horror movie | the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On “Nightcrawler” as a Metaphorical Vampire Movie…

Posted on August 16, 2020 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist earlier today. Nightcrawler is streaming on Netflix, so it seemed like a nice opportunity to revisit the film.

Nightcrawler is very obviously a loving homage to seventies American cinema, and a commentary on the scrambling at the margins of the post-recession economy. However, writer and director Dan Gilroy frames his story in such a way as to evoke classic vampire movies. At its core, Nightcrawler is the tale of a bloodthirsty parasite prowling the streets of Los Angeles at night, but there’s more to it than that. Nightcrawler is a biting satire and a gritty drama, but it also understands the horror of the situation that it depicts.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: escapist, horror movie, jake gylllenhaal, nightcrawler, nightmare, the escapist, vampire, vampire movie | 1 Comment »

Non-Review Review: Fantasy Island

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Darren

What, exactly, is the point of the Blumhouse reboot of Fantasy Island?

To be fair, Blumhouse are a studio with a varied track record. They have produced some of the most interesting and compelling mainstream horror movies of the past few decades, including films like Get Out and The Invisible Man. They have also produced a fair amount of cynical schlock, such as Truth or Dare. There are also a number of films that seem to exist in the middle ground between those two extremes, like The Hunt or Black Christmas. It’s certainly a more varied approach than the standard horror films that heralded the studio’s arrival, like Insidious or Sinister.

Palming it off.

Jason Blum is a shrewd producer, and there’s a sense in looking at the studio’s output of trying to balance competing artistic and commercial demands. Blum tends to keep budgets under control, but he also seems to offset the riskier and more ambitious projects with generic crowd-pleasing fare. Fantasy Island would seem to belong in that category, but exactly what crowd is it intended to please? Watching Fantasy Island is a strange experience, and not just because of the multitude of structural and storytelling problems.

On a more basic level: who exactly is this movie for?