Tag Archives: Gateway Film Center

Fright Club: Female Rage in Horror Movies

Some of the greatest films in horror do not dwell on women in terror, but women in the throes of righteous fury. Ginger Snaps, Revenge, Alucarda, Possession, Teeth, Jennifer’s Body, The Love Witch, She Will, A Wounded Fawn, Immaculate, Ms. 45, The Craft, The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster, The Substance, American Mary—it’s a long list, each film on it more than worthy of attention.

Alas, we had to boil it down to 5. Here, recorded live with a fantastic audience at Gateway Film Center in Columbus, OH, are our picks for the 5 films that best channel female rage.

5. Watcher (2022)

If you’re a fan at all of genre films, chances are good Watcher will look plenty familiar. But in her feature debut, writer/director Chloe Okuno wields that familiarity with a cunning that leaves you feeling unnerved in urgent and important ways.

None of the beats are new, and as events escalate, others are pretty clearly telegraphed. But it’s the way Okuno (who helmed the impressive “Storm Drain” segment from V/H/S /94) slowly twists the gaslighting knife that makes the film’s hair-raising chills resonate.

Even as Julia pleads to be believed, the mounting indignities create a subtle yet unmistakable nod to a culture that expects women to ignore their better judgment for the sake of being polite.

4. Carrie (1976)

The seminal film about teen angst and high school carnage has to be Brian De Palma’s 1976 landmark adaptation of Stephen King’s first full length novel, the tale of an unpopular teenager who marks the arrival of her period by suddenly embracing her psychic powers.

Sissy Spacek is the perfect balance of freckle-faced vulnerability and awed vengeance. Her simpleton characterization would have been overdone were it not for Piper Laurie’s glorious evil zeal as her religious wacko mother. It’s easy to believe this particular mother could have successfully smothered a daughter into Carrie’s stupor.

One ugly trick at the prom involving a bucket of cow’s blood, and Carrie’s psycho switch is flipped. Spacek’s blood drenched Gloria Swanson on the stage conducting the carnage is perfectly over-the-top. And after all the mean kids get their comeuppance, Carrie returns home to the real horror show.

3. The Other Lamb (2019)

The first step toward freedom is telling your own story.

Writer C.S. McMullen and director Malgorzata Szumowska tell this one really well. Between McMullen’s outrage and the macabre lyricism of Szumowska’s camera, The Other Lamb offers a dark, angry and satisfying coming-of-age tale.

The Other Lamb does not simply suggest you question authority. It demands that you do far more than that, and do it for your own good.

2. The Nightingale

A mother’s grief is something many filmmakers see as the pinnacle in pain, the one emotion almost unimaginable in scope and depth and anguish. That’s why brilliant filmmaker Jennifer Kent begins here, using this one moment of ultimate agony to punctuate an almost unwatchable scene of brutality, to tell a tale not of this mother and her grief, but of a nation—a world—crippled by the brutality and grief of a ruling white male culture.

What happens to Clare (Aisling Franciosi) at the hands of Leftenant Hawkins (Sam Claflin), the British officer to whom she is in service, is as brutal and horrifying as anything you’re likely to see onscreen. It’s the catalyst for a revenge picture, but The Nightingale is far more than just that.

Kent’s fury fuels her film, but does not overtake it. She never stoops to sentimentality or sloppy caricature. She doesn’t need to. Her clear-eyed take on this especially ugly slice of history finds more power in authenticity than in drama.

1. Audition

The prolific director Takashi Miike made more than 70 movies in his first 20 or so years in film. Among the best is Audition, a phenomenally creepy May/December romance gone very, very wrong.

Audition tells the story of a widower convinced by his TV producer friend to hold mock television auditions as a way of finding a suitable new mate. He is repaid for his deception.

Nearly unwatchable and yet too compelling to turn away from, Audition is a remarkable piece of genre filmmaking. The slow moving picture builds anticipation, then dread, then full-on horror.

By the time Audition hits its ghastly conclusion, Miike and his exquisitely terrifying antagonist (Eihi Shina) have wrung the audience dry. She will not be the ideal stepmother.

Fright Club: Best Appalachian Horror

How many great horror films are set in Appalachia? So many that we had to leave these off the top 5 list: Wrong Turn, Evil Dead, Jugface, The Mothman Prophesies, The Descent, even Silence of the Lambs!

Because what were we looking for? Something that really dug into the landscape, the people of the area. Films that couldn’t have been set anywhere else. It was a tough cull, but we think we landed on the best.

5. Tucker and Dale v Evil (2010) (West Virginia)

Horror cinema’s most common and terrifying villain may not be the vampire or even the zombie, but the hillbilly. The generous, giddy Tucker and Dale vs. Evil lampoons that dread with good natured humor and a couple of rubes you can root for.

In the tradition of Shaun of the DeadT&DVE lovingly sends up a familiar subgenre with insightful, self-referential humor, upending expectations by taking the point of view of the presumably villainous hicks. And it happens to be hilarious.

Two backwoods buddies (an endearing Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk) head to their mountain cabin for a weekend of fishing. En route they meet some college kids on their own camping adventure. A comedy of errors, misunderstandings and subsequent, escalating violence follows as the kids misinterpret every move Tucker and Dale make.

T&DVE offers enough spirit and charm to overcome any weakness. Inspired performances and sharp writing make it certainly the most fun participant in the You Got a Purty Mouth class of film.

2. The Blair Witch Project (1999) (Maryland)

A master class in minimalism, Blair Witch scared the hell out of a lot of people back in the day. This is the kind of forest adventure that I assume happens all the time: you go in, but no matter how you try to get out – follow a stream, use a map, follow the stars – you just keep crossing the same goddamn log.

One of several truly genius ideas behind Blair Witch is that filmmakers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez made the audience believe that the film they were watching was nothing more than the unearthed footage left behind by three disappeared young people. Between that and the wise use of online marketing (then in its infancy) buoyed this minimalistic, naturalistic home movie about three bickering buddies who venture into the Maryland woods to document the urban legend of The Blair Witch. Twig dolls, late night noises, jumpy cameras, unknown actors and not much else blended into an honestly frightening flick that played upon primal fears.

3. Devil to Pay (2019) (Georgia)

The tale is anchored with a quietly ferocious turn by Danielle Deadwyler (who also produces) as Lemon, a hardscrabble farmer trying to keep things up and wondering where her husband has been these past days.

One of the most tightly written thrillers in recent memory, The Devil to Pay peoples those hills with true characters, not a forgettable villain or cliched rube among them. The sense of danger is palpable and Deadwyler’s commitment to communicating Lemon’s low-key tenacity is a thing of beauty.

Hell, the whole film is beautiful, Sherman Johnson’s camera catching not just the forbidding nature of Appalachia, but also its lush glory.

2. The Night fo the Hunter (1955) (West Virginia)

Robert F. Mitchum. This may be the coolest guy there ever was, with an air of nonchalance about him that made him magnetic onscreen. His world-wizened baritone and moseying way gave him the appearance of a man who knew everything, could do anything, but couldn’t care less. And perhaps his greatest role in definitely his best film is as serial killer/preacher Harry Powell in the classic Night of the Hunter.

The iconic film noir sees Mitchum as a con man who cashed in on lonely widows’ fortunes before knocking them off. He’s set his sights on Willa Harper (Shelley Winters), whose bank robber husband had been a cell mate before his execution.

What unravels is a gorgeously filmed, tremendously tense story of Depression-era Appalachian terror as Powell seduces the widow and her entire town, but not her stubborn son. Many of the performances have that stilted, pre-Method tinge to them, but both Winters and Mitchum bring something more authentic and unseemly to their roles. The conflict in styles actually enhances an off-kilter feel director Charles Laughton emphasizes with over-the-top shadows and staging. It gives the whole film a nightmarish quality that, along with Mitchum’s unforgettable performance, makes Night of the Hunter among the best films of its era.

1. Deliverance (1972) (Georgia)

Nine notes on a banjo have never sounded so creepy.

Deliverance follows four buddies staving off mid-life crises with a canoeing adventure in southern Georgia, where a man’s not afraid to admire another man’s mouth.

They stop off, as travelers must, at a service station. No one warns them, no one delivers ominous news, but come on, no one had to. One look at the locals spending their days at that gas station should have been enough to convince them to turn back.

James Dickey streamlined his own novel to its atmospheric best, and director John Boorman plays on urbanite fears like few have done since. Dickey and Boorman mean to tell you that progress has created a soft bellied breed of man unable to survive without the comforts of a modern age.

Fright Club: Frightful Homecomings

They say you can’t go home again. Horror filmmakers are more apt to say that you shouldn’t. For our latest episode, we look at some of horror cinema’s most memorable homecomings.

5. Coming Home in the Dark (2021)

Making his feature debut with the road trip horror Coming Home in the Dark, James Ashcroft is carving out a very different style of Kiwi horror than the splatter comedy you may be expecting.

A family is enjoying some time alone in the countryside when approached by two armed drifters. A car passes without incident. Mandrake (Danielle Gillies, chilling) say, “Looking back on today’s events, I think this will be the moment you realized you should have done something.”

Riveting, tricky storytelling to the last shot keeps you on your toes.

4. Salem’s Lot (1979)

Novelist Ben Mears decides to focus his next book on that creepy old Marsten House from his hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine. At around the same time he arrives, townspeople start dying and disappearing. It could only be Ben, or the antique store owner Richard Straker, who bought the old Marsten hours in the first place.

Tobe Hooper’s miniseries version of the Stephen King novel is still the best retelling. So many individual images stand out: the kid at the window, the Count Orlock (original) style vampire, the always saucy James Mason.

3. Possum (2018)

Sean Harris is endlessly sympathetic in this tale of childhood trauma. Philip (Harris) has returned to his burned out, desolate childhood home after some unexplained professional humiliation. His profession? Puppeteer. The puppet itself seems to be a part of the overall problem.

I don’t know why the single creepiest puppet in history—a man-sized marionnette with a human face and spider’s body—could cause any trouble. Kids can be so delicate.

Writer/director Matthew Holness spins a smalltown mystery around the sad story of a grown man who is confused about what’s real and what isn’t. The melancholy story and Harris’s exceptional turn make Possum a tough one to forget.

2. The Orphanage (2007)
Laura (Belén Rueda) and her husband reopen the orphanage where she grew up, with the goal of running a house for children with special needs – children like her adopted son Simón, who is HIV positive. But Simón’s new imaginary friends worry Laura, and when he disappears it looks like she may be imagining things herself.

A scary movie can be elevated beyond measure by a masterful score and an artful camera. Because director Antonio Bayona keeps the score and all ambient noise to a minimum, allowing the quiet to fill the scenes, he develops a truly haunting atmosphere. His camera captures the eerie beauty of the stately orphanage, but does it in a way that always suggests someone is watching. The effect is never heavy handed, but effortlessly eerie.

One of the film’s great successes is its ability to take seriously both the logical, real world story line, and the supernatural one. Rueda carries the film with a restrained urgency – hysterical only when necessary, focused at all times, and absolutely committed to this character, who may or may not be seeing ghosts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7FD6tR6zOc

1. Halloween (1978)

The night he came home.

No film is more responsible for the explosion of teen slashers than John Carpenter’s babysitter butchering classic.

From the creepy opening piano notes to the disappearing body ending, this low budget surprise changed everything. Carpenter develops anxiety like nobody else, and plants it right in a wholesome Midwestern neighborhood. You don’t have to go camping or take a road trip or do anything at all – the boogeyman is right there at home.

Michael Myers – that hulking, unstoppable, blank menace – is scary. Pair that with the down-to-earth charm of lead Jamie Lee Curtis, who brought a little class and talent to the genre, and add the bellowing melodrama of horror veteran Donald Pleasance, and you’ve hit all the important notes. Just add John Carpenter’s spare score to ratchet up the anxiety. Perfect.

We also want to thank Derek Stewart for sharing his short film Possum with us! If you didn’t get to join us for Fright Club Live, give yourself the gift of his amazing animated short:

Fright Club: Teachers in Horror

Is there any time of year more horrifying than back to school? We share the misery, taking a gander at some of the most disturbing and most fun teachers in horror.

5. Little Monsters (2019)

Basically, Little Monsters is Cooties meets Life is Beautiful.

Miss Caroline (Lupita Nyong’o, glorious as always) has taken her kindergarten class on a field trip. The petting zoo sits next door to a military testing facility, one thing eats the brains of another and suddenly Miss Caroline is hurdling zombies and convincing her class this is all a game.

Little Monsters is, in its own bloody, entrail-strewn way, adorable. Honestly. And so very much of that has to do with Nyong’o. Miss Caroline’s indefatigable devotion to her students is genuinely beautiful, and Nyong’o couldn’t be more convincing.

4. Diabolique (1955)

Pierre Boileau’s novel was such hot property that even Alfred Hitchcock pined to make it into a film. But Henri-Georges Clouzot got hold if it first. His psychological thriller with horror-ific undertones is crafty, spooky, jumpy and wonderful.

And it wouldn’t work if it weren’t for the weirdly lived-in relationship among Nicole (Simone Signoret) – a hard-edged boarding school teacher – and the married couple that runs the school. Christina (Vera Clouzot) is a fragile heiress; her husband Michel (Paul Meurisse) is the abusive, blowhard school headmaster. Michel and Nicole are sleeping together, Christine knows, both women are friends, both realize he’s a bastard. Wonder if there’s something they can do about it.

What unravels is a mystery with a supernatural flavor that never fails to surprise and entrance. All the performances are wonderful, the black and white cinematography creates a spectral atmosphere, and that bathtub scene can still make you jump.

3. Cooties (2015)

Welcome to the dog eat dog and child eat child world of elementary school. Kids are nasty bags of germs. We all know it. It is universal truths like this that make the film Cooties as effective as it is.

What are some others? Chicken nuggets are repulsive. Playground dynamics sometimes take on the plotline of LORD OF THE FLIES. To an adult eye, children en masse can resemble a seething pack of feral beasts Directing team Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion harness those truths and more – each pointed out in a script penned by a Leigh Whannell-led team of writers – to satirize the tensions to be found in an American elementary school.

2. Suspiria (2018)

Yes, we did choose the 2018 Guadagnino reboot. Argento’s 1977 original is magical and boasts super sadistic teachers. But none of them is played by Tilda Swinton, so—for this list—Guadagnino’s wins.

Swinton is glorious, isn’t she? And her chemistry with Dakota Johnson as Susie Bannion draws you into the story of the American ballet student who finds herself studying in a witches’ coven in a way that felt entirely different than it had in the ’77 version. But it’s not just Swinton. All the teachers at Berlin’s prestigious Markos Dance Academy feel wicked—well, at least those loyal to Markos.

1. The Faculty (1998)

Holy cow, this cast! The student body—Josh Hartnett, Elijah Wood, Clea Duval, Jordana Brewster, Usher!—face off against a teaching staff dreams are made of. Bebe Neuwirth! Jon Stewart! Salma Hayek! Piper Laurie! Famke Janssen! Robert Patrick!

Robert Rodriguez directs a script co-penned by Kevin Williamson (Scream, etc.) that finds the conformity machine of a high school as the perfect setting for an Invasion of the Body Snatchers riff. It’s darkly comical fun from beginning to end.

Fright Club: Towns that Won’t Let Go

Being trapped in a town–whether by supernatural forces or physical ones–is a nightmare scenario that horror movies use to their advantage. Maybe it’s bloodthirsty kids in a cornfield who keep you. Maybe it’s some kind of unnatural barrier, and every time you leave, you wind up where you started. Either way, spooky times! Here are our five favorite towns that won’t let you leave!

5. Hilsboro: The Brotherhood of Satan (1971)

One of those mid-afternoon TV watches one day home sick from school, this movie scared the shit out of me. Was it the kidnapping and possession of children? The Satanic cult? No–it was the idea that K.T. and Nicky could never leave the town. No matter what direction they drove or how they attempted it, they would never get out of the town.

That idea stuck with me for ages, but in restrospect, the movie has a lot of weird goodness going for it. It seems to have inspired Being John Malcovich to a degree, as well as Cemetery Man. It’s a B-movie, no question, but it is a lot of fun.

4. Camp Arcadia: The Endless (2017)

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead continue themes developed in the remarkable Resolution (which could also be on the list). And though it’s really a camp they need to leave, the dread the filmmakers develop is identical to that of the town that won’t let go.

As brothers return to the cult they’d escaped years earlier for a friendly visit, you spend every minute hoping, goading, yelling, begging them to fucking just leave! Get out! What are you still doing there?!

The tension is palpable and the fraternal familiarity between Justin and Moorhead is painfully, tenderly authentic. This works to ground the science fiction elements as they develop, creating an unnerving and memorable feature.

3. Hobbs End: In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

John Carpenter combines King with Lovecraft to create an unforgettable journey into madness. Sam Neill is an insurance investigator out to prove that vanished author Sutter Cane is a phony. He just needs to get to Hobb’s End and prove it.

There’s a scene with a bicyclist on a country road that boasts of Carpenter’s genre magic, as madness and mayhem collude to keep Neill where he is, at least until he can serve a greater purpose.

2. Buffalora: Cemetery Man (Dellamorte Dellamore – [of death, of love], 1994)

Inarguably director Michele Soavi’s best work is confined mainly to the cemetery in Buffalora. Released the same year as In the Mouth of Madness, Cemetery Man explores a handful of the same themes. It just does it with more sex.

The film balances humor with horror, sneakily leading to meaner and more chaotic plot turns until there’s no going back.

Rupert Everett is perfection as Dellamorte, the cemetery keeper who has noticed that the dead come back about seven days after they’re interred. Things go from bad to worse to worse still, and finally he loads up his best friend Gnaghi and plans to put Buffalora behind him. Good luck.

1. The Yabba: Wake in Fright (1971)

First time in the Yabba?

Sweaty, drunken, debauched–Ted Kotcheff’s Aussie thriller wrings tension from every scene as John Grant, put-upon school teacher, explores his manliness with the very manliest in town.

A pressure cooker, the film is an absolute education in escalating tension, but it also boasts what may be the greatest performance of Donald Pleasance’s career.

The film is not for the faint of heart, and potential viewers beware: the kangaroo hunt is real.

Fright Club: Housewives in Horror

When a human being just doesn’t have enough meaningful ways to invest their time, they can go a little nuts. Here’s to the horror of life as the underappreciated, boxed-in, cast off and/or misused housewife. May they all draw blood.

5. Jakob’s Wife (2021)

Director/co-writer Travis Stevens (Girl on the Third Floor) wraps this bloodlusty tale of the pastor’s wife (Barbara Crampton) and the vampire in a fun, retro vibe of ’80s low-budget, practical, blood-spurting gore.

To see a female character of this age experiencing a spiritual, philosophical and sexual awakening is alone refreshing, and Crampton (looking fantastic, by the way) makes the character’s cautious embrace of her new ageless wonder an empowering – and even touching – journey.

With Crampton so completely in her element, Jakob’s Wife is an irresistibly fun take on the bite of eternity. Here, it’s not about taking souls, it’s about empowering them. And once this lady is a vamp, we’re the lucky ones.

4. The Stepford Wives (1975)

Ira Levin’s novel left a scar and filmmaker Bryan Forbes and star Katherine Ross pick that scab to deliver a satirical thriller that is still surprisingly unsettling. What both the novel and the film understand is a genuine fear that the person you love, whose faults you accept and who you plan to age and die with, has no interest in what’s inside you at all. You – the actual you – mean nothing at all.

It’s the idea of trophy wife taken to a diabolical extreme (as even the outright trophy wife isn’t long to last, what with the inevitability of aging and all). The term Stepford Wife worked its way into the lexicon, and there’s a clear pot boiler, B-movie feel to this film, but it still leaves a mark.

3. Dumplings (2004)

Fruit Chan’s Dumplings satirizes the global obsession with youth and beauty in taboo-shattering ways.

Gorgeous if off-putting Aunt Mei (Bai Ling) balances her time between performing black market medical functions and selling youth-rejuvenating dumplings. She’s found a customer for the dumplings in Mrs. Li (Miriam Yeung ChinWah), the discarded wife of a wealthy man.

With darkest humor and sharp insight, Chan situates the horror in a specifically Chinese history but skewers a youth-obsessed culture that circles the globe.

The secret ingredient is Bai Ling, whose performance is a sly work of genius. There are layers to this character that are only slowly revealed, but Ling clearly knows them inside and out, hinting at them all the while and flatly surprised at everything Mrs. Li (and you and everyone else) hasn’t guessed.

Gross and intimate, uncomfortable and wise, mean, well-acted and really nicely photographed, Dumplings will likely not be for everyone. But it’s certainly a change of pace from your day-to-day horror diet.

2. Swallow (2019)

Putting a relevant twist on the classic “horrific mother” trope, writer/director Carlo Mirabella-Davis uses the rare eating disorder pica to anchor his exploration of gender dynamics and, in particular, control.

Where Mirabella-Davis’s talent for building tension and framing scenes drive the narrative, it’s Bennett’s performance that elevates the film. Serving as executive producer as well as star, Haley Bennett transforms over the course of the film.

When things finally burst, director and star shake off the traditional storytelling, the Yellow Wallpaper or Awakening or even Safe. The filmmaker’s vision and imagery come full circle with a bold conclusion worthy of Bennett’s performance.

1. Watcher (2022)

If you’re a fan at all of genre films, chances are good Watcher will look plenty familiar. But in her feature debut, writer/director Chloe Okuno wields that familiarity with a cunning that leaves you feeling unnerved in urgent and important ways.

Maika Monroe is sensational as Julia, an actress who has left New York behind to follow husband Francis (Karl Glusman) and begin a new life in Bucharest.

Monroe emits an effectively fragile resolve. The absence of subtitles helps us relate to Julia immediately, and Monroe never squanders that sympathy, grounding the film at even the most questionably formulaic moments.

Mounting indignities create a subtle yet unmistakable nod to a culture that expects women to ignore their better judgment for the sake of being polite. Okuno envelopes Julia in male gazes that carry threats of varying degrees, all building to a bloody and damn satisfying crescendo.

Fright Club: Best Contagion Horror Movies

The Seventh Seal, Blindness, Carriers, Rabid, Mayhem, Masque of the Red Death, Infection, Flesh + Blood, The Crazies – all amazing movies exploring our communal fear of contagion. They pick that scab, so to speak, but are there others that do it better?

Our two rules: no zombies, no living beasties (The Thing, Shivers, etc.) Just some kind of virus. Here goes!

5. Pontypool (2008)

Canadian director Bruce McDonald’s shock jock horror film is best appreciated as a metaphor on journalistic responsibility and the damage that words can do. Radio air personality and general pot-stirrer Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) finds himself kicked out of yet another large market and licking his wounds in the small time – Pontypool, Ontario, to be exact. But he’s about to find himself at the epicenter of a national emergency.

McDonald uses sound design and the cramped, claustrophobic space of the radio studio to wondrous effect as Mazzy and his producers broadcast through some kind of mad epidemic, with Mazzy goosing on the mayhem in the name of good radio. As he listens to callers describe the action, and then be eaten up within it, the veteran McHattie compels attention while McDonald tweaks tensions.

Shut up or die is the tagline for the film. Fitting, as it turns out that what’s poisoning the throng, turning them into a mindless, violent mob, are the very words spewing at them. It’s a clever premise effectively executed, and while McDonald owes debts all around to previous efforts, his vision is unique enough to stand out and relevant enough to leave an impression.

4. Antiviral (2012)

If you could catch Kim Kardashian’s cold, would you?

This is the intriguing concept behind writer/director Brandon Cronenberg’s seething commentary on celebrity obsession, Antiviral. 

Young Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones) works for a clinic dealing in a very specific kind of treatment. They harvest viruses from willing celebrities, encrypt them (so they can’t spread – no money if you can’t control the spread), and sell the illnesses to obsessed fans who derive some kind of bodily communion with their adored by way of a shared herpes virus. Gross.

But the ambitious Syd pirates these viruses by injecting himself first, before the encryption. Eventually, his own nastiness-riddled blood is more valuable than he is, and he has to find a way out of quite a pickle. Maybe vitamin C?

3. It Comes at Night (2017)

Deep in the woods, Paul (Joel Edgerton, solid as always), Sarah (Carmen Ejogo) and their teenage son Travis (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) have established a cautious existence in the face of a worldwide plague. They have boarded their windows, secured their doors, and enacted a very strict set of rules for survival.

At the top of that list: do not go out at night.

Writer/director Trey Edward Shults explores the confines of the house with a fluid camera and lush cinematography, slyly creating an effective sense of separation between the occupants and the dangers outside. But what are those dangers, and how much of the soul might one offer up to placate fear itself? In asking those unsettling questions, It Comes at Night becomes a truly chilling exploration of human frailty.

2. It Follows (2014)

It Follows is another coming-of-age tale, one that mines a primal terror. Moments after a sexual encounter with a new boyfriend, Jay (Maika Monroe) discovers that she is cursed. He has passed on some kind of entity – a demonic menace that will follow her until it either kills her or she passes it on to someone else the same way she got it.

Yes, it’s the STD or horror movies, but don’t let that dissuade you. Mitchell understands the anxiety of adolescence and he has not simply crafted yet another cautionary tale about premarital sex.

Mitchell has captured that fleeting yet dragging moment between childhood and adulthood and given the lurking dread of that time of life a powerful image. There is something that lies just beyond the innocence of youth. You feel it in every frame and begin to look out for it, walking toward you at a consistent pace, long before the characters have begun to check the periphery themselves.

Mitchell’s provocatively murky subtext is rich with symbolism but never overwhelmed by it. His capacity to draw an audience into this environment, this horror, is impeccable, and the result is a lingering sense of unease that will have you checking the perimeter for a while to come.

1. 28 Days Later (2002)

Activists break into a research lab and free the wrong effing monkeys.

28 days later, bike messenger Jim wakes up naked on an operating table.

What follows is the eerie image of an abandoned, desolate London as Jim wanders hither and yon hollering for anybody. In the church, we get our first glimpse of what Jim is now up against, and dude, run!

Prior to 28 Days Later, the zombie genre seemed finally dead and gone. But director Danny Boyle single-handedly resurrected the genre with two new(ish) ideas: 1) they aren’t dead, 2) therefore, they can move really quickly.

Both Brendan Gleeson and Cillian Murphy are impeccable actors, and Naomie Harris is a truly convincing badass. Their performances, and the cinematic moments of real joy, make their ordeal that much more powerful. But you know you’re in trouble from the genius opening sequence: vulnerability, tension, bewilderment, rage, and blood – it launches a frantic and terrifying not-zombie film.

Skinamarink Screening with Director Kyle Edward Ball at Gateway

In partnership with the Greater Columbus Film Commission, Gateway FIlm Center has announced that acclaimed new filmmaker, Kyle Edward Ball, will visit the Center on Saturday, March 18, to premiere a 35mm version of his film, Skinamarink (2023).

“We are excited to welcome Kyle to Columbus, to the Film Center, and to share the 35mm print of his incredible independent film, Skinamarink” said Gateway Film Foundation CEO, Christopher Hamel.

In Skinamarink (2023), two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing, and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished. To cope with the strange situation, the two bring pillows and blankets to the living room and settle into a quiet slumber party situation. They play well worn videotapes of cartoons to fill the silence of the house and distract from the frightening and inexplicable situation. All the while in the hopes that eventually some grown-ups will come to rescue them. However, after a while it becomes clear that something is watching over them.

The film stars Lucas Paul, Dali Rose Tetreault, Ross Paul and Jaime Hill and is executive produced by Edmon Rotea, Ava Karvonen, Bonnie Lewis, Alan Lewis, Josh Doke, and Jonathan Barkan.

Ball, a first-time filmmaker, made Skinamarink (2023), which premiered at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, for about $15,000. Since the film’s debut, it has become an instant cult classic, often compared to micro-budget horror hits such as The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Paranormal Activity (2007). However, Skinamarink is not found-footage or improvised, but is fully scripted and features images, sounds, and camera angles which were created to add depth and discomfort.

Shudder and IFC FIlms released Skinamarink (2023) in the United States on Friday, January 13, 2023. Gateway Film Center was selected as one of the first venues to feature the film and the Center has continuously screened Skinamarink (2023) since the release in January. To date, Skinamarink (2023) has grossed over two million dollars in the United States, making it one of the most successful and profitable independent films of all-time.

“Members of our community continue to hear about this film and want to experience it the way it was intended, with an audience and on a big screen. The Film Center is proud that we continue to present the film and I know Kyle’s visit, and this 35mm screening, will be a great event for Columbus”, said Hamel.

Tickets for these screenings are on sale now at gatewayfilmcenter.org. The 35mm presentation of Skinamarink (2023) on Saturday, March 18 will screen at 7:00pm exclusively for myGFC Members alongside a workshop co-presented with Film Columbus. The 9:30pm screening will be introduced by the filmmaker and is now on sale. Normal ticket prices apply. MaddWolf’s Hope Madden and George Wolf will moderate the q&a session following the 7:00pm performance.


Gateway Film Center is wholly owned by the Gateway Film Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, Campus Partners, The Columbus Foundation, and thousands of individual donors. To learn more, visit the website at gatewayfilmcenter.org.