’s the basis of most storytelling, no matter the genre or medium. But when power is being flexed as brashly as it was in 2025, the films feel more pointed.

Stephen King’s (under the pseudonym Richard Bachman) The Long Walk is a brutal allegory of the Vietnam War. The book highlights the pressure young men feel to prove their masculinity and the unexpected friendships that pop up during hard times. A death game story is something we’ve seen many times before and after The Long Walk. This particular story is a unique case of one cemented in time. For a while, it seemed like one of those books that would be impossible to truly modernize. That didn’t stop them from trying. The film adaptation surprised me. It was every bit as graphic and relevant as it needed to be. We watch as the major tries to crush these poor boys. He tries to isolate them. All it does is bring them closer together. Where King’s original story is appropriately bleak, the 2025 version opted for a hopeful lens. Say what you want about the changed ending, that tone was desperately needed.

Power informs everything that happens in Sinners. It’s what every character is after. Smoke and Stack seek power over their station in life through profit by working for mobsters and eventually starting a juke joint. Sammy seeks power over his religion by rebelling against his father’s wishes. Remmick seeks power over his heritage by assimilating people into a hivemind. Pearline seeks power over her sexuality through performance and flirtation.

Authority isn’t always in your face. It can be as tedious as paperwork and cubicles. The social worker from Bring Her Back, Wendy, isn’t a malicious villain. Her intentions were in the right place. She’s just succumbed to a system that has never really worked. She even tries to correct her wrongs, but it’s too late. She already placed the kids in a dangerous home. She made the decision, but she didn’t necessarily have the power. Essentially a puppet on strings. That’s what people don’t tell you about making a difference from the inside: you often end up as a cog in the machine you were trying to dismantle.

This sense of power and control is why we’re so enraptured by celebrity. They are our mirrors to luxury. It’s no surprise that people will obsess over these famous people. Opus is a film about how far people would go to befriend their favorite celebrities. It’s part of the 2025 double feature with Him that I call: don’t meet your heroes. I pair these films because ofthe themes they explore, though they approach it from different perspectives. Opus is about an outsider who sees the allure of a celebrity from before her time. Him is about a die-hard fan who was taught by his father to worship a specific athlete. In both cases, the power of celebrity attempts to corrupt our protagonists.

We hold on to power at any level. It doesn’t have to be on the level of a president or even an entry-level government job. It can be something as small as a camp counselor gig. Hell of a Summer is a pretty generic camp slasher. It doesn’t really do anything new in the horror department, but I did find it surprisingly clever in how it handles one character. We follow man-child Jason as he goes to summer camp (as a full-grown adult). Everyone knows he’s too old for the job. His mom scolds him for it on the drive there, the other campers are constantly ribbing and cracking old jokes, and he’s visibly ashamed for most of the film. He just can’t move on. Moving on from camp means moving on from childhood. That can make you feel directionless and, you guessed it, powerless.

Modern Dating

I’ll end it with a fun (?) one.

I have a lot of regrets in life. If I had to write them all down, I’m not sure a thick binder could hold them all. There are two decisions in my life that I do not regret: deleting (most) social media and getting with my current partner. Dating and the internet are partners in crime nowadays. Dating now is like walking through a minefield. Horror has reflected that this past year.

Online dating kind of seemed like a fad at first. Something that only desperate losers and old people try. I don’t think anyone expected it to become the dominant means of meeting people. In Match, Paola strikes up a rapport with a handsome man she meets online. When she shows up at his house for a first date, she realizes that she hasn’t been swept off her feet; she’s been summoned to meet her fate. This film is gross, wild, and very obviously inspired by Barbarian. It’s a mean-spirited look at the horrors of online dating.

Companion is about the end of romance. It’s the reflection of a culture that views relationships as status symbols. A culture that treats a girlfriend or wife as a notch in your belt. At that point, why even date people? Aesthetics have overtaken reality to the point that people are marrying AI chatbots, and dudes are proud of their blow-up dolls. As funny as Companion can be, the cultural moment it’s commenting on couldn’t be bleaker.

Drop is another film about a first date. With elaborate rooftop set pieces and awkward conversations, the film is about all of the eggshells we avoid when meeting new people. The massive warning signs we ignore to be polite. When technology and a traumatic past are added to that, it can lead to an explosion of insecurity. In Drop, this is accompanied by an actual explosion.

Heart Eyes is another look at how unsure a date can be. It probably shouldn’t feel this way. We live in a time where any information about a person is a Google search away. Yet, everyone seems as unknowable as ever. What if the really charming guy you met is actually the serial killer ravaging your town? In this case, he’s not, but nothing can stop you from having that thought.

Okay, maybe that one wasn’t fun.

2025 was a good year for horror and a great year for film in general! If you picked up on any themes/fears from this year that I missed, I’d love to hear them. Here’s to another great year!

Films mentioned: Sinners, Weapons, Bring Her Back, Companion, 28 Years Later, M3gan 2.0, Dangerous Animals, Him, The Long Walk, War of the Worlds, The Shrouds, The Woman in the Yard, Hell of a Summer, Opus, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Monkey, Final Destination: Bloodlines, Heart Eyes, Match, Drop,

I’m starting to think that nostalgia is inescapable.

I used to think I could avoid it. I thought I was better than it. I would scoff at older people constantly talking about ‘their’ day, as if it were some utopia I had barely missed out on. I thought it was weird that people stopped listening to newer music as they aged. I would be annoyed every time my Dad told me, “They don’t make movies as they did in the 80s!” But now, I’m starting to get it.

Nostalgia is looking less like a trend to avoid and more like a warm blanket. I know this blanket has sharp teeth. I know the blanket will strangle me. I know it will never let me go once I’m nuzzled in its fabric. Those things don’t change the fact that the blanket is warm, especially on a cold December day.

I know I’m not alone in this combat with the past. Look around, it’s everywhere. Every music video is a Y2K reference. Fashion trends rotate between 70s-2000s nostalgia every few months. It’s especially apparent in film. We’re all aware of the Legacy sequels and reboots that have infected cinemas and streamers for the past twenty or so years. There’s another nostalgia-based trend I’ve noticed in recent years, and it shows up in my favorite genre: horror. It’s pretty simple, actually. Take a classic comedy and turn it into a slasher movie.

You may have seen a few of these films: Happy Death Day(Groundhog Day), Freaky(Freaky Friday), Totally Killer(Back to the future), Time Cut(also Back to the Future but with a 2000s comedy style), and the subject of today, It’s a Wonderful Knife (I’m sure I don’t have to tell you).

Now, It’s a Wonderful Knife is an interesting one among that list. Unlike the others, I have no real connection to the film that this is referencing. In fact, I may have negative nostalgia for it. The reason for that is quite simple.

I don’t care for Christmas movies.

I know, I’m a heartless green monster for that, but it’s true. I have never liked them. They bounce off of me. I never understood why everyone was so eager to roll these films out every year. As a teenager, I discovered the wonderful world of Christmas horror, but until then, a Santa hat in a film was an instant turn-off for me. I have memories of It’s a Wonderful Life being on in the house during the Christmas season, but they’re mostly me being bored to tears.

This reverse nostalgia for Christmas films put me in an interesting position as a viewer when I sat down to watch It’s a Wonderful Knife for the second time. It was quite different from how I came to the other films of this ilk. Happy Death Day remains the best of these, and a lot of that is how well it flips the beats and themes of Groundhog Day on their head. I realized about halfway through It’s a Wonderful Knife that I was missing much of this context. So, I decided to pause and wait to rewatch it until I had seen It’s a Wonderful Life with an open adult brain.

That was probably a mistake.

Watching It’s a Wonderful Life made me realize just how much of a memory farm this film is. Not even just for it’s titular pairing. This film references other Christmas movies. It hits almost every trope with zero awareness, which is something I expect in a horror comedy.

It’s a Wonderful Knife is a fine film. It’s a breezy, funny enough horror comedy with a charming cast. I quite liked it the first time. I enjoy director Tyler Macintire’s usual blend of absurdist comedy with horror tropes, and this is another solid helping of that. On paper, it’s a fun movie that I liked. That’s why I was confused when I left the second viewing with an empty feeling. I felt bad as I watched the credits roll by, and I don’t know how much of that really has to do with the film.

I think a lot of it stems from that nostalgia I mentioned earlier. This isn’t my nostalgia. These aren’t my fun memories or my reference points. I’m watching someone else’s passion project. I can smell the passion spilling from it. These filmmakers obviously love these old Christmas stories, and it all shows up on the screen. I just found it impenetrable.

That’s the issue with nostalgia as a marketing tool. It can never be universal. Nostalgia is something we all feel, but what we get nostalgic for is extremely intimate and personal. When it comes to nostalgia for media, it gets even more complicated. Sometimes, you’re not even really nostalgic for the actual piece of media. Sometimes, you’re yearning for the circumstances. I have fond memories of watching films like Birdemic in my buddies’ living rooms, which sit right beside the time I saw Oppenheimer in IMAX. Is this because Birdemic is on the same level of achievement as Oppenheimer? No, but my body can’t tell the difference when I’m reminiscing.

Nostalgia often haunts me, but it’s always more intense in December. It’s like the entire world attempts to revert to childhood for 25 days. We wish for another season that puts that innocent childhood joy right back into our hearts. Unfortunately, that’s impossible. There is no real winter wonderland, only greedy corporations that slip on a Santa hat for a while. Nostalgia is the fuel of the Christmas season, and ultimately of our economy as a whole.

This battle I have with nostalgia actually informs the type of Christmas film I do like: Christmas horror. The best Christmas horror movies use that nostalgia and flip it on its head. The nostalgia becomes the villain in many ways. The 2015 film Krampus is a great example of this. Krampus features all of our usual tropes, but those tropes actually act as trap doors. They shoot you right down into cynicism using bright lights and candy canes as bait.

It’s a Wonderful Knife tries to have its cake and eat it too in that regard. It’s an incredibly genuine Christmas movie about the importance of love during the holidays, while also trying to be a clever satire on real estate at the same time. What results for me is the same feeling I get after watching a glossy department store commercial. I know I’m supposed to feel Christmas joy, but it rings hollow.

Okay, I’ll talk about the film now!

It’s a Wonderful Knife is far from a terrible movie. I had a really fun time with it upon its initial release in 2023. I don’t want to leave you with the sentiment of “This movie sucks, nostalgia sucks, and the world is doomed.” So here are some aspects of the film that I really enjoyed! (to maybe save my spot on the nice list):

The Cast: First off, you can never go wrong casting Justin Long in a horror film. It’s like a cheat code. He’s joined by beloved comedic actor Joel McHale in a fun ensemble that features some great young talent. Katherine Isabelle is probably the breakout here, but Jane Widdop and Jess McLeod also put in solid work.

The Killer: Making an interesting slasher villain in the 2020s is a tough ask. It can seem like every worthwhile idea for a masked killer has been done to death. Especially in Christmas horror, how many killer Santas do we need? It’s a Wonderful Knife can create a wholly unique and memorable killer. The Angel has an effectively simple design that connects to the religious nature of the holiday. I may not remember a lot of this film, but I will remember the Angel killer.

The Heart: It’s a Wonderful Knife is at its best when it’s trying to be heartwarming, as opposed to when it attempts to be scary or funny. The script really does a good job at putting you smack in the middle of these character relationships. It has some pretty sweet scenes, and I can tell the filmmakers deeply respect their characters. The ending in particular, was a good emotional payoff.

So, don’t let this Scrooge dissuade you from checking the flick out if you’re interested. It may be just what you need this Christmas season. It may even make your heart grow a few more sizes.

PS: The fun doesn’t end here! We’re going till the fat man eats all of your cookies. Keep up with the rest of the schedule here:

12/1 Silent Night Deadly Night 3:

Kyle (Horrorble Writer)

12/2 The Nightmare Before Christmas: Abandoned Places

George R. Galuschak

12/3 Silent Night Deadly Night:

Molly O’Blivion

12/4 Anna And The Apocalypse: H. is for Horror

H. H. Duke

12/5 Terrifier 3

Meat Head Media

12/6 The Advent Calendar

Sahar Khan

12/7 Silent Night, Deadly Night 4

Stephen Duffy

12/8 Violent Night

@robopulp

12/9 The Lodge

Offscreenshaman

12/10 Mean One

Beverley’s Horror Corner

12/11 Silent Night

Skyla

12/12 It’s a Wonderful Knife

Thehumangaze

12/13 A Christmas Horror Story

Mike Duffy

12/14 Deadly Games/ Dial Code Santa Claus

Hellish Views - Harry Evans

12/15 Black Christmas (2006)

Kristen

12/16 Krampus

Joanne Thornborough

12/17 Elves: Creatures of War

Emma

12/18 Santa Jaws

Sean Mo

12/19 Better Watch Out

Jean-Pierre Diez

12/20 Rare Exports

Yanni Hamburger

12/21 Christmas Bloody Christmas

Horror Hangouts

12/22 Silent Night Deadly Night 2

Brandon Rae

12/23 Gremlins

B-Movie Tea

12/24 Black Christmas (2019)

That Horror Lesbian

12/25 Black Christmas (OG)

Kimberly Ramsawak

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