Culture
Anatomy of a Fall Is a Stunning Experiment in Unknowability
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In 1990, Jens Soering and Elizabeth Haysom were found guilty of the murders of Haysom’s parents. Haysom, who testified against Soering, claimed that he had committed the crime alone,…
James Kennedy: “Storytellers are manipulative cult leaders.”
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I missed my chance to be in a cult. In my twenties, a guy on the street handed me a pamphlet to join a “communal farm”—an obvious cult. Nevertheless,…
Sudden Death and the Startlement of Absence
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Sudden Death is a dirty business. It touches you, and there’s no rubbing it off. Scrub until you bleed. No dice—it remains. Maybe that’s why I keep writing about…
Confessions of a Serial Anthology Editor
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My parents moved to Paris in France for work when I was only three years old. As a result, not only did I become bilingual (and was once capable…
On the Uncanny Delights of the The Invisible Man
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I wish so badly that I could have seen The Invisible Man in 1933 when it premiered in theaters. The film is a carnival of early special effects, a…
Spooky Shenanigans for Halloween
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I’m such a sucker for holidays. I love to completely immerse myself in a theme: holiday decorations, holiday meals, holiday baking. As soon as the leaves start to turn…
David Fincher’s The Killer is a Winking Investigation into the Limits of Control
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In his foreword to Adam Nayman’s “David Fincher: Mind Games,” director Bong Joon-ho explains his personal dichotomy for classifying films, dividing them into “curvilinear” (like those of Federico Fellini…
Goosebumps Remixes Its Source Material to Satisfying Results
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Adapting a property like Goosebumps, R.L. Stine’s beloved series of children’s horror novels, for the big (or small) screen in 2023 is a tricky proposition. Each of the sixty-two…