URHorror Newsletter: Week of 11.23
Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok, a new remake of a Wes Craven classic, & the brutality of Thanksgiving
My lovely horror fiends. Happy Thanksgiving 🦃 If you’re like me, the holiday season started the second week of November. You thought I would say the first week, didn’t you? I needed to time to grieve the end of spooky season. It’s officially turkey and pumpkin pie time, though. So, how are you getting into the holiday spirit? I’d love to hear all about it.
This past week, I was joined by horror fan and streamer, Jonk Lobster, for a Thanksgiving episode covering the 2014 slasher Kristy. The movie doesn’t have much to offer, but the episode sure does!
Horror News
First Look at Robert Egger’s Nosferatu
If you’ve been yearning for a wholly gothic horror film, Robert Egger’s (The Witch; The Lighthouse) has heard your call. We got the first look into his take on F.W. Murnau’s vampire flick earlier this week, which teases Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok. The film will also star Lily-Rose Depp, Willem Dafoe, Nicholas Hoult, Emma Corrin, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
Wes Craven’s 90’s Black Horror Classic is Given a New Life
Monkeypaw Productions recently revealed that it’s taking on the challenge of remaking Wes Craven’s The People Under The Stairs (1991). If you’ve listened to any of my Black horror episodes, you’ll know this film’s impact on me and my childhood. It’s also a one that I wholeheartedly want a remake of. Ezra Clayton Daniels (one contributor of Jordan Peele’s Out There Screaming) has been called on for penning the script. Though I hold Wes highly for this film along with the rest of his filmography, the original script has it’s flaws. So, I’m excited that it’s in Black hands now.
It’s Not That Deep…
but it always is, isn’t it? This week’s movie of discussion, in theme with Thanksgiving, is Eli Roth’s newest slasher Thanksgiving. A holiday horror is the key to my heart, so I ran to the theater the first chance I got. I’m not the biggest fan of Eli Roth, because I’m not the biggest fan of torture horror and his filmography is pretty abundant with it. However, I was willing to give this a chance.
I was expecting a pretty surface level slasher with shameless gore. However, I left the theater considering the way that Thanksgiving, out of any other holiday, has become a capitalist’s holiday. With the modern popularity of online shopping, people aren’t being trampled in Walmart on Black Friday the way they used to. Or the way you see in this movie.
It has a strong opening that puts you right in middle of the Black Friday madness. You meet a ‘Right-Mart’ worker who’s called into work right before he gets to sit for Thanksgiving dinner with his family. Meanwhile, his boss hangs up the phone to sit at the table with his family and brag about how successful the store is. Outside of the store, the hungry mob of shoppers are getting more and more impatient. One year after the Black Friday madness that resulted in multiple deaths, some townsfolk protest for the closure of ‘Right-Mart’ and blame the owner for the tragedy. The cherry on top is that one of the teenagers recorded the whole thing and it became a trending YouTube video.
This narrative, beyond it’s surface, sent us back to a time when Black Friday was actually deadly and dangerous. Now, online shopping has alleviated frontline retail workers of the madness and Walmart and Target are actually closing for Thanksgiving. The carnivorous consumerism and capitalism that we see in the film is still alive and well today, though.
See ya next time!
Until the next newsletter, let me know your thoughts on this one! Next week’s episode, and the last episode of season 5, is ringing in the jolly season with the Black Christmas franchise. I’m joined by two guests to discuss each Black Christmas remake and, at the end, we’ll discuss which ones are better!
Listen to a sneak peak: