The Journey of Analyzing Terror, On and Offscreen: on Monsters, Law, Crime

On a critical examination of how the “monstrous” is constructed by various societies or social milieu. Study of horror and the monstrous onscreen has taken many routes, from the philosophical, the psychoanalytic, and beyond. Recent volumes like The Monster Theory Reader and Robin Wood on the Horror Film (the late […]

Tradition Thriving on the “Bloody” Frontier: The Pale Door

By Matthew Sorrento. Co-writer/director Aaron B. Koontz’s perceptiveness for the Western genre makes The Pale Door into a worthy hybrid horror.” It must be an assignment in a screenwriting course somewhere, or maybe a guidebook: “From Dusk to Dawn It” – begin your script as road movie, and bring your […]

Refusal to Respond – David Shields and Lynch: A History

By Matthew Sorrento. Review Filmmaker David Shields found an ideal style to document the onscreen (but off the field) career of NFL running back Marshawn Lynch (2007-18). Far from a fan documentary, Lynch: A History uses collage to portray the news media’s possession and the public’s consumption of a star player […]

They’ve Come to Save Us!: Gothic Inspiration Returns in Toy Story 4

By Matthew Sorrento. Like all films in the series, the fourth installment of Toy Story (2019) concerns kids’ fears of abandonment, with lost toys working in place of children. Once again, the toys get lost for an adventure, for some form or return/reconciliation at the conclusion. There’s only so much […]

Beyond the “Post-Western” – Marlina: A Murderer in Four Acts

By Matthew Sorrento. Marlina begins with a scenario all too familiar: the title character, recently widowed, is now an object of desire (her body and fortune) for local men. One immediately arrives to her home as if ready to take ownership. Accusing her of sleeping around since her husband’s death, […]

The Uncanny Invades: Jordan Peele’s Us

By Matthew Sorrento. The most unfortunate aspect of Jordan Peele’s Get Out was its creator’s attempt at self-criticism. Some months after the film’s release, Peele accepted an offer from Reddit to respond to member theories on the film. In the video, he is welcoming and down-to-earth but swiftly dismisses a theory […]

For and Against the Grand Narrative: The Hollywood War Film

A Book Review Essay by Matthew Sorrento. Genre studies, whether treating film genre history as evolutionary or as cycles, always has to fight the charge that genre films are conservative by nature. In Judith Hess Wright’s rather compelling estimation (if limiting), the films always look back to the past to […]

On Compiling The Encyclopedia of Racism in American Film

Editor Salvador Jiménez Murguia recently published The Encyclopedia of Racism in American Film (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), a project that covers the breadth of material it promises and features work by several top scholars in film, including Film International Co-Editor Matthew Sorrento and contributor Tom Ue. Murguia discusses the project below. In the intro, […]

Misapprehension of the Mainstream: Darkest Hour

By Dean Goldberg. Like many a baby-boomer it was television that brought the movies into my life and introduced me to the world of visual storytelling. If I had to pick a film that set the spark that became a full-fledged fire as I got older, it would have to […]