Streaming on Prime Video as of April 21st is the gender-swapped miniseries reimagining of David Cronenberg's twin horror classic Dead Ringers (1988).
Rue Morgue issue #212 features an interview with DEAD RINGERS series creator Alice Birch and star Rachel Weisz.
In celebration of that cover story, please check out my review of the series on Rue-Morgue.com!
It was a stroke of genius by the team behind DEAD RINGERS to task the one and only Rachel Weisz with bringing the Mantles back to life. Her portrayal of the twins is at once wholly original, yet recognizable and familiar to fans of the film. DEAD RINGERS’ other stroke of genius was conceiving of the horrific opportunity presented by twin sisters with the medical skills and knowledge to impregnate each other. The premise of DEAD RINGERS is simple – Beverly wants to have a baby, just not with Elliot. What lengths will her sister go through to ensure that Beverly never leaves her side?
Even without the recent release of EVIL DEAD RISE, 2023 was going to be a huge year for the Evil Dead franchise. The Evil Dead – which premiered in Detroit, Michigan in 1981 – was widely released to the public in 1983, a whole forty years ago. Thirty years later and a decade ago, Fede Álvarez’s 2013 reboot premiered at South By Southwest Film Festival and saw its own wide release later that year. In honor of these landmark anniversaries in horror, and in celebration of the success of EVIL DEAD RISE, join me on a journey back in time to track the evolution of this beloved horror franchise, birthed from the zany mind of the incomparable Sam Raimi.
With seven new singles out since 2022, Calabasas native Baby Jane is taking the alternative music world by storm with her self-described industrial pop, which infuses electric pop-rock with occult imagery and dark lyrics that explore feelings of devotion, desperation, and self-destruction. Most recently, Baby Jane released her first single of 2023, “If the Devil Looked Like You” - a stand-out track for the mosh pit or the dancefloor. In honor of the song’s release, I had the unique pleasure of chatting with Baby Jane about her love of horror and her upcoming work for Rue Morgue.
2023 is off to a killer start for the horror film community. Already we've had a blockbuster (M3GAN dir. Gerard Johnstone), a sleeper hit (Skinamarink dir. Kyle Edward Ball), and a third feature from a certain legacy filmmaker (Infinity Pool dir. Brandon Cronenberg). In addition, I have had the unique pleasure of reviewing three new releases from indie filmmakers: The Outwaters, Attachment, and Consecration.
Attachment, in particular, was quite a stand-out - a queer love story and supernatural horror film sourced from Jewish folklore. Written and directed by first-time feature film director Gabriel Bier Gislason, and inspired by the life of lead actress Josephine Park, Attachment is a unique tale of possession and exorcism that departs from the Catholic script that has dominated the sub-genre for decades. Check out my recent work for Rue Morgue, here!
Experimental lo-fi horror sensation SKINAMARINK is sweeping the nation this weekend with its limited theatrical run courtesy of Shudder. Despite a few obvious jump scares, the creepy aesthetic, and the heavily suggested violence against young children, critics and viewers alike are left scratching their heads over what exactly makes the film so frightening. Largely plotless and riding on its undeniably unnerving premise, SKINAMARINK relies on the dark side of mid-90s nostalgia to create its eerily familiar mood.
Lucas Paul as Kevin in SKINAMARINK
Cover of Ethel Cain's EP "Carpet Bed"
The simple synopsis for SKINAMARINK reads as follows: “Two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing, and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished.” The premise manifests in a spectacularly creepy fashion. Furniture appears on the ceiling, toys cling to the walls, and a demonic voice leads the children to their doom. And in between the film’s more explicitly frightening sequences are countless shots of carpeted floors, wood-paneled walls, and the molding of doorways and baseboards.
SKINAMARINK
Ethel Cain
Cain
There is an undeniable appeal to the nostalgia of a certain breed of middle-class Americans who grew up in the 90s and early 2000s. But not the warm and fuzzy nostalgia that makes you long for the carefree comfort of childhood. Oh no, this is the kind of repressed memory nightmare fuel that will make you remember sleepless nights and seeing the darkness around you form formidable shapes. SKINAMARINK conjures the fear only a child can have - a complete feeling of helplessness, and a desire for a parent’s protection.
SKINAMARINK
Cain
Also central to the visual language of SKINAMARINK is the horror that lies in images of everyday scenes or objects, stifled by a horrible sense of dread hanging overhead. In such uneasy circumstances, a lingering shot of a doll, crayon, lego, or Fisher Price Chatter Telephone can form a dark ball of fear in the pit of your stomach. The kinds of images used by the filmmakers of SKINAMARINK point to an ethos of finding horror in the most mundane settings - an instinct shared by multimodal artist and indie musician Ethel Cain.
Dali Rose Tetreault as Kaylee in SKINAMARINK
"Preacher's Daughter" Album Cover
Inspired by the Southern Gothic, true crime, and her religious upbringing, Cain’s music and storytelling paint a horrifying portrait of life in the American South for a young queer woman. Cain’s music and promotional images bring to life a world full of decay, abuse, desperation, and despair, primarily through the use of unsettling domestic imagery. Not unlike SKINAMARINK’s writer/director Kyle Edward Ball, Cain sees the inside of the home as a site of immense horror. The specter of a traumatic childhood haunts Cain’s fictional world as well as Ball’s.
It is in these everyday settings that the most disturbing feelings can be evoked in a viewer or listener. In Ball and Cain’s work, a place that is meant to be safe is subverted into a metaphysical prison of sorts. SKINAMARINK and Cain’s debut album Preacher’s Daughter both use the power of suggestion to hint at a family tragedy or crisis that propels the central child characters into their respective nightmares. As the souls of the children inhabiting the home are corrupted in SKINAMARINK, the character of Ethel is driven from her home by her trauma, toward a life on the road that will end in her violent death.
While SKINAMARINK depicts the monochromatic and nearly-identical nature of new-build suburban homes, Cain’s world is a much more decrepit one, full of aging houses in a dead-end town. The home is an inescapable place for her characters, who are oppressed by religion, domestic abuse, and lack of means to escape. While most works that evoke nostalgic emotions make us wish to be children again, listening to Ethel Cain or watching SKINAMARINK will do the opposite. More likely, instead, is a deep gratitude to have made it out alive.
Stills sourced from SKINAMARINK (2022) dir. Kyle Edward Ball and @mothercain on tumblr.com.
