Movies / TV

We Need To Stop Being Weird About Theme in Stories

What your story is really saying and why you need to stop saying it

Nov 5 •

Lessons from Hannibal Lecter: How to Write a Human Monster

Can horror be scary without the supernatural?

Sep 29 •

The Best Scene in 'An American Werewolf in London' (1981) Isn't the One You Think

How to write a comedy of terrors

Aug 28 •

Telling a Superhero Story the DC Way

Choosing myth over Marvel in James Gunn's Superman (2025)

Jul 16 •

28 Days Later (2002) vs. 28 Weeks Later (2007)

Predicting a bloody future without stating the bloody obvious. How Danny Boyle and Alex Garland reinvented the reanimated

May 19 •

Who Goes There? (1938) vs The Thing (1982)

John W. Campbell's classic novella of Golden Age science fiction and John Carpenter's modern horror masterpiece - both absorb new meanings in the age of…

Mar 26 •

Vampires Don't Have to Be Horrible

How Guillermo del Toro’s Cronos (1992) subverted the bloodsucking genre

Feb 20 •

Make Camelot Weird Again

How David Lowery's The Green Knight (2021) brings strange new meaning to an antique fantasy text. And, yes, it’s a Christmas movie. Fight me.

Dec 13, 2024 •

The Furry Folk Horror of Watership Down (1978)

How the animated adaptation of Richard Adams’s novel terrified a generation and builds a non-human epic fantasy that casts a dark and enthralling spell

Nov 11, 2024 •

What Hawk the Slayer Got Right

Defending a sword and sorcery kinda-classic

Oct 25, 2024 •

The Crow: When Fantasy Manages Trauma

How the 1989 comic book by James O’Barr expressed real-life tragedy through gothic fantasy and what happened when it met the Hollywood machine

Sep 18, 2024 •

Starve Acre (2019): How to Farm a Field of Horrors

How Andrew Michael Hurley’s compulsive folk horror novel casts its bleak and atmospheric spell

Aug 20, 2024 •

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