Currently Browsing: horror 6 articles
Jewish Ghost Stories
Molly Adams writes about Andy Nyman’s Ghost Stories. February 1986. The playwright Tom Stoppard has organised a demonstration in support of the Jewish refuseniks trapped in Russia without human rights or means of leaving. The demonstration, taking place in front of London’s National Theatre, involves various actors, celebrities, and activists reading a roll call of […]
British Jewish Horror
Molly Adams introduces six British-Jewish horror films. Since its birth as a genre, horror films have been preoccupied with religion and why not? The ritual, dramatic iconography, and terrifying promises of punishment in fiery pits for sinners to be found in Christianity are the perfect fuel for horror. However, if you’ve ever wondered where the […]
New Flesh for Old
In the second part of a two-part series, Sean Alexander explores the films of Brandon Cronenberg and the return of Jewish Body Horror. *Warning: this review contains spoilers Brandon Cronenberg’s second film, Possessor (2020), echoes much of the corporate themes of its predecessor, this time positing a technology that allows the cerebral transference of ‘agents’ […]
The Return of Jewish Body Horror
In the first of two articles, Sean Alexander explores the films of Brandon Cronenberg. ‘Long Live the New Flesh’ has become a mantra for the underlying themes in the films of David Cronenberg, long since it was first uttered by Max Renn (James Woods) in the climactic scene of 1983’s Videodrome. Cronenberg’s tracking of humanity’s […]
What’s in a Name? Lovecraft Country’s Hiram Epstein
Elyce Rae Helford takes another look at the troubling and antisemitic character of Hiram Epstein on HBO’s Lovecraft Country. In September 2020, in The Times of Israel, Philissa Cramer asked, ‘Why does HBO’s anti-racist ‘Lovecraft Country’ stumble into anti-Semitic tropes?‘ The question came to me as well, and Cramer does a superb job of clarifying […]
David Cronenberg: Jewish King of the Venereal
While one famous Canadian Jew has been in the news recently, another has been overlooked: David Cronenberg. His first feature, Shivers, opened 45 years ago this October, soon making him the nascent new horror’s ‘Baron of Blood’ and ‘King of the Venereal’. It also established many of the Jewish themes and characteristics that would become staple elements of all his […]