In the Bones
Notes on scary movies and art that hits you in your guts
I like movies that literally move me. My body needs to feel it. I want to sob, laugh until my throat hurts, walk out of the theater shaking. I want a film to disrupt me, to wake me from my routines and change me. It’s why I dig horror. Fear is a powerful motivator.
Here are the notes from this week:
A lot of my students are working on horror scripts for their final films, so I’ve been recommending Light’s Out (a film school classic), Other Side of the Box, and Curve.
Itch is incredible! Milla and I have been checking out a ton of free games, and some of them are real freaky. Closing Doors raised my pulse considerably in just 4 minutes. Killer Chat lets you woo serial killers via a mock discord server.
I didn’t expect Friday Night Funkin’ to have spooky elements to it, but it does! The rhythm game started from a 48 hour game jam and exploded on the internet, getting enough traction for the creators to now have a full version in the works that’s totally crowd-funded. And the tunes are catchy.
My favorite scene from Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later is up on Youtube.
“Cinema is vampiric. It needs new blood.” Boyle has an infectious boldness and passion for independent filmmaking. I love hearing him talk.
Jordan Peele let Get Out rattle around in his brain for about 10 years before it ever got made. He talks about his winding path into horror filmmaking and how improv helps him anticipate the audience as a director in a podcast interview with Ryan Coogler.
I’ve been listening back to my old playlist for co-op Halloween parties this past week, which is 14 hours long and has 5 different versions of “The Monster Mash” on it.
Attended my first Barebones in Powderhorn Park and was absolutely blown away. It’s a Halloween puppet show built from the ground up each year by the community. I saw some of the coolest puppets I’ve ever seen. Halfway through the show, attendees are invited to call out the names of loved ones they have lost. Milla and I reflected afterwards on how there are few opportunities in the US to bring our ghosts into community with us once more.
I rewatched some Queer Ghost Hunters to get some ideas spinning for a script exploring fraught queer relationships and gay ghosts.
I’ve been re-reading Lesbian Nuns: Breaking Silence and came across this beautiful nugget written by a gay nun who left her convent: “As a lesbian I refuse to accept a theology which robs us of our freedom in order to absolve us of our ‘guilt.’ We are called to love. How dare we not love?”
I think sometimes when we feel fear, it comes from an internal source. A fear of what we are truly capable of if we open ourselves up to our greatest truths.
PS. If you’re in Minnesota and curious about Barebones, you’re in luck! They had to reschedule their Halloween show to November 3rd. I think it’d be a great thing to go in blind to, but they do have videos from their past shows that can give you a feel for it.
PSS. The Trans Film Center has a deadline this week for their Found Footage Feature Fund. A $25K grant for a trans filmmaker to create a feature using the found footage technique. Queer people have a long and storied history with DIY methods and horror (not that found footage needs to be horror, but it often is). This grant feels like it’s hitting a great pocket.
