Weekly Triple Feature

Weekly Triple Feature

Folk Horror

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October is the month for terror, and at the Weekly Triple Feature we have you covered. Each week we’re offering up horror selections from throughout film history that range from spine-tingling to bloody, to downright hilarious. Whatever your particular flavor of horror is, you’ll find it here this month.

THIS WEEK: FOLK HORROR

THE FILMS: The Wicker Man (1973, Robin Hardy), The Witch (2015, Robert Eggers), Häxan (1922, Benjamin Christensen)

Folk horror is a sub-genre that’s tough to pin down. While most of horror is fairly specific—slashers, haunted houses, vampires—this one is more abstract. That’s partly because it’s based in culture: It’s everywhere and nowhere all at once. There isn’t necessarily a serial killer on the loose, but there could be a witch or even an entire town that has no problem offering you up to some invisible god.

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Weekly Triple Feature

Five Fingers of Fright!

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October is the month for terror, and at the Weekly Triple Feature we have you covered. Each week we’re offering up horror selections from throughout film history that range from spine-tingling to bloody, to downright hilarious. Whatever your particular flavor of horror is, you’ll find it here this month.

THIS WEEK: FIVE FINGERS OF FRIGHT!

THE FILMS: The Hand (1981, Oliver Stone), Demonoid (1981, Alfredo Zacarías), Carnival of Sinners (La Main du Diable) (1941, Maurice Tourneur)

No body part has proven more consistently terrifying throughout film history than the severed hand. It’s often a character in itself, thinking and acting seemingly of its own volition as it crawls across the screen, leaving a trail of bodies in its wake. The hand is all powerful as appendages go: it helps us drive a car; it holds our babies; it can punch a man in the nose. So maybe the idea of something so strong being untethered from its safe place at the end of our wrist its what makes it such a frightening idea. Like we’re preventing it from acting on its true, murderous nature—like a tiger in a cage. Or maybe it’s just an easy trope because it’s the simplest thing to lop off in a film.

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Weekly Triple Feature

Summer Blockbusters

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THE FILMS: Jaws (1975, Steven Spielberg), Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988, Robert Zemeckis), Spider-Man (2002, Sam Raimi)

THE CONNECTION: Films that were not only the biggest summer money-makers in the years they were released, but that also symbolize a shift in what audiences—and studios—wanted going forward.

THE THINKING: Before air-conditioners became commonplace, movie theaters were a favorite destination on sweltering summer days. On Memorial Day weekend in 1925 Paramount’s Rivoli Theatre in Times Square unveiled a new “refrigeration” system: the first commercial air-conditioning to be installed in a public building. Box office receipts were up $5,000 that week, and the air-conditioned movie house as we know it was born.

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Weekly Triple Feature

Films About Making a Film

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THE FILMS: State and Main (2000, David Mamet), Hearts of Darkness (1991, Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper, and Eleanor Coppola), Man Bites Dog (1992, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, and Benoît Poelvoorde)

THE CONNECTION: Three films where the story revolves around making a (real or fictional) film.

THE THINKING: Films are fantastic. And the industry that makes them is a fascinating one full of creatives, masters of their craft, and . . . personalities. Each entry in this week’s triple feature uses its own technique to tell a story about this incredible world. Whether that’s through a fictionalized film set, a gritty documentary about a film set, or a real-time documentary satire, just about every angle is covered.

Something that comes through in each of these three stories—aside from the fact that money is always an issue—is that it’s downright difficult to get an idea all the way to a screen. Each represents a unique struggle that’s met with determination and choices good or bad that serve the final product. As Paul Thomas Anderson once said about filmmaking, “it’s a miracle anytime one of them gets made.” In this triple feature we get to see a few ways in which it actually does happen.

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Weekly Triple Feature

Everybody Knows: Towns with a Dark Secret

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THE FILMS: Midsommar (2019, Ari Aster), Hot Fuzz (2007, Edgar Wright), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955, John Sturges)

THE CONNECTION: Films in which a group fights to keep a secret from someone trying to uncover it.

THE THINKING: The town-with-a-dark-secret trope is a fun one which usually consists of a protagonist who thinks something isn’t quite right, and then a whole bunch of people try to stop them from figuring out what that is. That’s not always the case though, as this week’s triple feature proves. But there’s always something dubious under the surface and as the viewer we figure it out almost in real time along with the hero.

The three films in this week’s triple feature are an interesting collection of variations on the trope. Midsommar tackles it through the lens of horror and might be the exception to the formula; It’s a story of a secret that isn’t necessarily being covered up as much as it is perpetuated by unsuspecting visitors. Hot Fuzz brings a stylistic and humorous approach in the form of a buddy cop satire where a locals carry on with a secret behind the scenes for what they consider the benefit of all the townspeople. And Bad Day at Black Rock is a pot-boiler of a neo-western about a town with a secret they’d all like to leave in the past. Each brings its own flavor to the topic and is a lot of fun.

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