Tag Archives: Body Horror

Isolation to Madness: The Dark Genius of Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy

Posted on by Arleigh

“Reality’s not what it used to be.” – Sutter Cane

John Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy is widely regarded as a foundational pillar of modern horror cinema, uniting three seemingly diverse films—The Thing (1982), Prince of Darkness (1987), and In the Mouth of Madness (1994)—under a singular thematic and philosophical canopy. Together, they explore cosmic horror, a subgenre of horror fiction that emphasizes humanity’s profound insignificance in a vast, indifferent, and often hostile universe. This trilogy traces a carefully crafted trajectory of escalating menace—from tangible physical fears to metaphysical anxieties, culminating in deep epistemological crises. By doing so, Carpenter’s trilogy challenges the audience’s very perceptions of reality, identity, and trust, pushing viewers to confront existential questions cloaked within horror narratives.

This study offers a comprehensive analysis of each film in sequence, revealing their major thematic concerns and unpacking Carpenter’s distinctive stylistic choices that unite the trilogy into one cohesive vision of apocalypse and despair. The analysis reveals that the trilogy extends beyond horror storytelling, engaging instead with the anxieties surrounding human perception, the limitations of knowledge, and cosmic insignificance.

John Carpenter and the Cosmic Horror Tradition

John Carpenter is celebrated for his ability to move beyond conventional scares, crafting atmospheric and philosophical horror that delves deeply into existential dread. While his debut with Halloween secured his place in slasher cinema, Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy marks his most profound engagement with the tradition of cosmic horror, heavily influenced by the works of H.P. Lovecraft. These films focus less on conventional monsters and more on entities and forces beyond human comprehension that systematically erode sanity, faith, and the familiar social order.

In essence, Carpenter’s cosmic horror examines the frailty of human understanding in the face of vast, unknowable forces. His films suggest that the perceived stability of reality, morality, and identity are slender constructs that can unravel rapidly when exposed to those cosmic truths. This philosophical underpinning provides the connective tissue for the trilogy, positioning it as a sustained meditation on humanity’s precarious and often deluded sense of place within the universe.

Carpenter combines his hallmark minimalist aesthetic with unsettling soundscapes to create settings steeped in dread and uncertainty. These environments refuse to offer comfort or clarity. Instead, they become spaces where reality’s veneer thins, paranoia grows, and the audience is drawn into the slow disintegration of order.

The Thing: The Anatomy of Isolation and Paranoia

The trilogy begins in the frozen desolation of an Antarctic research station—a brutally unforgiving landscape depicted through Carpenter’s distinct minimalist style. The opening, consisting of sweeping, stark aerial shots paired with Ennio Morricone’s haunting bass synth score, plunges viewers into an environment defined by isolation and claustrophobia.

The physical environment functions as an active force in the story, enhancing tension and alienation. It becomes impossible for the characters—and the audience—to escape the oppressive atmosphere, emphasizing themes of entrapment and despair.

Carpenter’s adaptation of Campbell’s Who Goes There? foregrounds psychological horror, centering around an alien organism that perfectly imitates any living creature it infects. This ability destroys the survivors’ social cohesion, as the possibility that anyone might be the alien breeds constant suspicion and fear. The alien infection acts metaphorically, symbolizing humanity’s deepest anxieties about identity, otherness, and contamination.

Rob Bottin’s practical special effects remain iconic, transforming the concept of body horror into palpable cinematic terror. Scenes such as the infected dogs blending with the humans visually communicate the indivisibility of friend and foe, reinforcing the thematic belief that not even one’s own body is fully trustworthy.

The film’s ambiguous finale, where the surviving characters share an uneasy, silent distrust, masterfully underscores existential despair. Echoing Sartre’s famous assertion that “Hell is other people,” Carpenter closes with no clear resolution, reinforcing a bleak worldview that permeates the entire trilogy.

Prince of Darkness: When Science Meets Metaphysical Terror

The second chapter shifts from Antarctic physicality to a metaphysical siege within a Los Angeles church, where scientists and clergy confront a cryptic green liquid imprisoning an ancient quantum entity identified as Satan. Carpenter weaves a thematic collision between faith and science, positioning the characters in a supernatural standoff that tests the limits of rational belief.

This paradigm collision is central to the film’s tension. Characters engage in empirical inquiry and theological reflection, yet neither fails to fully grasp or control the cosmic forces unleashed. Dreams broadcast across neural networks, quantum mechanics concepts, and disorienting visions unravel the sense of coherent reality and blur lines between the physical and the spiritual.

Mirrors act as critical motifs, symbolizing portals or gateways that problematize identity and perception. As reality itself becomes infected and fractured, the boundaries between natural and supernatural, self and Other, disintegrate. This thematic decay anticipates the disintegration of reality that reaches its apex in In the Mouth of Madness. The siege allegory encapsulates humanity’s futile attempts to impose order over chaos.

In the Mouth of Madness: The Apocalypse of the Mind

The trilogy culminates in a meta-textual horror narrative tracing John Trent, an insurance investigator ensnared by the vanishing horror novelist Sutter Cane. This film explores the erosion of reality and identity as Trent journeys into a fictional world that becomes concrete, gradually dissolving the distinctions between fact and fiction, sanity and madness.

Drawing explicitly on Lovecraftian ideas of forbidden knowledge and cosmic despair, Carpenter situates the archetypal theme in a modern media environment. Cane’s novels exert a parasitic force upon readers, triggering apocalyptic psychological and ontological shifts that implicate society itself.

The narrative layering intensifies to a climax wherein Trent watches a film adaptation of his destructive unraveling, collapsing the barrier between spectator and spectacle. This recursive structure evokes chilling reflection on the instability of identity and reality.

The phrase “losing me” becomes a haunting leitmotif. Characters’ gradual loss of selfhood illustrates cosmic horror’s existential core: the dissolution of individuality under the weight of incomprehensible cosmic forces, a theme central to the trilogy as a whole.

Escalating Terror: From Bodily Invasion to Psychic Annihilation

This collection of films explores a profound and unsettling meditation on humanity’s place in an uncaring, vast cosmos, using horror as a lens to examine themes of isolation, paranoia, faith, knowledge, and the tenuous nature of reality. Without explicitly presenting themselves as a connected series, they create a rich thematic tapestry that invites viewers to contemplate not only external terrors but the fragility of human systems meant to protect meaning and identity.

The opening confronts the visceral and physical: a mysterious alien force invades bodies, dissolving trust and social cohesion. This invasion is deeply symbolic, reflecting fears of contamination, loss of self, and the breakdown of community ties. The body becomes a battleground where identity is no longer stable, and the enemy might be anyone—including oneself. This phase grounds horror in concrete fears but already sows the seeds of existential uncertainty.

From there, the narrative moves to a metaphysical plane where science, religion, and philosophy—humanity’s traditional pillars of understanding—struggle and fail to contain an ever-spreading cosmic evil. This shift from physical threat to metaphysical chaos illustrates how human knowledge and faith are insufficient to explain or confront the vast, dark unknown. The intermingling of scientific inquiry and religious dread reveals a universe that defies compartmentalized understanding, forcing a reckoning with ambiguity and the unknown. With reality itself starting to fray at the edges, the threat becomes more abstract yet no less terrifying.

The final movement confronts the fragility of perception and reality itself. As realities collapse, identities dissolve, and narrative and truth blur, the horror becomes psychological and epistemological—loss of sanity, loss of self, loss of a stable world. This breakdown reveals the highest level of terror, where nothing can be trusted, no truth is certain, and reality is malleable. It captures the profound human fear of mental disintegration and the obliteration of meaning in an indifferent universe.

Together, these stages chart a journey from external bodily threat to metaphysical disruption and ultimately to existential collapse. They reveal horror not just as fear of outward monsters but as internal decay of mind, belief, and identity, underscoring human vulnerability not only to external forces but to the fragility of cognition and existence. This arc reflects deep anxieties about human limitations: no matter the knowledge or faith, cosmic forces remain beyond control, making certainty an illusion. By layering escalating horrors, the films engage on emotional and intellectual levels, inviting lasting reflection on fear, reality, and humanity’s place in the cosmos.

The Limitations of Human Knowledge

Across all three films in John Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy, the limits of human knowledge are a central theme. Characters—whether scientists, clergy, or ordinary people—try to impose order and meaning on forces they cannot understand or control. But they consistently face phenomena far beyond their cognition, revealing the fragility of human certainty. This motif challenges anthropocentrism and critiques human arrogance by exposing absolute truth and certainty as illusions in a vast, indifferent cosmos.

In The Thing, the alien defies identification or control, sowing paranoia among the survivors. Scientific tests fail, and certainty dissolves into fear that anyone could be the monster. The alien symbolizes the unknown randomness and uncontrollability threatening human identity and social bonds.

Prince of Darkness deepens this theme by confronting the limits of both science and faith. A cosmic evil trapped in a mysterious liquid defies both scientific and religious understanding. The film blurs boundaries between science, theology, and metaphysics, suggesting human knowledge is incomplete and vulnerable to forces beyond comprehension. The inevitability of apocalypse underscores the insufficiency of human understanding.

In In the Mouth of Madness, epistemological collapse is central. Reality and fiction merge, and the protagonist loses grip on truth. Carpenter suggests reality depends on belief and narrative, making truth unstable. This reveals the ultimate vulnerability of human cognition and identity.

Together, these films show that no human system—scientific, religious, or cultural—can fully grasp or control the universe’s nature. This breeds existential horror, highlighting human fragility and limited knowledge on a cosmic scale.

Carpenter’s trilogy aligns with Lovecraftian cosmic horror, updating its themes with contemporary anxieties. The films go beyond simple scares to challenge viewers to confront the fragility of knowledge, reality, and identity, giving the trilogy lasting philosophical weight and emotional power.

Stylistic Mastery: Minimalism and Ambiguity

Carpenter’s hallmark minimalist style is a key part of what makes the Apocalypse Trilogy so effective and enduring in its impact. His careful framing often restricts what the audience can see, focusing attention on essential details while leaving much to the imagination. This approach compels viewers to fill in unseen gaps themselves, which creates heightened suspense and engages the viewer’s own fears. Rather than overwhelming the audience with explicit gore or frantic action, subdued movements and carefully controlled pacing allow tension to build slowly and organically. This slow burn style deepens engagement by forcing the audience into a state of heightened alertness and anticipation.

Carpenter’s sound design is equally important to the films’ mood. Low-frequency drones and eerie synth scores envelop viewers in an unsettling sonic atmosphere that mirrors the creeping dread in the story. These soundscapes don’t seek to startle but to create pervasive unease—a feeling that danger lurks just beyond perception. The music often mimics the alien or supernatural presence itself—unpredictable, cold, vast—helping to reinforce themes of existential dread and the incomprehensibility of the cosmic forces involved.

The combination of minimalism in visuals and sound creates a liminal space where reality feels unstable and disorienting. Audiences experience not only the narrative horror but also a profound sense of ambiguity and existential uncertainty. This stylistic restraint deliberately avoids clear answers or visual excess, underlining the theme that the real terror is ineffable and beyond human understanding. The unknown and unseen become the most frightening elements, much in line with the tradition of cosmic horror that Carpenter’s trilogy embodies.

In addition, ambiguity in character behavior and narrative direction invites multiple interpretations. Questions are often left unanswered—What exactly is the alien’s goal? How much control do the characters really have? What is the nature of the “darkness” in Prince of Darkness? This lack of closure compels viewers to wrestle with uncertainty and the limits of human cognition, mirroring the trilogy’s philosophical concerns.

In integrating this stylistic mastery, Carpenter crafts a cinematic experience that is not merely about monsters or scares but about immersing viewers in the unsettling, unstable space where human understanding falters. This immersive uncertainty evokes the core cosmic horror concept: that our place in the universe is fragile, our perceptions unreliable, and the forces around us ultimately unknowable.

Subtextual Depth and Cultural Legacy

These three films transcends traditional horror by engaging deeply with contemporary anxieties about faith, knowledge, identity, and the influence of mass media on how reality is perceived. It reflects the emotional and intellectual struggles of postmodern individuals trying to navigate a fragmented, uncertain world. Rather than offering simple resolution or catharsis, Carpenter’s bleak vision portrays apocalypse as a slow, creeping dissolution of human confidence and coherence. This approach adds philosophical weight and emotional resonance that have secured the trilogy’s lasting impact on horror cinema and cosmic horror traditions.

The films challenge viewers to confront fears beyond the supernatural or monstrous, focusing instead on the fragility of belief systems and the vulnerability of identity in a world where truth is unstable. By threading themes of epistemological uncertainty and spiritual crisis throughout, the trilogy mirrors the postmodern condition, where mass media distorts reality, and personal and collective certainties erode. Carpenter’s work thus becomes an exploration not only of cosmic terror but also of cultural disintegration and psychological fragility.

This subtextual richness extends the trilogy’s legacy beyond genre boundaries, influencing later horror films and narratives that explore existential dread and the human condition’s limits. The trilogy’s refusal to simplify or resolve its themes encourages ongoing reflection on the nature of fear, reality, and human understanding — making it a profound philosophical statement as well as a cinematic achievement.

The Enduring Power of Carpenter’s Dark Vision

The Apocalypse Trilogy by John Carpenter is far more than a collection of horror films; it is a profound meditation on humanity’s fragility, the dissolution of trust, and the shattering of reality itself. Through The Thing, Carpenter explores the primal fear of isolation and the collapse of social bonds when faced with an enemy that hides among us, perfectly embodying the horror of paranoia and mistrust. Moving into Prince of Darkness, the trilogy confronts the collision of science and faith, unraveling the foundations of knowledge and belief as cosmic evil seeps into the rational world and forces characters to confront metaphysical chaos. Finally, In the Mouth of Madness pushes this existential crisis to its zenith, dismantling the very concept of reality and identity through a meta-narrative that implicates not only its characters but also its viewers in the apocalypse of the mind.

What ties these films together, beyond surface narrative dissimilarities, is their shared thematic obsession with the limits of human understanding and the erosion of the self. Each film intensifies the scale of horror—from bodily invasion to spiritual contagion to the complete annihilation of the individual’s perception of reality—revealing Carpenter’s uniquely bleak worldview steeped in Lovecraftian cosmic horror. Through restrained yet evocative stylistic choices, utilizing minimalist visuals and sound design, Carpenter immerses audiences in atmospheres of claustrophobia, dread, and creeping madness. This underlines a core message: true horror lies not in external monsters but in the internal unravelling of everything we rely on—trust, faith, and the coherence of reality.

The Apocalypse Trilogy is a quintessential study of “losing me,” a phrase echoed in In the Mouth of Madness but foreshadowed throughout the series. It captures a universal existential anxiety about identity’s fragility in the face of implacable, incomprehensible forces. Carpenter’s films, in their relentless exploration of despair and dissolution, resist offering hope or redemption, instead presenting apocalypse not as spectacular destruction but as a slow, inevitable erosion of the human condition itself.

John Carpenter’s Apocalypse Trilogy stands as a landmark achievement in horror cinema and cosmic horror literature adaptation. It confronts viewers with unsettling questions about what makes us human and how easily those foundations may crumble. More than a trilogy of scares, it is a dark genius unfolding in three acts—charting a terrifying journey “from isolation to madness” that challenges the very nature of reality, faith, and the self. It demands that we not only watch the horror but reckon with the unsettling possibility that within each of us lies the capacity for both fear and dissolution in equal measure.

Horror Review: Ichi the Killer (dir. by Miike Takashi)

Posted on by Arleigh

Filmmaking in Japan has always thrived on extremes—but not in one uniform direction. On one end lies the haunting, gothic atmosphere of horror steeped in shadows, ritual, and psychological dread; on the other lies the explosion of ultra-violence, pushed to grotesque and sometimes cartoonish heights. This duality mirrors the country’s broader cultural and artistic history, from the impressionistic ritualism of Noh theater and kabuki to the stark contrasts found in ukiyo-e prints. It was inevitable that such traditions would shape Japanese cinema, inspiring films that swing between meditative stillness and overwhelming sensory assault. Few modern filmmakers embody this radical spectrum more vividly than Miike Takashi, the ever-provocative and unapologetically eclectic mad genius of Japanese film.

Trying to find a Western counterpart to Miike often feels impossible. He refuses to be pinned down, leaping from genre to genre with the same restless energy as a filmmaker like Steven Soderbergh, but with far darker, more transgressive tendencies. Yet even in his eclecticism, Miike tends to operate at the polar extremes of Japanese genre filmmaking. One year he delivers chillingly restrained, gothic atmosphere—as seen in Audition or One Missed Call, both sustained by mood, dread, and psychological unease. The next, he unleashes pure ultra-violence, as in Dead or Alive or Ichi the Killer, films that seem designed to push cinematic violence far beyond socially tolerable thresholds. He’s made yakuza dramas, samurai fantasies, children’s stories, westerns, thrillers, and even musicals. To watch Miike is to surrender to unpredictability—but always to expect extremity.

And nowhere is Miike’s fascination with the violent pole more vividly captured than in his infamous 2001 adaptation of Hideo Yamamoto’s manga Ichi the Killer (Koroshiya 1 in Japan). The film remains one of his boldest and most grotesque provocations: hallucinatory, hyper-violent, and defiantly sadomasochistic. If Audition showed Miike at his gothic and restrained, building terror through silence and stillness, then Ichi the Killer does the opposite—it blasts the viewer with sensory chaos, arterial spray, and sadomasochistic spectacle. The result pushes beyond gore into nightmare surrealism, so extreme it resembles Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch refracted through a carnival mirror.

On its surface, the narrative is deceptively straightforward: at its core lies the hunt between two men. Ichi, an emotionally fragile vigilante manipulated into becoming a weapon of destruction, and Kakihara, a flamboyant, sadistic yakuza enforcer who thrives on pain both given and received. While Miike alters aspects of the manga, he retains the dual narrative thread of these two figures spiraling toward an inevitable rooftop showdown high above Tokyo’s neon chaos. Yet to describe the plot too literally is pointless. Miike warps Yamamoto’s crime saga into something closer to a fever dream, a delirious collage of violence and grotesquerie where linear logic is slowly dissolved, leaving behind only sensation.

Where Ichi the Killer separates itself is in its layered subtext of body horror and sadomasochism. Miike is not content with gore alone; he explores the intimate psychology of pain and pleasure, showing their fusion in ways that unsettle. This is established from the film’s beginning, in one of its most infamous moments, when Ichi—lonely, voyeuristic, and lost in disturbing fantasies—masturbates while watching a prostitute being assaulted, climaxing onto a balcony railing. The explicitness shocks, but more importantly, it plants the film’s thematic flag: eroticism polluted by brutality, desire inseparable from cruelty. Miike ensures the audience feels implicated, not just as witnesses but as voyeurs who cannot look away.

Kakihara embodies the other side of this sadomasochistic spectrum. He lives for violence, both inflicting and enduring it. His Glasgow smile—cut into his cheeks years before Ledger’s Joker canonized the image—is carved symbol of his philosophy: rebellion scarred into flesh, grotesque yet strangely glamorous. Much of this impact rests on Tadanobu Asano’s performance. Watching him in this role today, it’s startling to compare Kakihara to his later mainstream work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Thor films) or the prestige Shōgun remake. The actor who once played measured dignity and stoicism there is here unchained, flamboyant, and feral. His Kakihara is rockstar-like, charismatic, terrifying, and magnetic; the performance feels like a primal howl that stands in stark contrast to his more restrained global roles. By the finale, one could argue Kakihara comes closer to the film’s “hero” than Ichi himself, embodying violence not merely as cruelty but as pure identity.

The film unfolds as a series of violent tableaux, each more outrageous than the last, somewhere between grotesque cartoon and waking nightmare. Bodies are mangled, organs splatter, arterial spray bursts like abstract expressionist brushstrokes. Miike pushes the imagery so far it sometimes tips into slapstick, calling to mind Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive. It’s violence past the point of horror, collapsing into absurdist comedy: as if Tom and Jerry were redrawn with box cutters and razor wire. Tarantino’s famous “House of Blue Leaves” sequence in Kill Bill clearly draws inspiration from Miike’s operatic bloodletting.

And yet Ichi the Killer is not mere shock and gore. Beyond its chaotic excess, the film probes violence as spectacle—something audiences recoil from but also consume with fascination. Miike refuses to let the audience off the hook. He doesn’t desensitize; he implicates. Watching Ichi means simultaneously condemning its cruelty and acknowledging our own morbid curiosity. That tension—between gothic atmospheres of dread and gaudy ultra-violence—is where Miike thrives.

This duality makes Ichi the Killer one of the most notorious entries in modern cult cinema. It isn’t for everyone, and was never intended to be. Some audiences will find it unwatchable, others mesmerizing. But what is undeniable is its extremity, one end of the spectrum of Japanese genre filmmaking stretched to breaking point. If Audition embodies Miike’s gothic restraint, Ichi represents his carnival of brutality. Together, they capture the twin poles of his artistry and of Japanese extremity itself. Violence here is more than gore—it is body horror, sadomasochism, and spectacle fused together, a dark carnival Miike dares us to enter and dares us not to look away.

Horror Review: The Sadness (dir. by Rob Jabbaz)

Posted on by Arleigh

Zombie and infection films have long been a proving ground for aspiring horror filmmakers. The subgenre is relatively inexpensive to produce, often relying on claustrophobic settings, survival scenarios, and plentiful blood-and-makeup effects. Because of this, it’s become an enticing entry point for directors looking to make their mark. But while horror can be a forgiving sandbox for experimentation, creating a film that is not just watchable but truly memorable is another matter entirely.

That’s why Rob Jabbaz’s 2021 debut feature The Sadness feels like both a breath of fresh air and a brutal gut-punch. In a cinematic landscape oversaturated with lifeless zombie rehashes, The Sadness stands out as one of the rare gems in the rough: an uncompromising, unfiltered vision that twists infection horror into grotesque new extremes.

The film’s timing alone heightens its impact. Premiering in 2021 as the world was still reeling from COVID-19, The Sadness unfolded against a backdrop of real-world uncertainty and fear. Set in Taipei, it follows a young couple, Jim (Berant Zhu) and Kat (Regina Lei), as they struggle to reunite while a viral outbreak ravages the city. But this isn’t a traditional zombie plague. Those infected don’t stumble through streets in mindless hunger—instead, they shed every shred of empathy and morality, indulging instead in the darkest, most depraved impulses imaginable.

What makes this outbreak particularly disturbing is not the survivalist violence we expect from zombie cinema, but the sadistic cruelty with which the infected embrace their new instincts. They don’t just kill. They torment, torture, and mutilate with gleeful abandon. And yet, in one of the film’s most haunting touches, many of the infected appear to be crying as they carry out these atrocities. Buried deep in the recesses of their corrupted minds is an awareness of the horror of their actions, a recognition that what they are doing is monstrous and wrong. But the virus strips them of the ability to stop themselves, forcing them to participate in their own cruelty even as they mourn it. This paradox of weeping while committing acts of unthinkable violence underlines the film’s title: The Sadness is not simply about gore or shock, but about the profound tragedy of human beings imprisoned within impulses they are horrified to enact.

On its surface, the film invites comparisons to Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later—especially in its depiction of a city descending into viral chaos. But where Boyle’s rage virus unleashed primal anger, Jabbaz’s strain of infection is even more terrifying: it revels in cruelty, poisoning not just the body but the soul. The Sadness also recalls Garth Ennis’ infamous Crossed comic series—widely deemed unfilmable due to its extremes. That connection is impossible to ignore, both in subject matter and in its deliberate transgressiveness.

As writer, editor, and director, Jabbaz approaches the material with unnerving precision. The first act foreshadows the viral threat in subtle ways—background chatter on TV screens, fleeting moments of sudden aggression—before Taipei collapses into anarchy almost overnight. The narrative remains lean and purposeful, stripping away filler in favor of pacing that escalates terror with brutal efficiency.

Shot in just 28 days, the film nevertheless carries an impressive polish. Cinematographer Jie-Li Bai and production designer Liu Chin-Fu infuse the movie with a grounded sense of place: crowded subways, sterile hospitals, bustling street corners. Each environment feels authentically lived-in before they transform, piece by piece, into blood-soaked arenas of carnage. Practical gore effects are prioritized over CGI, and the result is viscerally effective—sickening yet strangely mesmerizing, almost operatic in their execution. Like the best extreme horror, it locates a twisted beauty in its spectacle of destruction.

The Sadness is more than just gore for gore’s sake. Released during the height of a global pandemic, the film functions as a thematic mirror, reflecting society’s fractures under pressure—our denial of crisis, government missteps, selfish impulses, and the darkness that emerges when rules and trust collapse. Whether or not Jabbaz meant the film as a direct allegory is almost irrelevant; in its execution, it feels pandemic-era, uncannily timely, and raw.

Unsurprisingly, the horror community quickly drew parallels to Ennis’ Crossed. The comparison resonated so strongly that Jabbaz himself has since been attached to direct a live-action Crossed adaptation. If The Sadness is any indication, he may be the rare filmmaker with both the vision and the audacity to bring such an “unfilmable” work to life.

From its deceptively calm beginning to its bleak and nihilistic finale, The Sadness never loosens its grip. It is not a film for everyone—many will find it too transgressive, too nihilistic, or simply too traumatic to endure. But for horror fans who crave extremity, who embrace the genre as a place where boundaries should be tested, The Sadness is more than another zombie flick. It is a tragedy as much as it is a nightmare, and the sight of its infected monsters weeping as they commit atrocities lingers long after the credits roll. That image embodies the very essence of the title: a work that confronts not only our capacity for violence, but the unbearable sorrow of being aware of it, powerless, and consumed.

It is a defining statement in 21st-century horror: brutal, relentless, grotesque, and timely. Rob Jabbaz’s debut doesn’t just enter the infection canon—it tears through it, leaving behind a benchmark of modern extreme cinema.

Film Review: The Substance (dir. by Coralie Fargeat)

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

Between Revenge and now The Substance, French filmaker Coralie Fargeat is two for two.

If you are a fan of body horror along the lines of most of David Cronenberg’s films (Scanners, Rabid, Videodrome) and have also managed to dodge any information about Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, stop reading and give it a watch. Easily the best film of 2024 in the “What the hell did I just witness?” category, The Substance is a total experience from start to finish. The winner of Best Screenplay in this year’s Cannes Film Festival, It’s a mix of Death Becomes Her and Multiplicity, but I highly recommend watching it without knowing too much about the film. This makes it hard to write since there are some wild surprises abound and I’m refraining from giving too much away.

Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore, Charlie’s Angels 2) was once a popular star in Hollywood, but that light has faded since she’s grown older. Working in a line of fitness videos isn’t quite the same as making movies, but it helps to keep her afloat. When she overhears her manager, Harvey (Dennis Quaid, The Day After Tomorrow) talking about dropping her for a younger, fresher face, her spirits are hurt. During a doctor’s visit, she is gifted a flash drive labelled “The Substance”, which explains a set of rules to unlock “a better version of yourself”. Elisabeth eventually takes the plunge and as a result, her better version is revealed. The rules for The Substance are as strict as the ones in Gremlins, requiring great care for both bodies to maintain an optimum efficiency for the week each one gets to play.

After giving her new self a name, Sue (Margaret Qualley, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) decides to take on the duties and auditions that Elisabeth couldn’t get. As Sue’s popularity grows, so does her desire for more time. This leads to changes for both Sue and Elisabeth, as each side fights to hold on to their life (or lives). Can Sue and Elisabeth find a way to coexist without going at each other’s throats?

For The Substance, Fargeat’s filming style is a mix of colorful extreme close shots and fast changes between scenes. At least, this is how I perceived it. Dennis Quaid’s character is made to seem larger than life and repulsive, so we tend to get close ups of him eating and smoking while talking. Sue’s scenes are bright, rich and colorful. Elizabeth’s scenes are more standard. All in all, it gives the whole film a creep factor in that most of the shots feel nearly intrusive on their subjects. The horror starts off small, but escalates quite well. Fargeat has a way of making even the smallest of scenes (like throwing out garbage) something to cringe over. The sound quality in this movie is wild, reminiscent of what Leigh Whannell used for Upgrade. The creaking of bones echo. The voice on the phone feels like it’s right in your ear and fluids are extremely squishy. I winced, I laughed, and most importantly, I found myself muttering “What the hell?!” a few times.

Performance wise, the film belongs to both Moore and Qualley and they carry the film effortlessly. As Elisabeth, Demi is both haunted and courageous. At 62, this is a performance unlike anything I’ve see her do before and it reminded me of Nicole Kidman in The Hours or Charlize Theron in Monster. While her changes might not be as great for the Golden Globes with both Amy Adams, Mickey Madison and Cynthia Erivo in the mix, she deserves the accolades for what she puts herself though. I also wouldn’t be shocked if Moore’s name reaches the Oscars. Qualley is just as great, with Sue equally enjoying her fame and finding herself disgusted with who she’s sharing this life with. Note that there is a lot of nudity in the film, but given the situations both characters are in, I felt it made sense for the film.

Overall, The Substance is a wonderful off-kilter showing by Coralie Fargeat. It makes for a great late night film to watch that may make you wince, shudder and perhaps even cover your mouth once or twice. .