Writing about movies, monsters, cinematic events and other wild trips
Be still my beating heart. This film. VIDEODROME. Cinema doesn’t get much better. And this beautiful 4K Ultra HD Special Release from Arrow Films even smells fantastic.
I’m proud to have contributed a retrospective roundtable discussion for the booklet with Cerise Howard, Dr Josh Nelson and Dr Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. But this is only a small portion of this special release, which is bursting with vivid viscerality.
Long live the new flesh!
My viewing of new cinema was somewhat stymied by the events of 2020 so, in creating this list, I’ve gone with a heavenly Top 7 of all-killer-no-filler. Here they are in alphabetical order:
THE ASSISTANT (dir. Kitty Green)
Utterly transfixing in its depiction of the mundanity of junior office positions, THE ASSISTANT is also terrifying real in its representation of systematic workplace abuse and neglect – subtle, insidious and that little bit too close to what many women have experienced ‘in real life’ (me included).
DISCLOSURE (documentary, dir. Sam Feder)
In fleshing out Hollywood’s representation of transgender people, this documentary is notable for its no-frills approach of talking heads combined with clip & tell. But this approach only serves to accentuate the brilliance of its interviewees. No platitudes here – insights of the highest calibre.
HOST (dir. Rob Savage)
I had to be prodded to see this one, and there’s no one more surprised than myself that one of the better horror movies of the year could be about the COVID pandemic. At a tight 57 minutes, HOST serves as an example of why horror is such an important, relevant genre. Now, no more pandemic films, please.
THE LIGHTHOUSE (dir. Robert Eggers)
Simultaneously hilarious and a fever dream of the grimiest forms, Robert Eggers proves he’s one of the gnarliest wordsmiths currently in the film biz. Claustrophobic, sweaty, insane. THE LIGHTHOUSE also ticked off another item on my cinematic bucket list: to see Willem Dafoe as a grizzled seaman.
MORGANA (documentary, dirs. Josie Hess & Isabel Peppard)
Remarkably intimate and delicately revealing documentary about a middle-aged, Australian woman who overcomes her stultifying suburban existence by creating pornography. A film that has you grabbing at your heart in unexpected ways.
POSSESSOR (dir. Brandon Cronenberg)
If there was any wonder whether Brandon Cronenberg was his father’s son, this film definitively demonstrates that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Yet, Brandon has come up with his own stamp of ‘Cronenburgundian’ mindfuckery. For that, he must be applauded.
THE STYLIST (dir. Jill Gevargizian)
This film is everything I wanted from Peter Strickland’s IN FABRIC but, sadly, was not served. A horror film steeped in style, as its name would suggest, and one that holds its form from first through to third act. It makes me excited to see what Jill Gevargizian will do next.
This piece was written at the beginning of 2017 but, inexplicably, I failed to post it to my website. Me bad.
But I’m proud to say this is, likely, one of the most substantial/lengthy articles written about David Cronenberg’s second short film, From the Drain, to appear online at the very least. I am willing to be proven wrong and would, in fact, be very interested in reading someone else’s take on this surreal mind-fuck.
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, one of the editors at Senses of Cinema, asked me to undertake this challenge as part of the journal’s tribute section of the March 2017. Titled ‘Love Letters: 1967’, this section included articles about filmmakers who would later become big players on the cinematic landscape but were only just emerging in short form in that particular year.
The likes of David Lynch, Seijun Suzuki, Joseph Losey and Norman Jewison also had ‘love letters’ written to them by a variety of talented folk. It’s well worth perusing them all. But, first, help me make sense of David Cronenberg’s enigmatic mind.
THE FLY by Emma Westwood is now available for pre-sale from Devil’s Advocates and Columbia University Press.
Release date: November 2017
Read all about it in the Columbia University Press upcoming releases or join the book’s Facebook page for tantalising tidbits and teasers.
There are no flies on this!
Thank you Via Vision Entertainment for having the infinite wisdom to package together every movie in the history of The Fly in the one superlative blu-ray box set. This is something designed to send the likes of my heart a-flutter.
Thanks even more for giving my upcoming book a whopping great mention inside the cover. You guys rock…
As I near completion of my full book manuscript for Devil’s Advocates on David Cronenberg’s The Fly, Rathan Krueger steals a minute (or so) of my time for Daily Grindhouse to chat about delving into Cronenberg’s mind. Just talking about it gave me wings. You can read it here…
In the midst of penning my book for Devil’s Advocates on David Cronenberg’s 1986 masterpiece, The Fly, I seize an opportunity offered by 4:3 to acknowledge the film’s 30th anniversary on 15th August 2016. This is what eventuated…
In September 2015, Lee Gambin and the wonderful team at Cinemaniacs in Melbourne, Australia, asked me if I would be interested in introducing their screening of David Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986)… Continue reading “Cinemaniacs’ presentation of The Fly”
Reflecting on Women in Horror Month, Kate Robertson speaks with me and fellow Plato’s Cave critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas for 4:3 film journal about the gender politics of Dario Argento, found footage cinema, the ‘Final Girl’ and many other exciting things.
EMMA WESTWOOD 