The First Omen hit theaters this year, promising to reveal the dark origins of the infamous Antichrist story that launched the franchise. But before we get into how this prequel manages to make satanic prophecies boring (how??), I should mention that my experience with The Omen series is pretty much limited to a maybe-memory.
Okay, so here’s the thing about The Omen franchise and me – my earliest memory of it might not even be a real memory? I was like five or six, wandering around my grandmother’s house, and I stumbled into a room where the TV was playing what I think was The Omen. All I remember are Dobermans barking at a gravesite, and to this day, thinking about that scene still terrifies me, and I won’t go anywhere near Doberman… but honestly, who knows if that was even the right movie? My sister claims I made her watch it with me when she was thirteen, but I have zero recollection of that. Then again, I barely remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, which is actually one of the main reasons I do this whole October horror blog thing – and really, why I blog at all. It’s like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for future-me to remember that hey, I existed and did some stuff.
The First Omen commits what might be horror’s greatest sin: it’s boring. Set in 1971 Rome, we follow Margaret (Nell Tiger Free), an American novitiate preparing to take her final vows at a Catholic orphanage. The setup promises dark secrets, religious conspiracy, and supernatural horror. What it delivers instead is a paint-by-numbers exercise in predictability.
And let me tell you, I called EVERYTHING. Not because I’m some kind of genius film critic or horror savant – this movie is just that obvious. At every turn, even in its most specific moments, The First Omen telegraphs its punches so clearly you’d think it was reading from a “How to Make a Religious Horror Movie” handbook. Margaret’s roommate? Saw it coming. The orphanage’s dark secrets? Called it. The true nature of her own existence? I’d sketched out the entire revelation in my head halfway through the film.
There’s a car accident scene. And not just that this accident happened, and how, and when, but even very specifically what ends up clutched in Margaret’s hands afterward… I saw it coming from a mile away. Actually… there are TWO car accidents and I predicted them both! At this point, I was basically playing Movie Plot Bingo and getting blackout every time.
Bill Nighy shows up as Cardinal Lawrence, which, of course, is great, and in fact, my sister and I joked that this review should merely consist of: “Last night, I saw a movie with Bill Nighy in it.” Nell Tiger Free genuinely tries her best with what she’s given, bringing an earnest vulnerability to Margaret that the movie honestly doesn’t deserve. But when you can predict every “shocking” revelation, every “surprise” twist, and every “dramatic” turn, it’s kind of hard to stay invested.
Here’s the thing about prequels, especially ones dealing with well-established mythologies like The Omen: we already know where this story ends up. We know about Damien, we know about the whole Antichrist business, we know the broad strokes of how this all plays out. So if you’re going to drag us back to the beginning, you better make that beginning absolutely spectacular. You need to show us something we didn’t expect, give us some mind-blowing revelation that makes us see the entire franchise in a new light, or at least tell the story in such a compelling way that we forget we know the ending.
Instead, The First Omen just… connects the dots. It’s like watching someone fill out a paint-by-numbers picture where you can already see all the numbers. Sure, technically you’re seeing how it all began, but in the least interesting way possible. It’s not just that I could predict every twist and turn – it’s that the movie seems completely uninterested in doing anything surprising or meaningful with its position as an origin story. Why even bother telling us how it all started if you’re not going to make that beginning remarkable?
You know what’s funny? That maybe-memory of catching glimpses of the original Omen at my grandmother’s house is more interesting than anything in this prequel. At least that experience left enough of an impression that I’m still wondering about it decades later. This new movie? I’m already struggling to remember parts of it, and I just watched it.
This is exactly why I do these 31 Days of Horror posts. Because otherwise, this movie would just blend into the fog of “oh yeah, I think I saw that once” memories. At least now I have written proof that I sat through it and somehow managed to become a horror movie fortune teller in the process. Not because I’m special – this movie is just THAT predictable.
You know what’s weird? I didn’t set out to watch religious horror this October. My viewing plans were all about late ’90s nostalgia, old apartment-based creepiness, and my ongoing fascination with horror that deals with media, technology, and archivists. I even developed a short-lived Osgood Perkins phase (before Long Legs maybe killed that particular obsession). But somehow, I’ve found myself knee-deep in devil babies and Catholic dread.
Just think about it: we’ve had The Sentinel’s watchful priest guarding an actual portal to hell, Apartment 7A‘s devil-baby cult shenanigans, the Catholic Church’s involvement in Grotesquerie, and Evil‘s X-Files-but-make-it-Catholic investigations into religious phenomena. And now here’s The First Omen, arriving like some kind of lazy, predictable cherry on top of this unplanned religious horror sundae.
Maybe it’s not just me. Religious horror seems to be having a moment right now, which makes sense in its own weird way. In times of uncertainty (and wow wow wow do we have lots of those), people tend to grapple with bigger questions about faith, evil, and what lies beyond. Plus, there’s something eternally compelling about taking the symbols and structures meant to comfort us and turning them into sources of terror. Though I wish The First Omen had done something more interesting with these elements than just checking off boxes from the Religious Horror For Dummies handbook.
Day Twenty-Eight of 31 Days Of Horror in years past: 2023 // 2022 // 2021
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There’s something deliciously horrible about watching a grim serial killer thriller while visiting my baby sister, whose usual viewing preferences lean heavily toward period dramas, Friends, and Taylor Swift tours. She still hasn’t forgiven me for involving her in my 1899 binge a few Christmases ago! She has very little patience for nonlinear, timey-wimey bullshit, for the surreal and experimental, or for disjointed, unreliable storytelling. Also: she is absolutely not a horror fan.
But here I am, eight episodes deep into Grotesquerie on her Hulu account, probably forever altering her algorithm recommendations, wheeeee!
Several people have recently mentioned Grotesquerie to me, and while intrigued, I never actually bothered to look into what it was all about or who was involved. I basically went in knowing nothing.
Turns out this is a Ryan Murphy project, following Detective Tryon (Niecy Nash-Betts) as she investigates a series of gruesome ritual murders murders alongside Sister Duval, a nun with an unusual interest in true crime. In some ways this actually does feel very American Horror Story-esque to me…that sense of lurid, over-the-top sensationalism is there for sure.
While the series draws clear inspiration from things like Se7en and Hannibal, it has a dreamlike quality which takes it to different places entirely. Scenes bleed into one another with nightmarish dream logic – you’re in one location one moment, somewhere entirely different the next, with no clear transition or resolution between them. Around episode seven, this stylistic choice begins to make a disturbing kind of sense… or does it? The more I watch, the more I suspect we’re dealing with an Inception-like layering of reality – dreams within dreams within dreams, each one masquerading as the truth until it too begins to unravel.
My sister and I sat on the sofa until late in the evening watching this, and as of now I have just finished episode nine. Also, I don’t think she was really watching. She had several books and a laptop open in front of her, only looking up occasionally to offer snarky commentary, biting remarks, and withering critique. I suspect I will be making this up to her with a Bridgerton marathon.
Day Twenty-Seven of 31 Days Of Horror in years past: 2023 // 2022 // 2021
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I’m writing this from Indianapolis, where I’m finally visiting my baby sister after promising for years to come see her new house and spend an autumn weekend together. Since I’m writing this via my tablet (not the most efficient setup), this’ll be brief, but sometimes horror, like family visits, is best served in small doses. Hur hur, just kidding Melissa!
My sister isn’t a huge horror fan, but she suggested we watch the 2005 Amityville Horror remake together. While I’ve read the book and seen the 1979 original years ago, I am fairly certain that there are some plot points in terms of backstory in here that are wildly different, especially towards the end. Of course, I could be wrong, like I said, I don’t recall all of the details.
For those unfamiliar with the story, Ryan Reynolds plays George Lutz, who moves into the infamous Long Island house with his new wife Kathy (Melissa George) and her three children. The house comes with a dark history – in 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered his entire family there, claiming voices in the house told him to do it. The Lutz family gets the property at a suspiciously good price, but soon discovers why as George begins to transform under the house’s influence, experiencing vivid visions of the murders while a ghostly presence threatens his new family.
One aesthetic/pop culture detail that particularly resonated with me was the KISS posters adorning one of the children’s walls. Those same posters terrorized me at my cousin’s house when I was young – perhaps planting the seeds for my lifelong fascination with the things that frighten me. Seeing them in a horror film felt like a peculiar full-circle moment.
Despite being set in 1974, the film can’t quite shake its 2000s sensibilities. I don’t know exactly what I mean by that, but there are some blurry/glitchy effects that seem very 2003- 2007 to me. Quick cuts, those choppy frame-rate effects where ghosts move in this jerky, unnatural way…I am hopeful that somebody knows what I mean, because that’s the best I can explain it!
But what really got under my skin wasn’t the supernatural elements – it was the terrifyingly realistic premise at the heart of any haunted house story: the financial trap. Imagine emptying your life savings into a house, only to discover it’s teeming with malevolent spirits. There’s no escape route when your bank account is empty. You’re stuck there, sharing space with whatever entities claimed the property first. That’s the real horror of Amityville – the crushing weight of homeownership colliding with forces that want nothing more than to shatter your sanity and claim your soul as their next basement tenant.
Day Twenty-Six of 31 Days Of Horror in years past: 2023 // 2022 // 2021
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After my recent appreciation of Osgood Perkins’ Gretel & Hansel, I found myself deeply disappointed by Longlegs. The film follows FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) investigating intriguing ritualistic murders–and she’s possibly psychic, too!– but overall, the story drowns itself in shadows and uncertainty. Nicolas Cage appears as our mysterious killer, and despite the marketing buzz about his “transformative” performance, he’s…exactly Nicolas Cage, just pale and weird and freaky – leaving me unsure whether to be grossed out or exasperated by his presence. So…lower your expectations, I guess. Are they pretty low now? Go even lower.
Whil Perkins’ signature atmospheric style remains, sort of– all shadowy corridors and deliberate pacing (not quite the striking fairytale forest terror of Gretel and Hansel) – the film never quite coheres into something meaningful. It drifts between sterile FBI offices and the grimy, cluttered world of Harker’s mother and never quite finds its footing as either supernatural horror or serial killer thriller. Longlegs seems to mistake opacity for profundity, explaining its demonic elements through heavy-handed exposition while somehow still managing to leave more questions than answers.
This is, without question, my most disappointing film of the year, and I’m already tired of thinking about it. Someone will probably tell me I need to watch it again to appreciate it and see all the nuances or whatever, or that I need to read some think pieces or interviews or watch a Q&A with Perkins to understand the story and intentions more thoroughly. Come on! Get out of here with that! I’ve only got this one precious life, man! And that’s just not how I’m gonna spend it. Onto the next one.
Day Twenty-Five of 31 Days Of Horror in years past: 2023 // 2022 // 2021
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If you’re expecting a straightforward retelling of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Osgood Perkins’ Gretel & Hansel might throw you for a loop. This stylized dark fantasy shifts the focus squarely onto Gretel (Sophia Lillis with her hair of January fire muted with mist and grime), reimagining her as the elder sibling. The film’s dialogue is fascinatingly bizarre – theatrically, almost poetically olde-timey one moment, then strangely modern the next, creating an abstract cadence that somehow works perfectly with the film’s otherworldly rhythm, like a dark bedtime story being whispered in an ancient tongue.
All of this is heightened by Robin Coudert’s haunting and hypnotic electronic soundscape, which thrums beneath every scene like some half-remembered nightmare. And like any good fever dream, not everything here needs to make sense: their mother goes from desperate to axe-wielding lunatic in record time, a surprisingly chill huntsman casually deals with a random zombie, and Gretel’s fierce protectiveness of her brother somehow culminates in sending him off alone into the world.
The film follows our young protagonists as they’re forced from their home into a wilderness that feels pulled straight from a Tin Can Forest piece – all fog-saturated colors and deep folkloric shadows, where every twisted path seems to lead somewhere ancient and strange. When they stumble upon a geometric black house that practically hums with sinister energy, they meet Holda (Alice Krige), a witch who serves up her poison with precise, deliberate care.
Krige is absolutely magnificent here – her performance a masterclass in controlled menace, each smile a calculated display of power. The flashbacks to young Holda are weirdly jarring, though – she looks like someone wandered off a 2019 Instagram witch aesthetic page and into medieval Europe. As she begins to draw Gretel into her world of dark magic and forbidden feasts, the film transforms into a coming-of-age story about power and the price of survival.
I’m particularly taken with the film’s stunning visual language. Cinematographer Galo Olivares crafts frames that could be hung in a gallery – all symmetrical compositions and deep shadows. The witch’s modernist house seems to defy architectural logic, its sharp angles and triangular motifs suggesting something ancient and wrong beneath its clean geometry. Every frame feels purposeful, every shadow deliberate, creating a fairy tale that’s both beautiful and deeply unsettling.
This shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with some of Perkins’ other work – The Blackcoat’s Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House prove he’s an expert at crafting a spooky atmosphere. And now that I’m out of my old apartment horror phase, I think I might be diving into an Osgood Perkins binge. There’s something very recent of his that’s calling my name…
Day Twenty-Fourof 31 Days Of Horror in years past: 2023 // 2022 // 2021
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You may recall how I was just lamenting the scarcity of “old apartment horror” while reviewing Apartment 7A? Well, after maybe the hundredth reminder about a certain film from a patient friend on social media (I swear I have some kind of mental block about this movie), I finally sat down to watch The Sentinel (1977).
Well, guess what? That mental block existed because I had already seen the film! I read the Jeffrey Konvitz novel several years back, and I must have immediately rented the DVD by mail through Netflix back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. No wonder I was resisting the idea of watching it; by my 31 Days of Horror rules, I have to watch/read/whatever things I have never watched/read/whatevered before.
[EDIT: in the course of writing this, I discovered that there is actually a sequel to this novel! But then I read Grady Hendrix’s review, and I’m good. I don’t need to read it.]
Anyway, I did watch it, and I maintain that it still counts because I obviously didn’t remember much about it from the first time around! Here’s the gist: The Sentinel follows Alison Parker (Cristina Raines), a gorgeous, constantly booked fashion model who, rather than marry Prince Humperdinck, moves into a creepy old building full of weirdos, and which is perched over a Hellmouth!
Ok, I guess that’s not quite the whole thing. Alison loves her doting lawyer boyfriend (Chris Sarandon), but she isn’t ready for that kind of commitment! So she goes out looking for a new place to live and snags what seems like the deal of the century: a gorgeous Brooklyn Heights apartment in a stunning old building. The kind of place that makes you wonder how anyone at all could afford it, especially a shampoo model in 1977. As an aside, as Alison and her friend were checking out apartments, they would exclaim at the outrageous rent prices– one place, for example, being $600 a month. LORDY BE. $600 for a 2-bedroom apartment in Manhattan!
Of course, as with all suspiciously good deals in horror movies, apartments, or otherwise, there’s a catch. The building has a collection of eccentric, intrusive, lecherous neighbors that would make the Bramford residents seem tame by comparison. And there’s also a mysterious blind priest who spends his days sitting at a window, just being weird and creepy in general.
The Sentinel weaves together Catholic religious horror with all the unsettling elements that make old urban architecture so perfect for fear – the weight of history in every creaking floorboard, the sense of being surrounded yet isolated, and the peculiar way that beautiful old buildings can shift from grandeur to menace when darkness falls. The building itself becomes a character, with its ornate moldings and shadowy corridors hiding secrets that feel ancient and malevolent. The film also features one of those incredible 1970s ensemble casts that only this era could provide: Ava Gardner, Burgess Meredith, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, Jerry Orbach, and Beverly D’Angelo, among others. It’s the kind of lineup that makes you realize just how many legendary actors were working in horror during this period. Or how many of them stumbled onto a set? I don’t know how it works.
A bit of a warning – the finale goes places. Like, PLACES places. Without spoiling too much, let’s just say it makes some bold choices about using actual carnival performers that would definitely not be okay today. But if you can get past that (significantly offensive and exploitative) issue, there’s something fascinating about how the film combines Catholic mythology with urban isolation and the particular anxieties of being a young woman living alone in the city.
Speaking of young women living alone in threatening urban spaces, watching The Sentinel sent me down a rabbit hole of other apartment horror films. A Threads user reminded me that there’s Hideo Nakata’s Dark Water (2002), where a single mother and her daughter confront the creeping dread of a decaying apartment complex. The Japanese original captures that same sense of urban isolation that The Sentinel does so well, though its horror emerges from the crushing weight of poverty and abandonment rather than religious dread. Even the American remake maintains this atmosphere, thanks to its brilliant use of Roosevelt Island – that strange slice of New York caught between boroughs, where the abandoned smallpox hospital still looms, and the tram ride is said to feel like crossing over into another world entirely.
Then there’s Candyman and Cabrini-Green – probably the most powerful example of apartment horror I can think of. Those towering concrete structures tell us everything we need to know about urban decay and racial segregation, while the endless corridors and institutional neglect create perfect conditions for both supernatural and social horrors to take root. Looking at all these films together, I’m struck by how they work from opposite ends of the urban experience – from the ornate luxury of the Bramford and The Sentinel’s Brooklyn Heights brownstone to the institutional decay of Dark Water‘s complex and Cabrini-Green. But whether the walls are covered in elegant molding or crumbling concrete, these films tap into the same fears: that strange loneliness of being surrounded by people but completely cut off, those walls that promise safety but might just be keeping you trapped. They understand something essential about city living – about how our homes can turn strange and threatening, in ways that are sometimes supernatural, but often all too real.
Since posting about apartment horror on social media, people have been sharing their own suggestions. Archive 81 definitely fits – the way that series uses its apartment building’s architecture and history is fascinating, while also scratching that itch I have for stories about obsessive archivists and haunted media. The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears, Shivers, and No One Gets Out Alive are all in there too, though I’ll admit while I have watched the first two, they’ve all gone a bit fuzzy in my memory, and the third I don’t know anything about at all other than it may be based on something Adam Neville wrote. Clearly, there’s more to explore in this corner of horror than I initially thought.
AND just as I am wrapping up, I saw a long-time commenter and friend of the blog mentioned POSSESSION in terms of apartment horror…how could I have forgotten that one? They also reminded me of certain things that occur in that movie, so no wonder Sam Neill subconsciously came to mind for my gender-swapped devil baby pregnancy that I mentioned yesterday, ha ha!
Day Twenty-Three of 31 Days Of Horror in years past: 2023 // 2022 // 2021
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While critics and reviewers don’t seem very taken with Apartment 7A, the recent prequel to Rosemary’s Baby, calling it subpar, lackluster, and “the weakest of the devil baby movies this year,” (ha!) I found myself more forgiving. As someone with a soft spot for the rare “old apartment horror” subgenre, I thought it was a welcome addition to a category that doesn’t get enough entries. By “old apartment horror,” I mean stories set in those grand, aging urban buildings where the architecture itself seems to harbor secrets and malevolence. Now, I’ll admit that Rosemary’s Baby itself leans more heavily into devil baby horror than old apartment horror, but I’m here for the creepy vintage urban living spaces. There’s something about those ornate, aging buildings with their mysterious tenants and dark secrets that I find marvelously thrilling.
Beyond Rosemary’s Baby, there aren’t many films that truly capture that unsettling vibe of old apartments harboring malevolence. Roman Polanski’s “Apartment Trilogy” comes to mind – Repulsion, with its claustrophobic portrayal of a woman’s mental breakdown in a London flat; Rosemary’s Baby itself, set in the ominous Bramford; and The Tenant, where the protagonist’s paranoia is amplified by the bizarre Parisian apartment building he moves into. Sure, there are books like Riley Sager’s Lock Every Door and Nat Cassidy’s Nestlings that tap into this niche, but all around, it seems like underexplored territory. So while Apartment 7A might be continuing the devil baby tradition, I’m watching it for the old apartmentness of it all.
(I took this question to social media, and AGAIN, someone reminded me of The Sentinel. Why do I have such a mental block about this film? That’s it. I am watching The Sentinel next!)
Anyway, Apartment 7A follows Terry, a struggling dancer in 1960s New York, played by the always impressive and wildly expressive Julia Garner. After a painful ankle-breaking career setback, Terry gets entangled with a mysterious older couple who promise her fame and success. Of course, this being a prequel to Rosemary’s Baby, we know things aren’t going to end well for poor Terry.
I have to admit, every time I looked at Garner as Terry, I half-expected her to hiss impatiently, “I don’t know shit about fuck” (channeling her role as Ruth from Ozark) or inquire in an absolutely insane accent, “What are you wearing? You look poor” (à la her portrayal of Anna Delvey in Inventing Anna). This is an actress who gets to deliver the most hilariously iconic lines in her other roles, and it was a bit of a mental adjustment to see her in this particular context.
Apartment 7A may not match the impact of the original, but I appreciated its attempt to explore how someone might fall into the clutches of a sinister cult. Garner’s performance is captivating, and Dianne Wiest brings a cruelly zany energy to her role as Minnie Castevet. I know a lot of people complained about the visuals being anachronistic or not working for various reasons, but I actually loved them. That bedazzled demon monstrosity everyone seems to hate? I thought it was really pretty! But I’m a magpie for sparkly things. I also loved the German Expressionist (or? what would you call that, anyway?) dream sequence bit. Sometimes, a little visual flair goes a long way!
That being said, I’m growing weary of films that consistently portray women as victims of supernatural terror. It’s high time for a fresh perspective on this genre. Picture this: a consensual devil-baby story where the mother-to-be is fully on board, and the horror is experienced by the unsuspecting father. Imagine Sam Neill, circa In the Mouth of Madness, as a former priest who left the clergy for love. Unbeknownst to him, he’s destined to father the Antichrist, with a devil-cult orchestrating the entire scenario from the start. The twist? The demonic influence was within former holy-roller Sam Neill all along! Now that’s a devil-baby movie I’d be excited to see.
Day Twenty-Two of 31 Days Of Horror in years past: 2023 // 2022 // 2021
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Why am I on the verge of tears whenever I tune into Agatha All Along? It’s not because of any particular plot twist or character moment. No…I think these are tears of joy, of validation, of finally seeing something I’ve yearned for without even realizing how much I needed it.
Imagine growing up in a world where every major superhero tale revolves around caped crusaders or high-tech marvels. Superman, Batman, Iron Man – icons, sure, but always cut from the same cloth. You don’t have to imagine it, though; we grew up in the same world, didn’t we? Now, picture the moment when Wonder Woman finally graced the big screen. That’s the feeling Agatha All Along evokes for me, someone who has always been drawn to the mystical, the arcane, the witchy side of things. It’s a show that puts magic and witchcraft front and center in the Marvel universe, a space usually reserved for super-strength or super-science or whatever else goes into making a typical superhero.
I’m not a comic book fan, so I can’t speak to Agatha’s history or importance in that world. And sure, there have been plenty of shows and movies about witches before. But seeing magic take the spotlight in the Marvel Cinematic Universe feels like a shift. It’s like the mystical stories I’ve always loved are finally getting the big-budget superhero treatment.
The storyline, while centered on Agatha’s quest to regain her powers via the mysterious Witch’s Road, isn’t just about Agatha’s delightfully hammy wickedness. Along with her, there’s a ragtag coven of random witches, each with their own baggage and secrets, making this show a witches’ brew of fascinating elements. It seems to be exploring themes of magical identity, self-discovery (and maybe redemption), and the complex nature of power itself. From the hints we are getting into the various witch’s backstories, it also looks as if it will not shy away from the dark, messy aspects of processing pain and loss. It’s telling a story that’s as emotionally gripping as it is mystically intriguing.
I’ve included Agatha All Along in my 31 Days of Horror here because it taps into something that great horror often touches on—the fear and fascination with the unknown, yes, but also the very real, very human experiences of grief and trauma. The show explores these things through a supernatural lens, creating an atmosphere thick with emotional weight and psychological depth.
There’s a particular thrill in stepping into a world where the rules of reality bend and break, where anything might be possible – and not all of it good. But there’s also a profound connection in seeing familiar pain reflected back at us through unfamiliar means. Agatha All Along is delivering both, all while existing within the framework of the Marvel universe, on Disney + no less.
So yes, I get to feeling some kind of way watching Agatha All Along. I’m seeing the stories I’ve always loved, the emotions I’ve always grappled with, and the elements I love in horror—both the supernatural and the deeply human—being told on a grand scale, with all the budget and attention that usually goes to more conventional superhero tales.
And the Witches Road song. It’s so catchy, so perfect…so evocative of everything I just wrote above…that I can’t even sing it without weeping. That’s the magic of this show– it gets under your skin, into your heart, and even into your tears.
Day Twenty-One of 31 Days Of Horror in years past: 2023 // 2022 // 2021
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I mentioned previously that I had a particular hankering for a specific sort of ’70s horror, something brimming with dreamy, moody, autumnal vibes, and preferably something I’d never heard of before. The examples I gave were The Haunting of Julia (1977) and Images (1972). The former is a drizzly autumn in London, all grey skies and rain-slicked streets, while the latter unfolds in a misty, golden-hued countryside. In both, the location isn’t just a backdrop—it’s almost a character in itself, infusing every frame with a palpable sense of melancholy and unease. The sense of place is really important for this mood, creating an atmosphere that seeps into your bones.
While I received tons of suggestions, many were things that I’d already watched or just didn’t fit that very specific atmosphere. Lots of folks mentioned things like The Changeling, Don’t Look Now, Rosemary’s Baby, The Sentinel, The Legend of Hell House, The Other, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Eyes of Laura Mars, and Suspiria–which are all great, but I’d already seen them, and either they were not the level of obscure I was looking for, or they leaned too heavily into thriller or giallo territory.
I promised to share a list of the interesting ones, even if they didn’t *quite* fit. Here are the ones that stood out.
Magic (1978) // Allison’s Birthday (1981) // The Wind 1986// The Legacy (1978)
There were also a few mentioned that I was familiar with because I’d read the books. But I loved the books, so finding the film adaptations is now a priority!
Ghost Story (1981) // The Owl Service (1969-1970) // The Watcher in the Woods (1980)
But my friend Kate (who, as you may recall, has written a few things for this very blog) came through in the end. She seemed to understand exactly what I was looking for—even if neither of us could articulate it perfectly. We agreed on a few key elements: the film must be deeply atmospheric, potentially at the expense of a conventional plot. We were looking for surreal, dreamy sequences that border on nightmarish, yet remain too elusive to instill outright fear. Above all, we wanted what Kate aptly described as an “unshakable sense of the uncanny.”
Among her recommendations, including Symptoms (1974) and Dark August (1976), Kate suggested also Black Moon (1975).
As I would soon discover, this last suggestion was precisely what I had been seeking all along.
Louis Malle’s Black Moon is a celluloid incantation, a fever dream caught on film. To describe it fully would be to break its spell, but glimpses may be shared:
A war rages, men versus women, gas masks, and tanks in pastoral fields. Lily flees, her car careening through countryside both beautiful and menacing. A mangy unicorn appears, vanishes. She finds a secluded manor, but safety is an illusion.
Inside, a bedridden old woman babbles through a radio, conversing with a giant rat. Naked children dart between shadows, chasing pigs across immaculate lawns. Beautiful twins, both also named Lily, move through the manor with eerie grace, tending to housework and animals with an unsettling, dreamlike intensity. Animals and plants whisper secrets, while time stretches and contracts. Alarm clocks shrill at odd intervals, their urgency at odds with the languid unreality of the scene.
Lily wanders, observes, participates. She chases the elusive unicorn, tends to the old woman, joins a surreal family dinner. Scenes bleed into one another. Is she awake or dreaming? Are we? The war intrudes and recedes like the tide. Nature feels alive, watching, waiting. Lily transforms, but into what?
Malle draws clear inspiration from Alice in Wonderland, but filters it through a 1970s arthouse fever dream. His film evokes for me Jaromil Jireš’s Valerie and Her Week of Wonders–both works being hazy, hallucinatory coming-of-age tales where reality and fantasy intertwine. Black Moon also reminded me a bit of Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! – particularly in its sense of escalating absurdity and horror within a confined space. All three films lean into surrealist storytelling, leaving viewers unsettled and searching for meaning amidst apparent chaos. Nothing makes sense, yet everything feels ominously significant.
Black Moon finds horror not in jump scares or gore, but in the profound unease of a world unmoored from reason. The film’s refusal to provide clear meaning or resolution can be deeply unsettling. Malle apparently said that “each time something appeared that looked like a plotline, I would cross it out,” and obviously, this leaves viewers adrift in a world where the rules of reality no longer apply, which is its own kind of terror.
To say more would be to risk breaking the enchantment. Some spells are best experienced, not explained.
Day Twenty of 31 Days Of Horror in years past: 2023 // 2022 // 2021
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In the spring of 2023, I found myself utterly engrossed in Ling Ling Huang’s Natural Beauty. This haunting tale follows a former musician who takes a job at a mysterious, high-end beauty startup, blending themes of grief, identity, and the dark side of our beauty obsessions. Little did I know I was witnessing the emergence of a trend. At the time, I simply noted its kinship with the imaginative strangeness of Mona Awad’s works, the visceral unpleasantness of Ottessa Moshfegh’s writing, and the sheer peculiarity of Beth Morgan’s A Touch of Jen. I mentally categorized it under a loose umbrella of magical realism, alternate reality, or perhaps speculative fiction.
It wasn’t until I saw the marketing for Mona Awad’s Rouge, about a woman who is drawn to a cult-like spa after her mother’s passing, that I began to notice a recurring theme in recent horror literature. Though I couldn’t get into Rouge and gave up after a few chapters, I soon observed an influx of similar books hitting the shelves. A pattern was emerging – a concentration of horror stories rooted in the fertile soil of wellness culture and influencer glamour. It was as if our collective obsession with youth and beauty had finally coalesced into a specific strain of literary nightmares, emerging from vials of peptide serums and sleek microcurrent devices.
As I immersed myself in these stories, I experienced a moment of alarm. I found myself really noticing, for the first time, the sheer abundance of beauty products in my own bathroom. What had once been a simple shelf of basics had, without my conscious realization, transformed into a small apothecary. Serums, essences, ampoules, and creams in elegant bottles crowded the space, each promising miracles with increasingly complex ingredients and protocols. The realization was jarring – I’d been mindlessly accumulating these products, unconsciously influenced by the very culture these books were critiquing. The volume of products and the pseudo-scientific jargon that accompanied them suddenly felt almost comically overwhelming. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if my bathroom cabinet achieved sentience and started its own wellness blog.
My skincare routine, once a simple cleanse-tone-moisturize affair, had evolved into a complex, multi-step ritual. Each product came with its own set of instructions, optimal times of application, and promises of transformed skin. If my routine gets any longer, I’ll need to start it next Tuesday to be ready for Friday night! It’s a little bit insane.
This cluster of stories seems to draw sustenance for this insanity from our digital age. The carefully curated perfection of social media provides ample shadows for horror to lurk in, each story a cracked mirror reflecting our aspirational selves. In this landscape of distorted reflections, authors are crafting images that unsettle in new and compelling ways, revealing the monstrous potential of our beauty obsessions.
The rise of this beauty-horror trend isn’t happening in a vacuum. Increasing awareness of the beauty industry’s darker sides – from exploitative practices to dangerous products – lends credibility to these horrific tales. The pressure to conform to ever-changing beauty standards, the environmental impact of cosmetic production, and the psychological toll of constant self-scrutiny all provide fertile ground for horror narratives.
As I delved deeper into these works, I found myself becoming increasingly attuned to what I might call a beauty-horror wavelength. It was as if each book was adding another layer to my understanding, priming me for what was to come. This realization hit home when I heard about the release of The Substance in cinemas. People started discussing screenings before I’d even caught a glimpse of the trailer or heard a whisper about the plot. At this point in time, I have only seen movie posters and a few friends’ reactions online. I am deliberately staying away from trailers and reviews because I want to go into it knowing nothing about the story itself, only armed with the knowledge of everything else I have been absorbing. Interestingly, from the title alone, I had a strong inkling of what it might be about. This past year and a half of immersion in beauty-centric horror had been preparing me for it, and I hadn’t even realized it.
The arrival of The Substance feels particularly timely, though it’s hardly the first film to explore the horrors of beauty culture – one need only recall the body horror of The Neon Demon or the satirical edge of Death Becomes Her. I must admit, though, that I’ll likely wait to watch it at home. Even before the pandemic, I found myself reluctantly acknowledging that I don’t particularly enjoy the cinema experience. The chatter, the noise, the sight of bare feet propped on seats – it’s all beyond my control. At home, I have a handle on things: I can pause for snacks or to take dozens of screencaps and avoid the anxious compulsion to shush my fellow viewers (an urge I resist but resent having in the first place). Also, I have a tiny bladder; it’s much easier to take pee breaks at home!
There’s a certain irony in preferring to experience these tales of beauty-obsessed dystopias in the comfort of my own carefully curated space, but perhaps it’s fitting. After all, isn’t the pressure to conform to beauty standards often most insidious in our private moments? It’s in these intimate settings – our bathrooms, our bedrooms – where we often confront our reflections and grapple with societal expectations. Perhaps that’s why the beauty-horror subgenre resonates so deeply; it taps into the anxieties that lurk in our most personal spaces.
This connection between beauty, horror, and what we do in our personal spaces is explored in several titles I’ve encountered in what turned out to be an unintentional deep dive into this emerging subgenre…
The Glow by Jessie Gaynor follows desperate publicist Jane Dorner as she becomes entangled in a bizarre wellness retreat. Gaynor’s novel stands out with its self-aware humor, a refreshing change in the sometimes stifling atmosphere of wellness retreat horror.
Allie Rowbottom’s Aesthetica takes us deeper, following a 35-year-old former Instagram influencer now working behind a cosmetic counter. On the eve of a high-risk surgery to reverse all her past plastic surgeries, she’s forced to confront her traumatic past.
youthjuice by E.K. Sathue follows Sophia, a copywriter who joins a skincare company with a too-good-to-be-true product. While it aims to critique beauty influencer culture, the novel fails to dig beneath the surface. In a subgenre that demands fresh perspectives on our beauty-obsessed world, youthjuice unfortunately adds little to the conversation.
Yet it’s Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang that truly captivates. Huang’s prose is lyrical yet doesn’t veer into purple territory, creating a beautiful meditation on grief, family, and beauty itself. The story skewers the cult of beauty in a surreal and somewhat satirical way, while maintaining a gorgeous sincerity.
As I write this, I’ve just begun reading the recently published Snake Oil by Kelsey Rae Dimberg, and while it’s too early for me to offer any personal insights, the premise alone is enticing. Dimberg’s novel follows three women caught in the orbit of Radical, a billion-dollar wellness company. I’m particularly intrigued by how it might explore the tension between empowerment rhetoric and exploitative practices often found in these spaces, and as I continue reading, I’m curious to see how it fits into the broader landscape of beauty-horror we’ve been exploring.
In the midst of this fictional exploration, I stumbled upon a work that cuts straight to the heart of the matter: Gore-Geous: Personal Essays on Beauty and Horror by Alexandra West. West, whom I already admired from her brilliant discussions on the Faculty of Horror podcast, has crafted something truly special here. In these essays, West deftly explores the intersection of beauty standards, societal pressures, and horror films. She delves into how horror narratives often reflect and critique our obsession with physical perfection, examining everything from body modification nightmares to the terror of aging in a youth-obsessed culture. West’s insightful analysis unpacks the harmful messages we receive about beauty and how horror films can serve as a space to challenge these norms. Her words, “Horror is a haven for me when the world feels too obtuse, moronic, or basic,” resonated with me deeply, encapsulating how horror can offer a critical lens through which to view our beauty-obsessed world.
As I contemplate this landscape of beauty-horror, both fictional and analytical, I find myself both continually unsettled and intrigued. The genre seems to be holding up a funhouse mirror to our society, reflecting our obsessions and anxieties in grotesque new forms. From the promise of snail mucin for dewy, glass-like skin to the allure of vampire facials, each innovation in beauty tech seems to offer new, fodder for horror narratives. I’m half expecting my next face mask to come with a liability waiver and a living will.
While I eagerly await The Substance‘s streaming debut, I’m not exactly starved for beauty-horror content. In our current landscape of late-stage capitalism and entrenched patriarchy, the well of beauty-related anxieties seems bottomless. Each new product, each impossible standard, each ’empowering’ marketing campaign seems to birth another grotesque narrative. It’s a genre that, unfortunately, may never struggle for inspiration.
Thoughts? Feelings? Favorite beauty routine YouTubers? I am all slightly elongated and probably not very aesthetically pleasing ears…!
P.S. If you have made it this far, I have a confession: tonight I watched Death Becomes Her for the first time. This entire post was inspired by how much I just really didn’t want to write about that movie.
Day Nineteen of 31 Days Of Horror in years past: 2023 // 2022 // 2021
If you enjoy posts like these or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?