Terrestrial terror

Blending folk horror, environmental anxiety, and good old-fashioned psychopathy, In the Earth is not your everyday horror film. It’s a steady exercise in suspense, filled with slowly growing doom and unforeseeable instability. Written and directed by Ben Wheatley, the movie is a return to the British filmmaker’s roots. It’s difficult to summarize the career of […]

Emotional undoing: Midsommar runs deep on horror and humanity

When a horror movie reaches a certain level of pedigree or critical acclaim, it’s common in some circles to find any word other than “horror” to describe it. “That was just a really scary drama.” Or, “I think it was more of a thriller,” a genre that can overlap but is still distinct. “Post-horror” is […]

Movie review: Hereditary taps the dark side of the psyche

Ari Aster’s Hereditary may be the best, scariest, and most effective American horror film in years. Not because it has the loudest scares, not because its ghosts have the creepiest faces, and not because its deaths are the most gruesome (though it does have its share). Writer-director Aster’s feature film debut builds dread at an […]

Local women break through in fantasy and horror

‘‘My book came out last year a week before the presidential elections,” says Madeline Iva, author of the fantasy romance Wicked Apprentice. “What I came away with, standing in the blasted devastation of our liberal democratic psyche, was that I’d just written a book about a woman who ends up holding all the power—and people […]