The Gore Connoisseurs

Indie horror flicks like Mon Mon Mon Monsters,   Ravenous and Wildling  are moving away from the idea that monsters are straightforwardly evil. Note: This essay contains minor spoilers for Wildling. Jason Voorhees. Leatherface. Sadako. Though they have tragic backstories, they each function as an unstoppable evil force in their respective movies. The traditional horror icons don't have a sense of interiority. It would be out of the question to feel anything like pity for our favourite slasher killers or supernatural villains. Yet Chinese horror film Mon Mon Mon Monsters (currently streaming on Shudder ) features a flesh-hungry monster with razor sharp teeth and claws as its most sympathetic character.  The purest relationship in the film is between this little monster and her equally monstrous older sister. In a touching early scene, the older monster offers her sister the tastiest morsel from the corpse of an innocent man they've just killed. ...

Get Out may have revolutionised how horror tackles politics, but the genre has a rich history of tacking political messages onto enjoyably shlocky plots. One of my favourite examples is 1989's Society. It was directed by Brian Yuzna (he produced  Re-Animator ) and came off the back of films like The Fly, Videodrome and The Thing which made horror fantastically gloopy. We all like a bit of 80s body horror, but we also like very literal metaphors about how the economic elite are feeding off ordinary people. How, Yuzna undoubtedly pondered, could the two be combined? Enter Bill Whitney (Billy Warlock), your average teen with incredible 80s hair who thinks his parents are out to get him. "I'm not paranoid," he says to his shrink with zero credability. Like most teenagers, Whitney is remarkably horny. There's a semi-acknowledged incest vibe between him and his sister, even when he sees the skin pulse and bulge on her sweat-drenched back when zipping up...

This month’s Pet Sematary remake is deeply flawed. The unselfconscious genre clichés and unnecessary ableist subplot don’t do it any favours, and it pales in comparison to Jordan Peele’s Us . Yet the things that Pet Sematary does get right really hit the spot. Here’s how the movie illustrated the reasons for my horror nerdery. Brutal gore Substandard horror films pile on the gore with more is more abandon. Pet Sematary is all the better for being more sparing with its blood and guts. The violence feels unexpected and some nasty flesh wounds are milked by intelligent camerawork. The pièce de résistance comes early in the movie when Louis’s sleepy suburban medical practice is turned upside down by the arrival of Victor, a dying young man mowed down by a speeding truck. The exposed bone and bloodshot eyes make sure these scenes are uncomfortable to watch. They set up the idea that our bodies are fragile and death can arrive at lightning speed. While our mor...