There is a specific kind of vulnerability found in long-term partnerships, especially ones that navigate disability and medical conditions. I’m not talking about emotional vulnerability where you tell each other your traumas and feel naked in front of them. I’m talking about literally being naked. Being showered by your partner because your injuries or chronic pain flareups mean you can’t wash your own hair or body. Or having them drain your bodily fluids from medical bags after an invasive surgery. There’s a biological vulnerability to standing naked in front of another person and needing them to manipulate your body, the parts of you that are meant to be on the inside, solely for your own survival. As a disabled person in a long-term relationship, it’s a kind of love that I’m grateful to experience. And one I’ve never seen so accurately and evocatively portrayed as in the film Honey Bunch (2025).

Honey Bunch is a thriller that ruminates on the vulnerability of domestic partnerships, and the extremes of caretaking and devotion, especially when injury, disability or medical conditions are present. It’s an artsy psychological thriller reminiscent of a 1970’s hysteria-coded paranoia horror. Starring Grace Glowicki and Ben Petrie, Honey Bunch is from part-British-part-Canadian filmmaking duo Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli.

If you’ve read any of my previous writing, you’ll know that I like films that give insight into underrepresented social experiences by evoking uncomfortable emotions. Also, that I’m often frustrated by modern films that perpetuate tropes of disability. While I don’t necessarily see this film as a clear-cut allegory, the film posits several questions that have been present in my experience with disability. How do I maintain autonomy and control over my physical body? Over my female body? As I age? When it feels like my body and mind are actively working against me? And especially, am I worthy of love when I’m at my worst? Through narrative and genre, Honey Bunch evokes feelings of helplessness, fear, and tenderness, expertly crafting a visceral tale about the physical body and devotion.

NARRATIVE AND DEVOTION

After a car accident, husband Homer (Petrie) takes his wife Diana (Glowicki) to a remote experimental treatment centre called Retrouvaille pioneered by Dr. Trephine (Patricia Tulasne). But as Diana begins her rehabilitation, it’s clear that something isn’t quite right, and Homer may be involved. We watch as Diana undergoes a series of tests with strobe lights and analog clicking sounds, and sees frightening visions of vomiting, lobotomies, and a mysterious woman who looks eerily familiar.

As her paranoia swells, Diana decides to flee but instead stumbles directly upon the eerily familiar woman who we now see is Diana, just with shorter hair. After chasing her twin through the forest, we get the big reveal: Dr. Trephine’s methods are not typical. We learn that Dr. Trephine has been cloning her patients through a method she developed. Not explicitly supernatural or occult, though not strictly scientific either, the method aims to regenerate the patient’s body and insert their consciousness into the clone, with varying success. The copies that fail to meet the criteria of success, whether that be due to a physical or mental ailment, all live in a dorm-like hospital room until their impending deaths.

After this revelation, Diana continues her attempt to flee but is halted by the sudden memory of the moments before her accident. In a car-ride conversation about love and commitment, Homer states “devotion is sublimely romantic” to which Diana responds, “I think devotion’s just a fancy word for obligation” (1:09:51-1:09:56). This scene is important to the film’s thesis question because it both confirms how Homer and Diana feel about devotion and gives the audience an opportunity to consider which side they’re on. We learn in this conversation that Homer doesn’t believe in soulmates. He believes you must work for love—that is true devotion. Diana, however, finds that profoundly unromantic. Since we’ve just discovered the Diana “rejects”, the audience is perfectly primed to side with Diana. She doesn’t believe that Homer has the stomach for true long-term devotion, with the responsibilities of aging and failing bodies. In the car, they joke and laugh, something about a prolapsed anus and faces turning into grizzly bears. Moments later the car crashes.

When Diana awakes from this dream-like memory, Homer and the hospital staff have arrived to take her back to the hospital to prepare for her release. Later that night, the Final Diana (as I’ll refer to her from now on) sneaks away to the hospital room to free the other Dianas. When she hears someone coming, she hides in a closet and Homer enters the room to check on each of the Dianas one by one. After cleaning her wounds and changing her bandages, Homer and one of the Dianas sing the 1926 song Tonight You Belong to Me as though they’ve done this a million times before. As they interact with one another, the love they have for each other is apparent. Through lyrics like “I know with the dawn that you will be gone, but tonight you belong to me,” their song emphasizes how passion, devotion, and maybe even obsession or possession, can be experienced in connections that are brief, temporary, or ultimately doomed. But what’s most important about this moment is that, witnessing the whole affair, the Final Diana realizes she was wrong about Homer. For better or worse, she sees how truly devoted he is to her, to literally every version of her.

Eventually, Diana steps out of the closet where she’s been hiding and her and Homer realize the building has been set on fire. They try to save everyone together, but only Diana, a severely injured Homer, and a few hospital staff make it out alive. The scene fades out and the film transitions to its final scene. Ending where we began, the same setting but with different stakes, Diana carries her injured husband Homer out into the water in a role-reversal moment that leaves us again with the thesis question: How far will we go for the ones we love?

GENRE AND NEW WEIRD

The reason that Honey Bunch is so effective in its representation of devotion and the role physical bodies play in a long-term partnership is in large part because of genre. The subgenre new weird pulls elements from horror, science fiction, and fantasy, resulting in a sort-of heightened reality. Examples of the genre include the overlapping cities of Beszel and Ul Qoma in China Miéville’s (2009) The City and the City or, my personal favourite, the environmental anomaly Area X in Jeff Vandermeer’s (2014) Annihilation. As Soyka (2009) wrote in their review of Ann & Jeff Vandermeer’s (2008) anthology The New Weird, “[the genre is] weird, but at the same time very much like our own reality.” Because of its emulation of real life, new weird is one of the best methods to evoke an emotional response. With new weird, the veil between fabulation and reality becomes thinner making it the perfect vessel for a visceral experience.

Honey Bunch hits the new weird nail right on the head. The story itself is a familiar one of a couple navigating the aftermath of an accident, but elements of horror and science fiction grant the audience insight into what Diana is feeling: the paranoia, the dismissiveness of those around her, and, of course, the fear. The cinematography pulls influence from many classic horror-thrillers like The Shining (1980), giving us quick 70s-style camera zooms. On one occasion, we see the camera zoom out suddenly on Diana standing on the cliff side. The tiny image of her among the trees accentuates her helplessness and isolation. Additionally, the sci-fi-like body horror is influenced by real bodily functions such as giving birth and recovering from serious injury. I would even argue that there are elements of fantasy and surrealism within Diana’s mind, or in the garden, forest, and underground pit of liquid from which the clones emerge.

My favourite element that supports the visceral experience of the film is its horror-influenced sound design and composition. Common elements of a horror soundtrack include classical music, synthesizers, foley sounds, and ambient soundscapes. I’d also add that a good horror soundtrack is dramaturgically satisfying, meaning it reflects the narrative and thematic elements of the story. Pulling out all the stops, Honey Bunch combines an original score by Andrea Boccadoro with a carefully curated list of bizarre oldies. Through eerie vocalizations, orchestral crescendos, and violin creaks, Boccadoro’s composition acts as a tension-building foundation for the film, often clueing us into the anxiety and paranoia Diana is feeling. While most of the oldies reflect the themes of tenderness and devotion, there are also songs like I Worn My Elbow by Ivor Cutler and A Livin’ Man by Henri Lanoe which weave in themes of the “working man”, connecting Homer’s philosophy about devotion and partnership to traditional gender roles. These songs often take on a sinister tone, with their melancholic melodies and lyrics that can be interpreted multiple ways. The clearest example of this is when Homer and one of the Dianas sing Tonight You Belong to Me. This song is both sweet and haunting, with lyrics that include themes of obsession, possession, and of course, devotion.

Together, all these elements, from genre and narrative to camerawork and sound design, force its audience to engage with complex human emotions like isolation, tenderness, and fear. By focusing on these emotions in relation to physical bodies, the film hits on many conversations that are relevant to disabled communities. While I’ve obviously revealed some spoilers, Honey Bunch is rich with symbolism and imagery, meaning there is still plenty to discover by watching it yourself. And I highly recommend that you do.

-Maria

Subscribe now

Here are some other things I’ve written:

Let’s Begin: A note from the author of Horror Addenda

Ari Aster, you’ve let me down: An inquiry into this filmmaker’s devolution

A Love Letter to the Blair Witch

5 Horror Styles I Love—and a Movie You’ve Probably Missed for Each

The Woes of an Accidental Contrarian: A Psychoanalytical Journey Through My Personal Feelings About Horror

This question started percolating in my brain in the Fall when I saw Weapons (2025) and didn’t really like the movie. I can acknowledge it’s not a bad movie; I described it as a “fun horror romp”, but considering it a top movie of the year? Even a top horror movie? Absolutely not. Maybe I’m jaded from their first film Barbarian’s (2022) lazy portrayal of a disabled body as the monster, but this was not the first time I felt impassioned by my distaste for a new, widely adored horror movie. I talk about this a bit in my piece on Ari Aster and how I accidentally convinced a friend that they didn’t like Midsommar (2019), despite their initial positive reaction. However, I’ve been in therapy long enough to understand that if I’m having such an emotional response to how other people feel about something this trivial, then there must be something a little deeper going on for me. So, here I am, ready to delve into how and why my personal experiences have informed my opinions on horror films.

Horror movies that I dislike will typically have at least one of the following characteristics:

Characteristic A: The movie perpetuates something problematic, whether that be via outdated horror tropes, stereotypes, or a misrepresentation of marginalized identities.

Characteristic B: The movie relies on shock factor, gore, and jump scares but doesn’t draw on anything real, it isn’t dramaturgically satisfying and doesn’t exercise any critical thinking.

For Characteristic A, it’ll be helpful if I quickly define what I mean by a new horror movie. I’m specifically referring to movies 2020 onward. This distinction is important because the major global shift in 2020 resulted in me holding many things to a different standard than I would’ve before. From then on, we saw a rise in social movements such as Land Back, Black Lives Matter, labour movements, and many more. Especially in the live performing arts sector, where I work, standards began to really shift in terms of appropriate consultation, prioritizing diversity, and improving working conditions. While I understood at varying levels the importance of these movements prior to 2020, the global awareness the pandemic brought has lowered the level of ignorance I’m willing to tolerate. Therefore, I am much less likely to give a new movie the benefit of the doubt like I would a classic such as The Silence of the Lambs (1991) with its transgender representation (if you can call it that). Essentially, with Characteristic A, the movie is offensive in a way that I deem unacceptable based on our current socio-political-human-rights landscape, so I lose respect for it. This is Barbarian and almost all of Ari Aster’s films for me. I can’t help but take personally films that, even subtly and implicitly, perpetuate society’s lack of humanity. This feels obvious to me (and if this feels dramatic to you then just wait until you hear my thoughts on the Emerald Fennell Wuthering Heights adaptation which I’ve neither read nor seen).

Characteristic B, however, is where our psychoanalytical journey really begins. By analyzing my connection to The Blair Witch Project (1999) in my piece A Love Letter to the Blair Witch, I discovered that horror was a way of connecting to feelings I was experiencing but didn’t have words for yet: anxiety, sadness, fear, shame, the ones that hit you in the gut before the head. From a young age, I had difficult life experiences that shaped who I am. These experiences resulted in things like an anxiety disorder, depression, CPTSD, body dysmorphia, etc., etc. I have plenty of support systems in place, but the long and short of it is that not much scares me anymore.

However, this in and of itself doesn’t answer my question. Just because I can handle a decent amount of horror content, doesn’t mean I should be personally offended that someone else enjoyed a movie… but then I had an experience at work where it all clicked into place. I was working with someone whose behaviour felt ignorant and privileged, and I took it very personally. My emotional reaction was bizarrely similar to what I’ve been describing with new horror. I realized I was feeling protective of my own lived experiences and that that applies to both scenarios. I felt like I didn’t get to move with ease in the way this colleague did, because their identity gives them access to certain assumptions or freedoms that I don’t have. Just like my lived experiences means I can’t always enjoy a movie that everyone else is enjoying. At the core of both reactions, my “annoyance” or “entitlement” or however I choose to label it that day, is rooted in the feeling of, “well, I don’t have that luxury.”

I acknowledge that this is an illogical way of thinking, that I honestly don’t know if this work acquaintance even has it easy per se, that it comes from the intersections of trauma and marginalization I’ve experienced and is therefore rooted in ego and pride. I acknowledge how unreasonable it is to feel annoyed with someone because they felt differently than me, navigate the world differently from me, it’s not a good reason to feel annoyed. But it is the reason. Horror has always been a way for me to connect to the vulnerable, darker, more challenging parts of who I am, and it was a way of doing that long before I understood that’s what it was. I guess I’m often chasing that feeling I get from what I deem a good horror, feeling understood, empowered, seen, not alone. Basically, I’m looking for a film that gets it. Horror feels like who I am, and so I am protective over it, for better or for worse. All this to say, I’m working on it.

So, let’s talk about the parameters for me to like a new horror movie. It’s basically, if you can believe it, the opposite of the above. I want movies that evoke what feels like personalized scares, promotes introspection about how we navigate the world, lets my imagination run rampant, or tells emotionally impactful stories through affect. These films are often low budget and best watched alone in the dark. Think movies like Skinamarink (2022), We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021), and honourable mention to my not-new but all-time-fav The Blair Witch Project. These are movies that, through familiar images (e.g., old toys, era-specific architecture), durational sequences without relief, isolated environments, limited or unreliable point of views, have made me reconcile with what it means to be alone with myself, my traumas, my thoughts. On top of that, I’m much more likely to love a film if it uses horror elements to push a progressive or underrepresented socio-political message. Movies like His House (2020) which is an allegory on the UK’s refugee system, or Hereditary (2018) which ruminates on the impacts of gender roles and intergenerational trauma. These films allow the audience to feel rather than think, they leave little to no room for relief, forcing you to reconcile with any emotion that comes up.

Ultimately, with Weapons, the constant humour providing relief, the dramaturgical holes, and the speculation around the film’s use of AI in its marketing, meant that it set off too many flags for me to truly enjoy it despite it being a good movie in other ways. I’m still excited for new horrors that follow the lead of Get Out (2017) in its socio-political critique or Skinamarink in its experimental nostalgia, films that don’t fall back on tired tropes or cheap tricks. Until then, at least I’ll have plenty to write about on my blog.

-Maria

Subscribe now

Here are some other things I’ve written:

Let’s Begin: A note from the author of Horror Addenda

Ari Aster, you’ve let me down: An inquiry into this filmmaker’s devolution

A Love Letter to the Blair Witch

5 Horror Styles I Love—and a Movie You’ve Probably Missed for Each

So, if you haven’t picked your Halloween horror movie(s) yet, I’ve made it easy for you. Here are 5 horror styles that I love and a (maybe) hidden gem movie for each! Please forgive any typos, my dyslexia tends to hit overdrive at the end of a day. But despite being busy, working on this piece has been a welcome source of decompression.

1. Found Footage – We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021)

In this creepypasta-adjacent found footage film from writer and director Jane Schoenbrun, we watch through a webcam as young teen Casey experiences the physical and psychological effects of the online, viral “World’s Fair Challenge”. Think Bloody Mary meets the Ice Bucket Challenge. I’ve seen a lot of found footage films and this one immediately went into my Fav Movies document (which I created to avoid that awkward moment when someone asks you what your favourite movie is and you forget every movie that has ever existed). If you’ve seen Schoenbrun’s most recent film, I Saw the TV Glow (2024) then you may be familiar with their affinity for creepypastas, but other than that and the coming-of-age undertones, there isn’t much in common with these two films, especially not aesthetically. In contrast to the sharpness and vividity of I Saw the TV Glow, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair takes its viewer on a gritty, low-res journey. I don’t want to give too much away but if you watch it, you’ll have to tell me what you think of how the film ends.

2. Socio-Political Allegory – His House (2020)

If you’ve read my Ari Aster piece, you’ll know I’m into films that represent human experience through horror— His House (2020) is that and then some. A story of a couple, Bol and Rial (played by Sopé Dìrísù and Wunmi Mosaku), escaping war-torn South Sudan, who, after a treacherous journey by boat, are granted probational asylum in Britain and assigned a dilapidated home. An allegory on the British refugee system, His House informs the viewer through emotion, rather than information. Powerfully poignant and hauntingly real, the horror elements of the film allow the audience insight into the affectual experience of asylum seekers in a way that no literal storytelling could.

There was a documentary I was shown in school, I really wish I could remember the name, about Virtual Reality documentaries where the viewer can experience a classroom in a developing country “firsthand”. This concept was meant to combat traditional documentaries, which allow audiences to stay removed emotionally, by putting its viewers directly into a child’s POV. In theory, it’s a great idea to evoke an affective reaction in someone who maybe wouldn’t have connected as deeply otherwise. However, there are some major problems, too. In the documentary, they explained that by nature of filming the VR experience, the authenticity of the setting is compromised (insert image of a classroom of children from a developing country told to act natural with a giant VR camera in one of the school chairs beside them). It’s an interesting question though: whether we can truly understand someone else’s experience. What I love about His House, is that, instead of trying to make its audience empathize through a literal storytelling, instead of trying to make you understand what they went through, the film uses horror to make you feel what Bol and Rial were feeling. Also, if you know what documentary I’m talking about, please let me know so I can link it properly!

3. Monster of the Week – Impetigore (2019)

Impetigore (2019) is an Indonesian folk horror film about Maya (Tara Basro) returning to her family’s remote village in search of an inheritance, bringing along her best friend Dini (Marissa Anita). With a storyline that is reminiscent of an early episode of Supernatural (2005-2020)—which, from me, is meant as a very high compliment—Impetigore has great acting, gruesome imagery, and masterful camerawork. One of the film’s highlights for me is that the cinematography often takes on a life of its own, raising the tension by giving us information that the main characters aren’t afforded. It’s dark, it’s bloody, there is throat-slitting galore, and it’s easily my favourite film that I watched this year.

I mentioned in my introduction post that I’ve been building a Foundational Horror Movie list. Essentially, a list that every horror movie buff needs to complete to call themselves a horror movie buff. I’ve been working on it for a couple years, and the beauty of it is that it will never be done, it’s always evolving. This year, I’ve been really interested in moving away from American or English-speaking films and incorporating what is foundational globally. I originally watched Impetigore (2019) for this reason on a recommendation from a friend and it immediately went on the list. That being said, the list is still lacking in terms of international representation, so, please send more recommendations if you’ve got them!

4. A Good Ol’ Haunted House – Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire (2019)

This is for my niche theatre-making-performing-arts-horror-loving audience. Haunted house films are a mainstay of the genre and there are so many movies that could take this spot on the list, but I wanted to pick one that you maybe wouldn’t watch otherwise, plus it’s another found footage—sorry!! I just love the stuff!

Hell House LLC III: Lake of Fire (2019), which I will just call Hell House III from now on, is a found footage film set in small-town Pennsylvania at the fictional Abaddon Hotel. In this third instalment, the hotel has been slated for demolition after many deaths and disappearances but is saved by wealthy playwright Russell Wynn (Gabriel Chytry) who has purchased the Abaddon hotel to be the setting of his next immersive horror production titled Insomnia. It’s full of satisfying chuckles for its campiness, especially for those who know the performing arts sector, and there are also some seriously freaky sequences thanks to the found footage POV.

You don’t really need to watch the first two movies to enjoy this one, but if I’m REALLY recommending, I’d say do a double bill of Hell House LLC and Hell House III, you can just skip the second. Even though the script and acting are only okay, the Hell House franchise has a charm that I keep returning to. A little corny, a little spooky, but perfect for a Halloween movie night with a group.

5. ????? – Cuckoo (2024)

Cuckoo (2024) is the perfect watch as the weather gets chillier and winter sets in. Set at a mountain lodge that is soon-to-be developed into an alpine hotel, the film follows Gretchen (Hunter Schafer), a teenager who has just moved to the German Alps with her estranged father, stepmother and younger half-sister. After getting a job at the mountain lodge’s front desk, Gretchen notices several strange incidents. With a Shining-like bizarreness, Gretchen unravels the sinister circumstances surrounding her, the hotel, and her family.

In my opinion, Cuckoo was slept on, probably because it came out a few weeks after Long Legs (2024), and it warrants more attention. With Hunter Schafer in the lead role, and the subtle commentary on found family, it’s a queer cult-classic in the making (you heard it here first). I’ve kept the trope I love the most in this film a secret because I think revealing it ruins the film a bit, but I’m curious if you can figure out what it is.

Also, if you live in the Greater Vancouver area and want to see the results of my current busy-ness, my organization Rumble Theatre has a theatrical co-production coming up with ITSAZOO. A dark, razor-sharp theatrical thriller by Emmy-winning writer of Succession, Lucy Prebble, The Effect dives into the chemical nature of love through the lens of a clinical drug trial.

Subscribe now

Here are some other things I’ve written:

Ari Aster, you’ve let me down: An inquiry into this filmmaker’s devolution

A Love Letter to the Blair Witch

My favourite horror movies tend to be the ones that take risks and have significance to the generation in which they were released, often defining a subgenre and therefore redefining the horror genre entirely. For example, The Shining (1980) was a slow, psychological horror at a time when horror was defined by slashers and Jaws (1975). The Silence of the Lambs (1991) popularized crime thrillers. There’s the Saw franchise (2004-2009) which, up until a year ago, was in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the most successful horror franchise ever—only recently beaten out by The Conjuring franchise (2013-2025). It’s so exciting every time a cultural impact like this occurs because it means we’re not done yet. There are new ideas. They may be inspired by old ideas, but it’s that redefinition that really gets me going. (It’s also why I get a teensy bit annoyed when movies market themselves as, for example, “The Silence of the Lambs of our generation” and then that movie turns out to be Long Legs (2024), but that’s beside the point.) Anyway, this is obviously the category in which I place The Blair Witch Project. Redefining the found footage genre and beguiling the audience with whether it was real or not, TBWP was a brand new, unrepeatable phenomenon both behind the scenes and for the public.

Last year, on a limited-edition Blu-ray re-release of The Blair Witch Project, the filmmakers also included the brand new The Blair Witch Documentary (2024). With a runtime of 2.5 hours, this behind-the-scenes documentary elaborates on the making, release, and reception of TBWP. By delving deeper into all the inconceivable factors that made the movie what it is, this documentary really solidified my love for the film. So, for the next several paragraphs, I am essentially going to rave about The Blair Witch Project, both how it was made and how it makes me feel. There are some quirks, its imperfect, and I’ll mention those but mostly, this is a love letter to the film that, for me, defines horror.

A COMPLEX CULTURAL PHENOMENON

When recent film school grads Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez (along with the rest of the Haxan Films co-founders), first conceived of The Blair Witch Project, they thought of it as a small project that would hopefully seed their future films. From the start, they just wanted to make something spooky. A core value they stuck to all throughout the production process. If you don’t know, TBWP is a found footage, indie film about three filmmakers, Heather, Mike and Josh, who go into the Black Hills Forest near Burkitsville, Maryland to film a documentary about the Blair Witch. The movie begins with the text:

(Myrick & Sánchez, 1999, 00:00:44-00:00:55)

When The Blair Witch Project was released, audiences didn’t know whether it was real or not. It quickly became one of the most successful indie films of all time. With a budget of under 60K USD, the film made over 248 million dollars worldwide. My intention isn’t for this piece to turn into a 2.5-hour documentary about the making of TBWP because that already exists and you can go watch it, but there are a few striking behind-the-scenes details that can’t go unmentioned. Starting with the actors. In my opinion, it was the actors, Rei Hance (birth name Heather Donahue), Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams, who made this movie the cultural phenomenon that it is. I don’t say that to discredit the work of writer/director/editors Myrick, Sánchez and the rest of the Haxan Films team who worked so hard to make it happen. It is, however, inarguable that this film would not be what it is without the actors.

Originally, the filmmakers had intended for The Blair Witch Project to follow a more traditional documentary style utilizing interviews, talking heads, and voice over, with a short chunk of “found footage” featuring the hired actors used primarily at the end. However, what the actors were able to accomplish with just a 35-page outline script and what can only be described as an improvised scavenger-hunt-obstacle-course with a narrative was so believable and expertly executed that Myrick & Sánchez made the choice to only use the “found footage.” The first of many examples where a less-is-more attitude contributed to the film’s success.

Allow me to explain what I mean by “improvised scavenger-hunt-obstacle-course with a narrative.” With a GPS to guide them to various “drop points,” the actors got into character (which was made easier by using their real names) and were sent into the forest for several days to camp with a few Hi-8s and a 16mm camera. Receiving performance notes through hidden drops that they were directed to via the GPS, the actors improvised the film from there. In return, the actors would leave the footage behind so the filmmakers could review and provide direction. I can only imagine the thrill (not to mention the stress) for the 5-person production team who were also essentially running an obstacle course reviewing footage, writing notes, and ensuring that the next drop point, including the production design, was ready for the actors’ arrival. To add to the believability, the actors didn’t know each others’ notes, and most of the time they were in direct opposition to each other to build tension. Fully embodying their characters, the actors only really leave character a handful of times using code words. In another case, the actors were sent to specific coordinates and told to look up so the shock of discovering hundreds of pagan-looking stick figures hanging in the trees would be as authentic as possible. I could list and list and list these things for days but I imagine it would get a bit tedious as the reader, so I’ll move on. However, if you, like me, want to know it all, then I would recommend checking out the 2024 documentary. It’s tricky but possible to track down!

The filmmakers say multiple times in The Blair Witch Documentary that the intention was never to fool anyone: the fandom built that narrative on its own, and then the film company Artisan Entertainment (now Lionsgate) ran with it, too. To incite interest in their concept and hopefully make some money to shoot the film, Haxan Films created an 8-minute trailer focused on the Blair Witch mythology. After many failed attempts to garner attention, the trailer finally sparked interest in filmmaker John Pierson who at the time hosted the TV show Split Screen (1997-2000). Pierson, who was from Maryland where TBWP is set, loved that even he was fooled by their trailer so he licensed it and ran the 8 minutes of footage at the end of Split Screen’s premiere.

Fast forward to post-production. With their low budget, the main promotion for the film was a few post-episode segments at the end of Split Screen that, by some beautiful fluke, ended up rerunning repeatedly in the lead-up to their Sundance Festival premiere. Split Screens’s discussion board was filled with Blair Witch questions to the point that Pierson asked them if Haxan could build their own website. As I had previously mentioned, the original concept for the film included interviews and narration, which eventually all got cut from the film primarily due to pacing and the disparity between the believability of the main actors’ footage and these additional interviews. This website, which utilized all this unused footage along with other archival material that played into the realness, fuelled the discourse and ultimately led to the fandom. There is an entire, much deeper inquiry here about online fandoms, creepypasta, the 90s perception of “viral.” and how that built the audience base for this film, which I’d be very interested in reading; however, that isn’t this piece (sorry).

To come back to my earlier point, however, this was never about building a hoax and the website gave away that it wasn’t real. The audience could choose whether to subscribe to the mailing list to see the true behind-the-scenes, or “remain immersed in this sort of fact or fiction conceit” (Sheperd, 2024, 01:35:22-01:35:26). And this is what I love about the film. It didn’t have to fool us. Sánchez stated in the documentary, “[Pierson] wanted to believe so bad that he ignored the truth that was right in front of him” (Sheperd, 2024, 00:13:40-00:13:49). That turned out to be the film’s greatest asset. Even though we now know the film is fake, the hypothetical “what if it were real?” is the core scare-factor of the movie. And if you didn’t think The Blair Witch Project was scary, I dare you to watch it alone in a dark room with that question in the back of your mind.

Before I segue so naturally into the affective experience of The Blair Witch Project, it’s essential to note that Artisan Entertainment pursuing an “is it real?” marketing scheme drastically impacted the actors negatively. No one, even the filmmakers themselves, thought that the film would blow up like it did and get sold to a company that would then be bought by Lionsgate. Because of this, there was not enough consideration for the actors’ original contracts. The three actors, who had mistakenly given up their namesake when signing onto this project, were prohibited by Artisan Entertainment from taking part in any publicity for the film and were listed as deceased in promotional materials, essentially ending, or at the very least stunting, their acting careers. While exhilarating for the viewer to sit with that question, the fact of the matter is that, knowing what we know now, these conditions shouldn’t be repeated. The actors recently put out an open letter to Lionsgate, who still owns The Blair Witch Project, supported by the original directors and producers, that talks more about their experience. These actors gave so much of themselves to the film so I encourage you to read the letter and support their cause.

THE AFFECT OF THE BLAIR WITCH

After an 80-minute, relentless sprint, without a moment of relief from the isolation and torment of the Blair Witch, the film ends. I’m releasing my white knuckles from the pillow I’ve unknowingly been grasping in both my fists and I remember where I am. I’m not trapped and directionless in the Black Hills Forest. I’m not in Blair Witch’s cabin with its caved-in floors and satanic graffiti. I’m alone in my basement, staring at my grainy television set, and the adrenaline coursing through my veins is ringing in my ears.

The ending of The Blair Witch Project when the camera falls into the final image of Mike standing and facing the wall is one of the scariest moments in horror. And yes, I will die on that hill. From the beginning, all the Haxan guys wanted to do was make a film that was scary—and not in the way that Weapons (2025) gives you a gory jump scare, followed by the relief of laughter at yourself—in an unrelenting, primal way that there is no escape from.

Popularized by theorists such as Silvan Tomkins, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Brian Massumi, affect theory addresses the emotional experience prior to any cognitive understanding. Think of the hairs standing up on the back of your neck or your stomach dropping. It’s subconsciously clutching your pillow in your fists and not realizing until your knuckles are white. By placing the audience directly in the POV of the three characters and further blurring reality and fiction, The Blair Witch Project leaves its audience highly susceptible to an affectual experience. In the film, affect is its own character. Because we never see, or even really experience, the Blair Witch—we only ever see the material effects (stickmen in the trees, little piles of rocks, Mike standing in the corner)—the Blair Witch remains a concept, a feeling of pure anxiety. Essentially, rather than evoking anxiety through storytelling or jump scares, the Blair Witch herself represents unease, dread, and isolation, for both the characters and for the audience. She’s the monster we never see. The question we never get an answer to.

Don’t get me wrong, I love practical effects, too. Evil Dead II (1987) is one of my favourite movies because of its campy practical effects. Same with Hellraiser (1987). Even though I’m not a huge fan of Cronenberg films generally, I love their aesthetic. But when we’re young, we are particularly susceptible to affective experiences because we have a lower capacity for interpretation, and therefore a particular feeling is more likely to stick with us than a material thought. The Blair Witch Project is just that for me. It was an introduction to a world of feelings that I didn’t yet have names for. The Blair Witch Project’s less-is-more approach builds a specific genre of unease. My imagination automatically fills in the blanks which feels much more personal—but hey, maybe that just says something about what my imagination conjures up in the empty spaces. In any case, I can’t help but feel that, once the monster is revealed, the boundaries are set and the mystery is gone. The Blair Witch Project is, at its core, horrifying. To be left with just yourself and your own mind.

SUMMARY

I don’t agree with the way the actors were treated after the creation of the film and I feel a little underwhelmed with how the filmmakers broached the topic in their documentary, though I’m glad to see them signing off on the open letter. Likely there are a lot of legalities here that I don’t understand, but in my mind, these actors made this film and that needs to be acknowledged appropriately. Ultimately, my ethical opinion of filmmaking is not what this piece is about. This is an ode to the Blair Witch, to the actors, the unpredictable circumstances, the unparalleled emotional experience, and to the phenomenon, both global and personal, that this movie symbolizes.

However, if you do want to read about my ethical opinions, check out Ari Aster, you’ve let me down: An inquiry into the filmmaker’s devolution. Thanks for reading.

-Maria

Edited by Ferron Delcy

Works Cited

Aster, A. (Director). (2018). Hereditary [Film]. A24.

Bousman, D. L., Greutert, K., Hackl, D., & Wan, J. (Directors). (2004–2009). Saw [Film franchise]. Lionsgate Films.

Barker, C. (Director). (1987). Hellraiser [Film]. New World Pictures.

Chaves, M., Dauberman, G., Hardy, C., Leonetti, J. R., & Wan, J. (2013–2025). The Conjuring [Film franchise]. New Line Cinema.

Demme, J. (Director). (1991). The Silence of the Lambs [Film]. Orion Pictures.

Haxan, The. (n.d.). Blair Witch. http://haxan.com/blairwitch/

Kubrick, S. (Director). (1980). The Shining [Film]. Warner Bros. Pictures.

Leonard, J. G. (2024, April 20). Please share and amplify!! Your support and solidarity is our greatest asset!! SLIDE #1: An actionable public proposal to @lionsgate [Facebook post]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/JoshuaGLeonard/posts/pfbid0ZTguyBrMAaSXUXiaq8LWTEvBAVDvxPCqoPDUewXvVpwmf5Z8s5mrYqhRBQb3hDHgl

Perkins, O. (Director). (2024). Longlegs [Film]. Range; Oddfellows; Saturn Films.

Raimi, S. (Director). (1987). Evil Dead 2 [Film]. Renaissance Pictures; Rosebud Releasing.

Sánchez, E., & Myrick, D. (Directors). (1999). The Blair Witch Project [Film]. Haxan Films; Artisan Entertainment.

Shepherd, J. (Director & Writer). (2024). The Blair Witch Documentary [Documentary film]. Second Sight Films; Haxan Films.

Sherman-Palladino, A. (Director). (2000–2007). Gilmore Girls [Television series]. Warner Bros. Television.

Spielberg, S. (Director). (1975). Jaws [Film]. Universal Pictures.

After seeing all the movies Aster has written and directed, I can confidently say that he is preoccupied with shock value and taboos: incest, phallic imagery, and sexual explicitness to name a few. He uses gruesome and technically skilled cinematography that leave nothing to the imagination to bring these taboos to the forefront and evoke unease in his audience. We see this in Hereditary with the beheading, Midsommar with the sex and death rituals and Beau Is Afraid (2023) with… well, the whole movie. At a certain point, though, the films are no longer bending the genre to better embody modern realities—they’re just an amalgamation of disconnected moments that get a reaction. And I find that pretty boring.

Here, you might be asking “So, what? Does every movie need to make an explicit point? Does every movie need to be for YOU?” And the answer is no! I’ve been working extra hard lately to identify the difference between content that isn’t for me and content that is bad. That distinction is very important to me in good critical analysis. I would have been perfectly happy to leave Aster to his surface-level, male-gazey, technically skilled films if they didn’t intensify harmful stereotypes with each new release.

Now, I’m not writing this piece just to say quippy, unfounded opinions about why Ari Aster is a bad filmmaker (even if it’s fun). In fact, before seeing his newest film Eddington (2025), I would have almost classified him as a good filmmaker, at least technically. I seriously do think that Hereditary is one of the best modern horror movies, up there with Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017), which is why I feel so disappointed by the narrow, ignorant messaging in his recent releases. As I go through each of his feature films and reference his shorts, interviews, and other source materials, I hope you’ll consider leaving here with a little less joy, too.

WHY DID HEREDITARY WORK?

Ari Aster said in an interview with Geek Den that he doesn’t consider himself to be a “horror director per se.” He self-identified as having an affinity for genre in general, not just horror. However, when he described his approach to horror specifically, it became apparent why I love Hereditary so much. We both love films that represent human experience and psychology through horror tropes. Films that centre around symbol, metaphor, and imagery to summon an affective experience for the audience beyond a jump scare. He cited movies like Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Get Out (2017), and It Follows (2014) and I’d add His House (2020) and Talk to Me (2022) to this list. According to Aster, Hereditary “functioned first as a vivid family drama. Then, the horror elements would grow out of what these people are going through.” While drawing clear inspiration from Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist (1973), Hereditary is still very much its own entity in the way it positions itself in the modern world and advocates for breaking intergenerational cycles. At its core, Hereditary pays tribute to the horror genre by turning a demonic possession story into a relevant, gritty tale of intergenerational trauma and grief.

There are several things I could rave about (lighting, score, acting, to name a few) but Hereditary’s biggest triumph is that the shock-value moments are rooted in the film’s lore, founded dramaturgically, and push the narrative forward. The separate beheadings of the three main female characters, Ellen (grandmother who dies before the movie begins), Annie (mother) and Charlie (daughter), are some of the most visually distressing moments in the film. Aside from the utility of beheading as a marker that the demon King Paimon has moved to a new body (from Ellen to Charlie to Annie to his final vessel, Annie’s son Peter), beheading prompts many thematic interpretations. In Hinduism, beheading is a punishment for dishonesty to destroy the ego. This is seen through examples such as Shiva’s beheadings of Ganesha and Brahmas. In The Book of Ganesha, Grewal (2001) wrote, “when the ego is too assertive, Shiva cuts it off, destroying darkness and ignorance” (p. 36). In the film, the Graham family keep their true emotional selves hidden. They are quietly deceitful to one another, they don’t own up to their own shortfalls, and, in the end, their beheadings symbolise the ultimate destruction of ego. A warning to the audience against preserving toxic intergenerational cycles like ignorance and self-conceit.

In her essay Castration or Decapitation?, Hélène Cixous (1981) presented a psychoanalytic reading of beheading as the ultimate execution of woman to uphold patriarchal control. Decapitation as the result of male dominance, specifically in domestic settings, also appears in short stories such as The Green Ribbon (1984) by Alvin Schwartz or Carmen Maria Machado’s (2017) adaptation of Schwartz’s story titled The Husband Stitch. In Hereditary, only the female family members are beheaded in a ritual to bring King Paimon to a male vessel. Through a Cixous or Machado-inspired feminist lens, the ritual represents the threat of denying your role as a woman in society. Throughout the film we see the main female characters, Annie and Charlie, struggle to fit into their gender roles. Knowing that her grandmother, Ellen, wanted her to be a boy, Charlie feels awkward in a traditional feminine aesthetic, and is an outcast among other young women in the film. Annie, struggling with her maternal role, admits to never wanting kids to begin with. The possessions which end in beheadings are representative of the isolation and societal pressure women experience, and how this pain bleeds through to future generations.

Throughout the film, Annie almost harms her children, believing that she is “saving them” in her possessed-delusional state. In the end, she can’t break the curse or save her children. It would be easy to leave it ambiguous whether it’s the demonic possession or schizophrenia that has been passed down, but my favourite thing about Hereditary is that it exists within the truth of its thesis: toxic intergenerational cycles will pass down through your family like a demonic entity. The movie doesn’t undermine its own metaphorical message by focusing on the literal question of whether its real or mental illness. It holds its ground. However you choose to interpret it though, the point I’m trying to drive home here is that, with Hereditary, Aster took a relatively simple, universal concept (family), and handled it with subtlety, nuance, and care, resulting in a terrifyingly poignant film.

WHY IS MIDSOMMAR SO MUCH WORSE THAN EVERYONE THOUGHT?

In what I’d consider Midsommar’s most impactful scene, we see Dani (played by Florence Pugh) mid-panic attack with the young women of a cult surrounding her, holding her, breathing and wailing with her, in a rhythmic, unified motion. On paper, Midsommar is a perfect companion piece to Hereditary. Inspired by The Wicker Man (1973), the film is a horror story of familial grief and desire for connection, this time set in broad daylight amongst a folk-horror cult. Like its source material, Midsommar is successful in its desire to take typically private experiences, such as death, sex, grief, and turn them into communal, ritualistic activities, acting as commentary on the individualism and isolation of modern society. In an interview, Ari Aster stated that The Wicker Man was an inspiration for the film, but that he hoped to take it out to left field. While he did put his own spin on the story, I’m not convinced his additions were successful.

I’m not here to argue that there are no redeeming qualities in Midsommar. I rewatched it recently and found that, aside from the successes that carried over from The Wicker Man, the film is well-paced, visually stunning, and Florence Pugh, in the lead role of Dani, does a fantastic job. But with Midsommar we start to see patterns in Aster’s work. For example, his use of extreme forms of mental illness and his narrow representation of women. We first get a glance of this tendency in Hereditary, which alludes to stereotypical forms of schizophrenia through Ellen and Annie’s characters. In Midsommar, Dani’s anxiety is the linchpin of the film, and her primary personality trait, and bipolar disorder causes her sister to murder-suicide their parents.

Barbara Creed’s (1993) book The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis talked about how women portrayed in horror movies are most often framed as either monsters or victims due to a patriarchal fear of female sexual difference. Creed (1993) breaks this down into 7 archetypes: archaic mother, possessed monster, monstrous-womb, vampire, witch, femme castratrice, and castrating mother. While it’s not as apparent in Hereditary as a stand-alone film, with Midsommar we begin to the see a pattern in Aster’s tendency to position women as either victims or monsters, especially due to their mental state. In Midsommar, Dani’s anxiety turns her from victim to monster. Creed’s (1993) witch archetype demonizes rebellious women, reflecting a patriarchal fear of female power. In the final shot of the film, Dani is sneering at the camera in her full May Queen garb, and, while this can be interpreted a few ways, one interpretation is that her freedom from her toxic boyfriend has resulted in madness, not relief. By presenting the newfound freedom as unsatisfying or irrelevant, Dani becomes the witch. At the time, I interpreted the sinister smile as Dani’s bliss, but now that he has released more films, I mention this as the possible beginning of Aster mishandling his female characters. However, this isn’t my real qualm with Midsommar. There is one key issue that makes it impossible for me to place it anywhere near Hereditary in terms of subverting genre or just generally being a successful modern horror.

Shortly after arriving at the Swedish village, Dani and the group take some mushrooms, which sends Dani into a panic attack. In the washroom, she looks in the mirror and we see a flash of a disfigured version of her face. While I hesitate to use the word disfigured because of its problematic and negative connotations, I’ve used it here because the face in this instance was utilized as scare tactic. And if my opinion isn’t enough to convince you of that, maybe the horror sting that immediately follows will. This altered face can be interpreted as a literal representation of Dani’s broken psyche or foreshadowing for her connection to a physically disabled prophet cult-member, a child of incest named Ruban. Any way you slice it, and as Emma Madden (2019) wrote in her article on the ableism and eugenics in Midsommar, “the disabled body once again becomes the monstrous body, used to convey a monstrous world.” When we meet Ruban, we learn that he is the child of intentional incest and was bred to fulfill his role as prophet because, due to his condition, he is “unclouded” and “clear-minded” (yikes). I could give Aster the benefit of the doubt and assume this wasn’t meant to be ableist virtue signaling, tokenization, or fetishization, but instead a genuine attempt to move away from the dehumanization of disabled characters, if he hadn’t blatantly stated that Ruban is “important more as a symbol, as an idea, than he is even as a character” (yikes, again). What really bugs me is that this storyline could be completely removed and it wouldn’t change anything about the film. At the end of the day, Midsommar can never be considered a good modern horror movie in my mind because, not only does it not subvert, it actively perpetuates dated, thoughtless horror tropes.

A MAN RUNNING AROUND YELLING

I watched all of Ari Aster’s short films and, while I did enjoy some (shout out to Brendan Eder’s scores which always seem to hit), the recurring themes of parental disfunction, incest, and penises left me feeling like “okay… but, to what end?” I bring this up to note that while these themes show up more explicitly in his recent releases, the ideas date back to his film school days in the 2010s. The most obvious example is his short film Beau (2011) and his third feature film Beau Is Afraid. Aster had endeavoured for this short-film-turned-feature-length to be his premiere but stated that he didn’t have the budget or clout for what he hoped to accomplish with the film at that time. So, he did what he thought would get his foot in the door: a horror movie. Personally, I’m glad he didn’t release Beau Is Afraid first; otherwise, my experience with Hereditary may have been tarnished. A story of anxiety turned into an absurd nightmare, Beau Is Afraid begins with roughly 30 minutes of our titular character, played by Joaquin Phoenix, running around terrified of the outside world, primarily homeless or mentally unwell people (a theme Aster unfortunately returns to with Eddington). At the end of Beau Is Afraid, we are left with what feels like an unedited, self-indulgent, 3-hour long movie made for men with unresolved mommy issues. It’s deeply offensive to women and needs some serious dramaturgical revisions.

The second time I watched Beau Is Afraid, I will admit I did not go into it with the most open of minds. I began creating a list of all the female characters so I could prove my point that this is one of the most misogynistic movies I’ve ever seen. The list did in fact solidify my stance. I can count the number of women in the movie on both of my hands—and if we’re talking about women with names and more than one fleeting scene, I think I only need one hand. Spoiler: this movie does not pass the Bechdel Test. I thought it could be funny to list the women in this article: angry mom on the street, mom obsessed with dead son, Beau’s mother, Elaine, Elaine’s mother, the housekeeper… but then it just got kind of depressing. Elaine, the only main female character who is not a hysterical mother, turns out to be a representation of Beau’s mother anyway. In the movie to Oedipus-ly die having sex with Beau in his mother’s bed. And then there’s his mother herself, the ultimate villain, orchestrating Beau’s life and ultimately failing in her motherly role. Can you see now why I might think Aster does not think too highly of women? And this is where my earlier caveat comes into play. Yes, not every movie needs to represent all experiences perfectly and not every movie has to be for me, per se. But when I hear people, especially men, saying out loud that this is an accurate representation of how they feel, I think it needs to be called out. Funnily enough, I enjoyed the short film version. Some stories only need 6 minutes and some film school ideas just need to be thrown out.

Ultimately, Beau Is Afraid was neither well received nor successful in the box office. While I haven’t read a lot of reviews hating it as much as I do, many of the more generous comments I saw still named it as long and self-indulgent. Aster even admits that he was not prepared for how lackluster the audience response would be. So, maybe I’m just preaching to the choir on this one. But then we get to his latest release: Eddington. The last Ari Aster movie I will bother to see.

THE REAL REASON WE’RE HERE

Apparently paying tribute to the Western genre, Eddington is the story of our protagonist, a right-wing, mask-hating Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), who is feuding with a performatively left-wing Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) over the mayor’s mask mandate. As if we didn’t get enough mask-related temper tantrums during the actual pandemic, the impacts of which still actively permeate the lives of many, we spend the first 30 minutes of this movie watching Joaquin Phoenix upset about a man being kicked out of a grocery store for not wearing a mask. (Sound familiar? This character may as well have been named Beau, too.) Sheriff Cross, in a fit of vengeance incited by his belief that Mayor Garcia sexually assaulted his wife (Emma Stone), shoots a homeless man, tosses him in the river, kills the mayor and the mayor’s son, and then frames Deputy Michael Cook (Michael Ward), a Black cop he works with. There is a looming AI data centre opening in the town, we’ve got a Criss Angel-style cult leader and an Antifa-like group shows up in the end to kill basically everyone. There is a lot going on. But what I really don’t like about Eddington is that it confuses satire and stereotype. It critiques some and stereotypes the rest, giving the illusion that everyone is equally satirized. For example, the movie equates imposing mask mandates with state violence, implying that the fear of real violence is comparable to the inconvenience of wearing a mask. The film mocks performative activism alongside conspiracy theorists, as if both groups are equal contributors to society’s demise. While I am all for satirizing insincere left-wing people, I don’t agree with the parallels being presented in this film. With centrism as a façade for its lack of thought, I believe that this film promotes right-wing ideology.

This is when I tend to lose people but let me clarify: My opinion on Eddington doesn’t mean I think every choice was rooted in actively perpetuating a right-wing agenda or that every moment completely missed the mark—I even chuckled once at the performative-left satire—I just don’t think Aster thought about it. I don’t think Eddington is a centrist film because I don’t think centrism is real. There is no unbiased approach to politics. If you’re “not being political” then you are a perpetrator of the status quo and that inherently implicates you in the harm that that system upholds. Whether intentional or not, a political view came through in this film, and it certainly wasn’t left or centre. Aster asked in an interview about Eddington, “How can I make a film about the incoherent miasma we’re living in without the film becoming a message?”, my response is: you can’t.

Also, I love satire! Satire uses hyperbolic humour as critique, especially in a socio-political context. Prioritizing morality and hypocrisy, satire ridicules people—often holding a mirror to their stupidity. Satire is accurate. Good satire doesn’t punch down. Stereotypes, however, are oversimplified and prejudiced. While Westerns are known for their gun-slinging, horse-riding, and saloon-drinking, they are also known for romanticizing colonial violence, erasing Black and Indigenous histories, and their misogynistic take on women. So, if I wanted to subvert and honour the Western genre, I would take pride in reimagining these problematic areas and consider decentring the traditional frontier man as the protagonist. However, that isn’t what I observed in the film, and what promotional materials described as satire, I categorize as stereotyping. Let me name a few examples of stereotypes: a dangerous homeless man, an easily influenced woman, a nagging mother-in-law, yes, I’m sure you’ve realized these are characters in Eddington. Throughout the film we see several ideas presented as a “portrait of America.” A homeless man whose only scenes in the film are to experience an outwardly violent mental break, steal alcohol, and to spread COVID-19. White-led performative Black Lives Matter protestors apologizing for existing on stolen land. Sheriff Cross’s wife, Louise (Emma Stone), is victimized and her sexual assault used as a catalyst for Sheriff Cross’s vengeance. Both Louise and her mother, Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), easily fall victim to conspiracy theories from a cult-leader. There’s an Indigenous detective, Officer Butterfly Jimenez (William Belleau), who I would say more about except his storyline was virtually non-existent. The utility of these characters can be boiled down to inciting actions for Sheriff Cross, not as genre-defying storylines that hold up on their own. Finally, the movie ends with Sheriff Cross, one of the few who survive, in a state the film deems worse than death: a disabled body (I swear I’m not making this up.) So, while the film doesn’t necessarily explicitly promote bigotry, it’s implicit in the underdevelopment of these characters and their storylines. Even if by the end of the film, we’re meant to lose sympathy for Sheriff Cross, the audience has become so lost in the data centre and ambiguous antifa storyline, there is nothing left to hold onto. Like my feelings on disability in Midsommar, how can I applaud a genre-bend that hasn’t addressed any of the genre’s problems?

I’ve asked several people who enjoyed the movie why they loved it and the primary response I’ve heard is that it’s a “refreshing” or “accurate” representation of America. However, when I follow up for details, I don’t get a lot more. I listened to one positive review that claimed the thesis of the movie is that white supremacy is at the core of all American culture. While I am on board with showcasing the victimhood everyone was experiencing in 2020, and how that victimhood impacts both the right and the left, I don’t think that’s Eddington’s thesis. Aster even said he didn’t intend to send any message with this film. But if I had to, I would say the film’s thesis is that everyone plays an equal role as both a perpetrator and a victim in the downfall of society. And that is a “both sides do it” thesis I really can’t get behind in North America’s current political landscape. To disregard the fact that many communities in America, such as people of colour, transgender individuals, those who are immunocompromised, are actual victims of perpetrators, is irresponsible and an insult to those fighting for socio-political progress.

I can forgive the usual, one-sided portrayal of schizophrenia in Hereditary because it made sense to the story. But Aster starts to lose me through his extremist representations of anxiety and bipolar early in Midsommar, and then really loses me by the end of the film with his fetishization and tokenism of disability. I never got on board with the representation of women, homelessness, and PTSD in Beau Is Afraid. By the time Aster announced Eddington, I was indifferent. But I was already working on this piece, so I still saw it and kept an open mind, only to be subjected to 2.5 hours of tired COVID-19 references, right-wing ideology, and no new information. So, I must ask the question: At what point do we stop mistaking Ari Aster’s extremism for substance, and start holding him accountable for the ignorant stereotypes these films reinforce?

-Maria

Edited by Ferron Delcy

Wanna read about some horror that I like? Check out my piece A Love Letter to the Blair Witch.

Works Cited

Aster, A. (Director). (2011). Beau [Short film]. Faux Beef Productions.

Aster, A. (Director). (2018). Hereditary [Film]. A24; PalmStar Media; Finch Entertainment; Windy Hill Pictures.

Aster, A. (Director). (2019). Midsommar [Film]. B‑Reel Films; Square Peg.

Aster, A. (Director). (2023). Beau Is Afraid [Film]. A24; Square Peg; Access Entertainment; IPR.VC.

Aster, A. (Director). (2025). Eddington [Film]. A24; Square Peg; Access Entertainment; IPR.VC.

Canfield, D (2023, October). Ari Aster: Beau Is Afraid postmortem reaction. Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/10/ari-aster-beau-is-afraid-postmortem-reaction-awards-insider

Cixous, H. (1981). Castration or decapitation? (A. Kuhn, Trans.). Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 7(1), 41–55. https://doi.org/10.1086/493756

Friedkin, W. (Director). (1973). The Exorcist [Film].

Gilman, R. (Director). (1973). The Wicker Man [Film].

Grewal, R. (2009). The book of Ganesha. Penguin Books India.

Guastella, D. (2025, August 5). Eddington: Tragic masterpiece of the 2020s. Portside. https://portside.org/2025-08-05/eddington-tragic-masterpiece-2020s

Jacobs, M. (2025, July 18). Ari Aster explains the politics of Eddington: The director’s polarizing film comes after the financial failure of Beau Is Afraid. Vulture. https://www.vulture.com/article/ari-aster-explains-the-politics-satire-of-eddington.html

Kaye, D. (2018, June 8). Hereditary: What inspired the new horror classic. Den of Geek. https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/hereditary-what-inspired-the-new-horror-classic/

Lopez, K. (2019, July 1). A film under the influence: Gender, homage and ‘Midsommar’. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristenlopez/2019/07/01/a-film-under-the-influence-gender-homage-and-midsommar/

Machado, C. M. (2017). The husband stitch. In Her body and other parties. Graywolf Press.

Madden, E. (2019, July 10). Midsommar’s ableism resurrects the dark history of eugenics-inspired horror. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jul/10/midsommars-ableism-resurrects-the-dark-history-of-eugenics-inspired-horror-ari-aster

Mitchell, D. R. (Director). (2014). It Follows [Film].

Nicholson, A. (2019, June 28). Midsommar director Ari Aster: ‘I often cling to dead things’. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jun/28/horror-director-ari-aster-hereditary-midsommar-terrors

Peele, J. (Director). (2017). Get Out [Film].

Polanski, R. (Director). (1968). Rosemary’s Baby [Film].

Schwartz, A. (1984). The green ribbon. In In a dark, dark room and other scary stories. Harper & Row.

TikTok user @jstoobs. (n.d.). Untitled video [Video]. TikTok.

Wang, E. K. (2020, November 11). Female madness, decapitation and cults in ‘Hereditary’. The Stanford Daily. https://stanforddaily.com/2020/11/11/female-madness-decapitation-and-cults-in-hereditary/

Williams, D. & Philippou, M. (Directors). (2022). Talk To Me [Film].

Weekes, R. (Director). (2020). His House [Film].

My name is Maria, I’ve loved horror since I was a kid, and I love finding hills to die on.

Okay, technically I’d be lying if I said I always loved horror or was never afraid of it, surely most of us have that one movie we saw too young - mine was Ju-On: The Grudge (2002). I was about 9 years old and I still can’t watch it to this day. However, when I look back, my adolescence feels shaped by horror. Spending my middle school years binging the Saw series alone in the basement of my dad’s house. The same basement that contained about seven DVDs, my most watched being The Silence of the Lambs (1991) - and School of Rock (2003). High school consisted of my best friend and I making our friend group watch movies that they’d quickly make us turn off (e.g., Antichrist (2009) and Gummo (1997), woops). I’m still sorting out the reasons why I feel so comfortable with and around horror, right now I just know it’s embedded deep into the core of who I am. Something about early experiences. The visceral evocation feeling so necessary to emotionally process life. Or just really liking a good spook. I’ll have to come back to this inquiry eventually.

I love utilizing research, analysis, and critical theory to review art through both affect theory and a sociopolitical lens. I did write a thesis (with focus groups and all!) but wouldn’t consider my writing to be overly academic. My favourite pastime is taking in various forms of art and media (live performance, movies, books, tv, etc.) and then ripping them apart with nuance and care. I don’t always think I’m right per se (though I am a triple fixed sign so mostly I am right), but I certainly know what I like and why and maybe you feel the same. Or maybe you don’t and we can have a healthy debate about it.

Just below are some quick-fire aspects of what influences my writing if you’re interested. Or you can just jump straight to my first two pieces:

HORROR: I love horror movies, especially experimental horror, surrealism, found footage, and movies that meld old-school style & tropes with modern concepts. I love when a movie is trying something new, genuinely eerie, uncomfortable, uncanny, and just plain scary. I tend to like movies where less is more. I’d say I’m more often concerned with tone, affect, and intentionality than with a complex plot or a shiny design. I loved Hereditary (2019) but didn’t like Midsommar (2021). I think The Blair Witch Project (1999) was one of the most impactful and unique cultural moments in horror. I thoroughly enjoyed Skinamarink (2022) and left Long Legs (2024) feeling mostly annoyed. I liked The Lighthouse (2019) but found the new Nosferatu (2024) quite boring. Weapons (2025) was not really my speed, but I can appreciate a fun horror romp. I’m convinced that Cuckoo (2024) was slept on and will become a queer cult classic in a few years. While I appreciate his aesthetic as a reference point for practical design, I’ve never honestly enjoyed a Cronenberg movie (sorry). Some of my favourite classics include Hellraiser (1987), The Shining (1980), Evil Dead II (1987), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). I also loved His House (2020), Incantation (2022, Taiwanese), and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021).

A few years ago, I surveyed some peers and scoured online lists to create a Foundational Horror Movie list; movies that you must have seen to call yourself a horror movie buff. The list not only includes the classics, but a few necessary deep cuts and I’m working to expand the international representation. I’ve been working my way through the list with some of my favourite new-to-me movies being Night of the Living Dead (1968), Poltergeist (1982), and the Indonesian film Impetigore (2019). The list is always evolving and I’m enjoying always playing catch up.

BOOKS: Within the last several years, I rekindled my love with reading and would now consider myself an avid reader (especially since discovering the Open Dyslexia font on my Kobo.) While I don’t exclusively read horror, my reading almost always leans at least a bit surreal. I recently took the Read Your Colour test (a little plug to this very cool project which you can also find here on Substack) and my results were Purple! Pulling directly from their website, a Purple Reader is interested in “experimental storytelling and genre defying narratives” which definitely tracks with my interests. A few of my favourite books include both Annihilation and Authority by Jeff VanderMeer, In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, The Grip of It by Jac Jemc, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, and Severance by Ling Ma. I’m currently reading House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, which has a lot of things I like (research, found footage, creepy hallways that lead nowhere) but also some things that annoy me (do we really think that guy is sleeping with every single woman he meets?). In general, I’ve been enjoying it and it’s been a slow, interesting navigation with my dyslexia.

CAREER: I’ve worked in the live performing arts sector for over 15 years. My main gig is as the Managing Director of an arts & culture non-profit called Rumble based in East Vancouver, BC, and I freelance stage managing shows (often touring solo shows, supporting works-in-development, and working on the odd full production of a play.) At Rumble, we create, develop, present, and produce contemporary performance. We’re known for our community-oriented vibe, which can be informal or casual, while still supporting the professional standards informed by the artists we work with. We prioritize projects that use art to expand collective imagination and community. We’re doing a play this Fall for the first time in a while, come check it out.

THESIS: In 2024, I finished a Master of Arts in Justice Studies with a thesis titled Queer Utopian Theory for Transformative Change in Theatre Organizations. My research looks to the concept of queer utopia to address inequities within the theatre sector, with a focus on the role of theatre organizations. It was the first time I experienced people taking an interest in what I have to say. I’m curious now to explore how my definition of Queer Utopian Theory can be applied across a variety of sectors!

So, in terms of what influences my writing, that’s me in a nutshell. You can also check out my work in more detail on my website: www.mariazarrillo.com. Thank you for being here. I hope you choose to stick around.

-Maria

Read my first few pieces!

Ari Aster, you’ve let me down: An inquiry into this filmmaker’s devolution

A Love Letter to the Blair Witch