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.”
The past is very present in writer/director Jang Jae-hyun’s Exhuma (South Korea, 2024). There is familial and imperial history reaching back to World War II and even further. And if there are not precisely demons in the film, well, there are things that are close enough.
Rygel: This is madness. Crichton: Could be genius, Sparky. You know there’s a very fine line between the two. Rygel: Geniuses make plans. Crichton: “That’s your plan? Wile E. Coyote would come up with a better plan than that!” Last spring, throughout the day—at lunch, before bed, whenever—I […]
Sometimes you just want to watch a quirky investigator irritate people—especially wealthy and powerful people—into revealing they’ve committed crimes. Especially murder. I’ve been enjoying some new and new-ish mysteries lately, Poker Face, Elsbeth and The Residence. All three feature women investigating murders. All are series produced after Rian […]
It’s already steamy where I am–90 F and a thunderstorm is coming in. Everyone is getting their Pride outfits and do’s together. Summer is basically here. Maybe you’re getting ready to go camping or making plans for a trip to the beach. Maybe you’ve even booked a hotel […]
There is nothing charming about the red fairy door we encounter in Aislinn Clark’s Irish language horror film, Fréwaka (Ireland, 2024).* Its fairy tree is old and hung with scissors and bones. And there is nothing safe about the Good Folk attracted to the house with the fairy door in it.
I had a plan. It was a cunning plan, but it didn’t come to pass. Well, two plans. The Gutter’s own Sachin Hingoo and I were fortunate enough to receive press accreditation to attend the Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans again this year. I can see it […]
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