Carol Borden was editor of and a writer for the Toronto International Film Festival’s official Midnight Madness and Vanguard program blogs. She is currently an editor at and evil overlord for The Cultural Gutter, a website dedicated to thoughtful writing about disreputable art. She has written for Mezzanotte, Teleport City, Die Danger Die Die Kill, Popshifter and she has a bunch of short stories published by Fox Spirit Books including: Godzilla detective fiction, femme fatale mermaids, an adventurous translator/poet, and an x-ray tech having a bad day. Read and listen to her other shenanigans at Monstrous Industry. For her particular take on gutter culture, check out, “In the Sewer with the Alligators.”
It’s not meteorological summer here in the Northern Hemisphere yet, but it’s June. It’s hot and my a/c is on. I have been sticky with sweat and sunscreen. I have had my first Arnold Palmer of the season.(And my first Dinah Shore—lemonade with seltzer). It is summer as […]
Sometimes you encounter a movie late at night. A movie you didn’t even know existed before. And you discover that the movie had basically disappeared for 30 years. Cindy Sherman’s Office Killer was supposed to be the first in a series of low budget art house horror movies. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness program in 1997. It was picked up by Miramax, released in a limited run of art house theaters and then it just disappeared.
Bellenac’s vineyards are failing and the solution will not be a new strain or a scientific intervention. The farmers seek an older solution: a willing sacrifice.
Mother Of Flies is not only a film about the transformation of a curse into a gift. It is not only a film about a harrowing ritual of healing. Mother of Flies is itself a ritual, a rite of healing.
Rabbit Trap is a film as folk tale.
There were a lot of things I did not like in 2025. Here’s ten things I did, or at least ten things I haven’t written about at the Gutter yet. Gotta remember what we’re living for while we fight. Usually, I’d writes something about how these books, games, […]
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