We discuss:
Film as a gratifying experience, a roller-coaster ride!
The value of shared or collective experience
Wanting to extend the film by talking about it
Classical narrative
Chains of cause and effects (and also effects before causes!)
The film’s will or the “filmind” (applying a philosophical concept from Daniel Frampton’s book Filmosophy)
Cinematography by Larkin Seiple
All stylistic elements working together for maximum affect
Blurred distinctions between reality and dreaming
Being programmed to fear, but this being mixed with unusual, rescuing moments of humor
Ideas and representations of quintessential American community
American communities representing types of people, and as previously imagined in westerns, or Classical Hollywood films by John Ford or Howard Hawks or Alfred Hitchcock
Non-diegetic music as a form of thinking (especially in connection with the child protagonist, Alex)
Music that honors the power of a child
The importance of rationality in the face of terror, but also the limits of that
The fragility of a stable community in America (even going as far back as the post WW2 era)
The ending as a payoff for the anxiety we lived through the film!
Possible social statements on police brutality, the commonality of gun violence, and specific threats to children in schools
Bruce Kawin’s concepts of “good” and “bad” horrors (i.e. horrors with a sense of moral purpose, or not)
The genesis of the film in some of the director’s Zach Cregger’s life—his living with an alcoholic parent, and his dealing with the sudden tragic death of a friend
Genre mixing: combing the western, horror, zombie movie
George Sanders, “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain”
Drawing on Sanders’ teachings, the story as a structure or a framework upon which we can hang our ideas
The film allowing critical distance and time to process its own extremities
Connections with John Carpenter’s original Halloween
Tonal complexity, bravura performances, and a knockout final sequence!
NOTE: this episode includes mature content, including many references violence and thematic content unsuitable for children
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