Quiet Little Horrors

We continue our Suspiria discussion by taking a look at the original 1977 film, which we overall like better than the newer version. We talk about the context of giallo, the film’s visual and audio flair and the mysteries of the connections between women.

This month we take on both incarnations of the Italian horror staple Suspiria, beginning with the 2018 version—of which, spoiler alert, we are not terribly fond. We’ll discuss what the new one adds and what the new one is missing, with a detour to praise performances and a couple of set pieces.

Hallucinations, apparitions and doppelgangers, oh my. Director Robert Altman’s only foray into horror film is a rich psychological landscape where Susannah York battles fears, insecurities and reality itself. We discuss the various layers of theme and metaphor, the stunning contributions from the filmmaking team and the complex woman at the heart of the story. This is the kind of film we made this podcast for.

Are women losing their minds or is it just Satan? So hard to tell. We kick off a month of women experiencing questionable reality with a brief discussion about Rosemary’s Baby.

This month we talk about the grand dame of the “Grand Dame Guignol” genre: Robert Aldrich’s 1962 film, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? We discuss the horror the movies make of women aging, the twisted relationships between competive women and the dark psychology behind the demands of showbiz. Plus: Bette Davis and Joan Crawford gossip drama.

Strangers, ghosts, illnesses, possessions, impotence, murders and legends meet and mix in 2016’s The Wailing, an exquisite piece of South Korean folk horror. We discuss the film’s twists and turns, its intersection of religion and folklore, and the way it reflects and heightens the confusion of the modern world..

We begin a month of South Korean film with Parasite, a movie that isn’t horror but isn’t not horror either. We discuss its unique yet universal perspectives, how expertly it uses metaphor and subtext and the darkness it reveals at every level.

Cinematic gothic horror gone wild, Crimson Peak is a lush, romantic descent into visual styling and spectacular terror. We discuss the tradition of gothic horror, how to interpret this film in the context of its influences and the power of what’s underneath its flourish.

We begin our descent into florid, sensational gothic horror cinema with 1960s The House of Usher. We discuss how Roger Corman and Vincent Price bring Edgar Allan Poe to technicolor life and how the classic story elements set a new standard for gothic horror in film.

As a classic adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting is one of the all-time great psychological horror films. We discuss how it employs character, atmosphere and subtext to create fear, how it depicts the societal contraints placed on midcentury women and how it gets Shirley Jackson right.