“Boy meets girl, boy chases after girl, girl says no, boy keeps pursuing girl, boy might get to save girl from villain, and girl eventually says yes” is a ubiquitous plot in mainstream Indian cinema. Even when the hero isn’t twice the age of his love object, it’s […]
Elvis’ favorite Christmas movie*, Black Christmas (1974), is partly culled from the 1960s Babysitter and the Killer Upstairs urban legend that most of us now remember simply as 1979’s When a Stranger Calls. An early version of Roy Moore’s** script, in fact, was called The Babysitter,*** and it […]
The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. – from “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop Caring about anything is always a risk, because, as Elizabeth Bishop said, the art of losing […]
Moving house is one of the most dangerous things you can do in horror movies, asking for trouble as surely as having premarital sex, toking up, or going down to the basement to check the fuses. So, naturally, Sean Byrne’s 2015 film The Devil’s Candy follows the Hellman […]
I’d like to introduce you to one of India’s greatest movie superstars. Active from around 1950 to 1980, Uttam Kumar is still the biggest name in the popular cinema made in Calcutta. The term “matinee idol” doesn’t imply enough scope or staying power to describe his career, and […]
Sometimes I have a terrible suspicion that my favorite Halloween movie is actually Halloween III: Season of the Witch. For a long time, after being forced to downsize my movie collection in a move, Halloween III was the only film in the series I bothered to repurchase. Before […]
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The Cultural Gutter 