#this has notes of Nosferatu in it I reckon

[ficandkaboodle]

I’m trying not to get ahead of myself.

But man.

I could easily imagine being a young and naive convent girl, lonely and confused in her efforts, praying deep into the night in the garden, hands clasped as you weep into the universe for direction, a guardian, a shepherd to guide you towards the path you are meant to walk. And one night, you look up and see this . . .

. . . And you believe your prayers have been answered by the presence of this great and terrible angel.

[angelseraphines]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ favorite films of my squid game original characters. ੈ✩‧₊˚

╰┈➤ this post showcases what the the four letterboxd favorites of my original characters would be. to read my squid game fanfiction featuring my original characters, please read the story masterlist, and for further details, read more information about the main characters here. i am someone who loves cinema, so i thought this would be fun to do!

: ̗̀➛ ¡!albina ruslov¡!

╰┈➤ [park chan-wook’s lady vengeance, a film steeped in guilt, retribution, and the slow unraveling of self-inflicted penitence, would resonate deeply with albina ruslov. geum-ja, akin to albina, has a past defined by privilege, though hers is tainted by forced complicity rather than passive apathy. geum-ja’s transformation from a quiet, ethereal figure to a vengeful force mirrors albina’s personal evolution from a woman consumed by quiet detachment to one who takes action, finally confronting the sins of her past. albina, despite her privilege, has always been hollow, existing rather than living, much like geum-ja’s early years in prison. yet it is only when both women are faced with the horrific consequences of their own inaction that they embark on a journey of reckoning, one that neither of them knows will truly lead to salvation. roman polanski’s repulsion would appeal to albina’s innate isolation and alienation from the world, particularly her detachment from love and physical intimacy. carol, the film’s protagonist, is disgusted by male attention, retreating into her own mind as she succumbs to madness. while albina does not share carol’s exact psychosis, the film’s atmosphere of suffocation would strike a chord with her. she grew up admired for her beauty, yet felt nothing in return, almost as if she were a porcelain doll, a decorative object rather than a person. her marriage to an older oligarch only further cements this, as she enters into it with no illusions of love, only the transactional nature of power. repulsion would serve as a visual echo of her experience, long, empty corridors, a luxurious estate that becomes a prison, a life where nothing truly touches her except her own encroaching despair.]

╰┈➤ [f.w. murnau’s nosferatu may seem an unlikely choice, but its gothic melancholy aligns with albina’s internal world. the film’s heroine, ellen, is delicate and tragic, much like albina in the eyes of those around her. but beyond its horror, the film is about sacrifice, about the idea of surrendering oneself to something greater, even at the cost of one’s life. ellen ultimately gives herself to the vampire to destroy him, a tragic but profound act. albina, too, reaches a point where she must decide whether she remains the passive, lifeless figure of her past or takes control of her fate. the eerie, dreamlike quality of nosferatu and its themes of doom and predestination would appeal to the part of albina that has always felt like she was merely drifting, waiting for something to pull her into the depths. james mangold’s girl, interrupted would strike a deeply personal note for albina, particularly in its portrayal of young women trapped in their own minds, searching for something more. susanna’s journey through a psychiatric institution is less about insanity and more about understanding herself, much like how albina’s participation in the squid game as a spectator becomes a sinister form of self-discovery. albina, like susanna, has spent her life feeling adrift, privileged yet empty, surrounded by people but deeply alone. and just as susanna’s time in the institution forces her to confront the reality of her situation, albina’s experience of being forced to watch her cousin partake in the squid game strips her of her illusions and forces her to finally reckon with herself.]

: ̗̀➛ ¡!roh seong-ah¡!

╰┈➤ [park chan-wook’s the handmaiden, a film about deception, power, and love overcoming social constraints, would deeply resonate with roh seong-ah. though its central romance is between two women, the film’s themes of societal oppression, class disparity, and the resilience of love would appeal to her. akin to lady hideko, seong-ah is trapped within the confines of a rigid culture that dictates her worth and desires, forcing her into a world where she is objectified rather than understood. the handmaiden’s taker and thief dynamic, its slow unraveling of hidden emotions, mirrors her own relationship with cho sang-woo. they are bound by an unspoken connection, yet forces beyond their control keep them apart. the film’s lush cinematography and intimate storytelling would speak to seong-ah’s yearning for something more than survival, a love that transcends status and tradition, a life that is fully her own. sofia coppola’s marie antoinette would appeal to seong-ah’s complex relationship with femininity, luxury, and societal perception. similar to marie, she exists in a world that sees her only for what she can provide, beauty, charm, something to be admired but not truly valued. despite growing up in hardship, seong-ah understands the allure of extravagance and the troubles of being an outsider. marie’s isolation in versailles, surrounded by decadence yet profoundly lonely, mirrors seong-ah’s experience in south korea. she has left behind a desolate world only to enter one where she is still set apart, still viewed as something exotic and different. the film’s dreamy visuals and melancholic undercurrent would remind her of her own struggle, the push and pull between wanting to belong and fearing she never truly will.]

╰┈➤ [wong kar-wai’s in the mood for love, with its restrained, aching romance, would reflect the tragedy of her love for sang-woo. much like mr. chow and mrs. chan, they are bound by circumstance, unable to fully act on what they feel. the quiet glances, the lingering touches, the unspoken words, all of it would mirror the way seong-ah and sang-woo navigate their relationship, tethered by something deeper but held back by forces greater than themselves. the film’s use of color, space, and music to evoke longing would strike her deeply, leading her to reflect on all the instances between them that almost meant something but never fully did. the idea that love can exist yet never flourish, that it can remain trapped in time, would both devastate and comfort her. garry marshall’s pretty woman would be a film she watches with both hope and bitter amusement. the fairy tale of a lower-class woman finding love with a wealthy businessman mirrors her own romantic ideals, but the reality is far less forgiving. in korea, men see her as a passing fancy, something beautiful but short-lived, not someone to be cherished. the film’s core fantasy, that love can transcend wealth, status, and perception, is something she desperately wants to believe in, especially in relation to cho sang-woo. yet deep down, she knows life is rarely so kind. still, the charm of the film, its belief in love’s ability to transform, would keep her coming back to the film, if only to remind herself that, somewhere, a happy ending is possible.]

: ̗̀➛ ¡!rurik ivankov¡!

╰┈➤ [lewis milestone’s all quiet on the western front, a film that strips war of its heroism and exposes it as a machine of death and futility, would deeply resonate with rurik ivankov. the film’s protagonist, paul bäumer, enters war with illusions of honor and duty, only to find himself disillusioned by its brutal reality. rurik, too, was once a boy who went to war young, not for honor but out of sheer desperation. the film’s bleak portrayal of young men becoming hollowed-out shells of their former selves would reflect his own transformation. when he watches paul reach for the butterfly in the film’s final moment, only to be shot down, he would see himself, a boy who once longed for something beyond violence, only to be buried beneath its burden. yet unlike paul, who still clings to something fragile and human, rurik has long since abandoned such notions. he watches the war film not to be reminded of his suffering, but to reaffirm his belief that life is a meaningless struggle in which the strong devour the weak. david lynch’s eraserhead would appeal to rurik’s internalized fears of human existence, its grotesque, unrelenting nature, the idea that life itself is a cruel joke. the film’s surreal, nightmarish atmosphere would strike a chord with him, particularly in its themes of fatherhood and alienation. while he feels no remorse for albina’s infertility, it is not because he does not understand loss but because he sees the ability to reproduce as yet another cruel twist of fate. had she been able to bear children, he likely would have viewed them as another burden, a wicked reminder of life’s cyclical misery, much like henry spencer’s deformed offspring in the film. eraserhead does not follow logic or traditional storytelling, and rurik, a man who rejects sentimentality and embraces the absurdity of existence, would appreciate that. it would be a film he watches alone, in silence, with only the distant howling of the siberian wind outside his estate.]

╰┈➤ [kim jee-woon’s i saw the devil is a film about cruelty causing further savagery, about revenge that ultimately consumes the avenger. rurik, who views humanity as nothing more than a cycle of brutality, would find satisfaction in its merciless portrayal of violence. the film’s protagonist, soo-hyun, believes he can control the game, that he can prolong suffering as a means of justice. but rurik knows better. he knows that violence does not operate on justice, it only breeds more violence, more senseless destruction. he does not revel in the gore itself, but in the inevitability of it, the proof that all men, even those who believe they are righteous, eventually succumb to their basest instincts. i saw the devil is not a film about heroes and villains, it is about the void between them, the space where morality collapses. and in that void, rurik sees himself. andrei tarkovsky’s andrei rublev would be rurik’s most reflective favorite, a film that lingers in his mind long after he watches it. though it follows the life of a medieval russian icon painter, its themes of faith, suffering, and artistic struggle would resonate with him on a deeper level. rurik does not believe in god, but he believes in the importance of history, in the unrelenting nature of human existence. the film’s depiction of a world filled with war, betrayal, and cruelty, yet still touched by fleeting moments of beauty, would unsettle him. in rublev’s silence, in his retreat from the world, rurik would see his own isolation, though where rublev eventually finds meaning in creation, rurik has embraced destruction. yet, he watches it, perhaps as a test, to see if he will ever feel anything at all.]

a/n: this is quite different from my other posts and as much i do write stories for my followers, i like having my tumblr blog as a way to post more personal work in an aesthetic format! 🤍

[ashes-of-ailell]

Shez (Three Houses Unit)

For the Ashen Wolves route I'm creating, Shez may end up being a character within it (if this were something I could actually make, they'd be a playable unit). As a result, I've attempted to adapt them into a Houses unit based on what they can do in Hopes.

This is going to be a long post because I've thought about this perhaps more than I should have. Also - a lot of this will be subject to change depending on how the Wolves Route stuff ends up unfolding. This is just what I've got so far :3

Forgive the probably weird formatting - I'm on mobile browser.

Shez will be an optional unit recruited via a paralogue battle. Their gender will be determined through a dialogue prompt in a small cutscene before the fight (note that their gender will have no effect on the game outside of appearance. They can be S-supported regardless). This paralogue is unlocked shortly after the timeskip.

When recruited, Shez will have two unique classes. One is unlocked upon recruitment and is their default class (Fluegel), while the other is unlocked by completing a separate paralogue battle that appears a bit later on in the story (Asura).

Shez's sword will work how it does in Hopes and share qualities with whatever the other sword you have equipped.

With that background out of the way, here is Shez's unit information:

Personal Ability - Shadowflash (Unit is capable of dashing at incredible speeds, granting them cavalry type movement regardless of class or terrain).

Default Abilities - Sword Prowess Lvl 3 / Reason Lvl 3 / Authority Lvl 2 / Rally Strength

Default Combat Arts - Wrath Strike / Grounder

Default Learned Magic - Blizzard / Banshee / Mire

Default Skill Levels and Strengths/Weaknesses:

Sword - B (Strength)

Lance - E

Axe - E+ (Strength)

Bow - E

Reason - C+ (Strength)

Faith - E (Weakness)

Authority - D+ (Strength)

Heavy Armour - E (Weakness)

Riding - E

Flying - E+ (Budding Talent)

Combat Art/Spell Pool (Specific Skill Level Ups):

Sword - Windsweep (A)

Lance - Tempest Lance (D) / Knightkneeler (C) / Frozen Lance (A)

Axe - Smash (D) / Helm Splitter (C) / Wild Abandon (C+)

Bow - Curved Shot (D) / Point-blank Volley (B) / Ward Arrow (A)

Brawl - Fading Blow (D) / Rushing Blow (C) / Bombard (C+) / Mighty Blow (A)

Reason - Luna (B) / Dark Spikes (A)

Faith - Heal (D) / Nosferatu (D+) / Physic (C)

Authority - Battalion Wrath (C) / Rally Speed (C+)

(Those listed above are just specific combat arts/spells the unit can learn. Unit will learn all other abilities as anyone else would as long as they are not unit specific. All combat arts/spells were cross-referenced with the ones Shez can learn in Three Hopes).

Unique Class Information:

Fluegel (Unique, Advanced) - A dual wielding class exclusive to Shez. Speedy and strong, this class excels with swords. This class can also use magic.

Class Abilities

Vantage - Allows unit to attack first regardless of speed/combat initiation.

Axebreaker - Grants Hit/Avo+20 when using a sword against axe users.

Class Mastery:

Ability - Dual Wielder's Ploy (Increases unit attack range)

Art - Shadow Slide (Allows unit to warp to an allied unit on the field (3 uses per battle))

Asura (Unique, Master) - A dual wielding class exclusive to Shez. A force to be reckoned with, this class boasts a mastery of swords and is highly skilled with dark magic. (Unlocked through paralogue battle, Overcoming Destiny)

Class Abilities:

Vantage - Allows unit to attack first regardless of speed or combat initiation.

Axebreaker - Grants Hit/Avo+20 when using a sword against axe users.

Heartseeker - Adjacent foes receive Avoid-20 during combat.

Class Mastery:

Ability - The Creation (Prevents foes from instantly killing the unit)

Art - Shadow Slash (Allows Shez to unleash their power for a devastating blow. Ignores target's resistances and has a chance to instantly kill non-commander units (6 durability cost)(Asura Only))

For Shadow Slash, it is essentially supposed to be their warrior special in Hopes.

The Creation had two possibilities, one was what is listed and the other was 'Grants Def/Res/Luck+10 during combat. Please let me know if you think the alternative works better! :D

(As a side note, I'm aware that Fluegel technically counts as an Intermediate Class in Hopes, but for the sake of Houses story progression and when Shez is actually recruited here, I've changed it to be an Advanced Class equivalent).

If you've read this far, thank you so much and I hope you like this adaptation of Shez! As I mentioned earlier, this is all subject to change, it's just what I'm working with for now. If you have any feedback or ideas I'd love to hear them too! :3

[justbloggingit-blog]

The 10 Best Horror Movies of 2017 (So Far)

So far, the best horror movies of 2017 have, only (admittedly) four measly months into the year, cut a wide chasm between extremes—between films that explore the limits of obscenity and the quietest of character musings, between well-tuned homages to old-fashioned thrillers and those that feel completely, breathlessly new. And we still haven’t even seen Flying Lotus’s Kuso.

As early in the year as we are, it’s already clear that, however much we have and have yet to lament, 2017 will prove to yield plenty of great—maybe classic—films in a genre (or genre inherently open to a mash-up of genres) typically friendlier than most to giving a voice (and budget) to underrepresented filmmakers toiling at the fringes of the industry. In other words: Horror movie-making is important, now more than ever:

Here are the best horror movies of 2017 so far.

10. Split Director: M. Night Shyamalan Split is the film adaptation of M. Night Shyamalan’s misunderstanding of 30-year-old, since-discredited psychology textbooks on Dissociative Identity Disorder, but if we deign to treat it with scientific scrutiny, we’ll be here all night. Suffice it to say, don’t go looking at anything in this film as psychologically valid in any way. But do go see Split, because it’s probably M. Night Shyamalan’s best film since Signs. Or maybe since Unbreakable, for that matter. And if there’s one way that Split reinvigorates Shyamalan’s stock most, it’s as a visual artist and writer-director of tension and thrilling action. The film looks spectacular, full of Hitchcockian homages that remind one of Vertigo and Psycho, to name only a few. It’s a far scarier, more suspenseful film in its high moments than Shyamalan’s last film, The Visit, ever attempted to be, and it may even be funnier as well, although these moments of levity are sown sparingly for maximum impact. Mike Gioulakis deserves major props for cinematography, but the other thing that will stick in my mind is the unexpectedly great sound design, full of rumbling, groaning metallic tones. After so many films that relied on the kind of overwrought twist ending that made The Sixth Sense so buzzy in 1999, it seems like Shyamalan has finally gotten over the hump to make the kinds of stories he makes best: atmospheric, suspenseful potboilers. Here’s hoping that this newfound streak of humility is here to stay. —Jim Vorel / Full Review

9. The Void Directors: Steven Kostanski, Jeremy Gillespie Viewers should grade writer-directors Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie’s The Void on a curve: While the low-budget Canadian production earns an “A” for ambition, its mélange of The Thing-inspired body horror, ‘80s nostalgia and Lovecraftian cosmic terror doesn’t quite cohere into a satisfying whole by the time its chief antagonist peels away his skin to reveal a bodysuit that looks like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’ Lord Zedd. The first half of the film demonstrates much more restraint, building tension as triangle-branded cultists isolate a mismatched group of (mostly) innocent people—led by Aaron Poole as an out-of-his-depth small-town cop—in a (mostly) vacant hospital. Kotanski and Gillespie build in too many potentially conflicting twists—who, exactly, is impregnated with what?—but the grotesque practical effects and descent-into-Hell structure at times pass for a solid Silent Hill adaptation. Some of horror’s most recent, popularly memorable features (say: It Follows, The Babadook) have wisely employed relatively narrow scopes. Instead, The Void attempts to push audiences into another dimension, but manages at least a few successful frights along the way. —Steve Foxe

8. The Lure Director: Agnieszka Smoczynska In Filmmaker Magazine, director Agnieszka Smoczynska called The Lure a “coming-of-age story” born of her past as the child of a nightclub owner: “I grew up breathing this atmosphere.” What she means to say, I’m guessing, is that The Lure is an even more restlessly plotted Boyhood if the Texan movie rebooted The Little Mermaid as a murderous synth-rock opera. (OK, maybe it’s nothing like Boyhood.) Smoczynska’s film resurrects prototypical fairy tale romance and fantasy without any of the false notes associated with Hollywood’s “gritty” reboot culture. Poland, the 1980s and the development of its leading young women provide a multi-genre milieu in which the film’s cannibalistic mermaids can sing their sultry, often violently funny siren songs to their dark hearts’re content. While Ariel the mermaid Disney princess finds empathy with young girls who watch her struggle with feelings of longing and entrapment, The Lure’s flesh-hungry, viscous, scaly fish-people are a gross, haptic and ultimately effective metaphor for the maturation of this same audience. In the water, the pair are innocent to the ways of humans (adults), but on land develop slimes and odors unfamiliar to themselves and odd (yet strangely attractive) to their new companions. Reckoning with bodily change, especially when shoved into the sex industry like many immigrants to Poland during the collapse of that country’s communist regime in the late ’80s, the film combines the politics of the time with the sexual politics of a girl becoming a woman (of having her body politicized). And though The Lure may bite off more human neck than it can chew, especially during its music-less plot wanderings, it’s just so wonderfully consistent in its oddball vision you won’t be able to help but be drawn in by its mesmerizing thrall. —Jacob Oller / Full Review

7. A Dark Song Director: Liam Gavin In Liam Gavin’s black magic genre oddity, Sophia (Catherine Walker), a grief-stricken mother, and the schlubby, no-nonsense occultist (Steve Oram) she hires devote themselves to a long, meticulous, painstaking ritual in order to (they hope) communicate with her dead son. Gavin lays out the ritual specifically and physically—over the course of months of isolation, Sophia undergoes tests of endurance and humiliation, never quite sure if she’s participating in an elaborate hoax or if she can take her spiritual guide seriously when he promises her he’s succeeded in the past. Paced to near perfection, A Dark Song is ostensibly a horror film but operates as a dread-laden procedural, mounting tension while translating the process of bereavement as patient, excruciating manual labor. In the end, something definitely happens, but its implications are so steeped in the blurry lines between Christianity and the occult that I still wonder what kind of alternate realms of existence Gavin is getting at. But A Dark Song thrives in that uncertainty, feeding off of monotony. Sophia may hear phantasmagorical noise coming from beneath the floorboards, but then substantial spans of time pass without anything else happening, and we begin to question, as she does, whether it was something she did wrong (maybe, when tasked with not moving from inside a small chalk circle for days at a time, she screwed up that portion of the ritual by allowing her urine to dribble outside of the boundary) or whether her grief has blinded her to an expensive con. Regardless, that “not knowing” is the scary stuff of everyday life, and by portraying Sophia’s profound emotional journey as a humdrum trial of physical mettle, Gavin reveals just how much pointless, even terrifying work it can be anymore to not only live the most ordinary of days, but to make it to the next. —Dom Sinacola

6. We Are the Flesh Director: Emiliano Rocha Minter Emiliano Rocha Minter’s death-gurgle provocation We Are the Flesh is successful because it provokes not for the sake of provoking, but to an end. The list of would-be shockers lurking at the edges of horror history is long: A Serbian Film, August Underground, Martyrs, all the way back to Cannibal Holocaust and Nekromantik. Few of these movies have a purpose beyond revulsion— which, look, is totally useful in its own right—and We Are the Flesh takes its sweet time getting to its point, wallowing in the kind of fluid-soaked, perverse murder-fucking that fills Georges Bataille’s transgressive literature staple Story of the Eye. Not coincidentally, Bataille, along with Andrzej ?u?awski, gets a shoutout in the film’s credits, offering a window into Minter’s politically agitated thematic preoccupations. The unsimulated sex, the full-view throat-slittings, the only close-up in cinema history of a scrotum gently contracting—these images are wielded to enrage as much as to disgust, and even if you don’t buy into the undercurrents, We Are the Flesh’s furious obscenity is galvanizing on its own. At a tight 79 minutes it immediately abandons you in its vaguely defined, possibly post-apocalyptic world and doesn’t let up until all is over, climaxing with a scene which echoes Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s beguiling 2015 Evolution (or, um…The Village) in its abrupt reorientation of everything you’ve just seen. Immerse yourself in filth. —Zach Budgor

5. The Transfiguration Director: Michael O’Shea Michael O’Shea’s The Transfiguration refreshingly refuses to disguise its influences and reference points, instead putting them all out there in the forefront for its audience’s edification, name-dropping a mouthful of noteworthy vampire films and sticking their very titles right smack dab in the midst of its mise en scène. They can’t be missed: Nosferatu is a big one, and so’s The Lost Boys, but none informs O’Shea’s film as much as Let the Right One In, Tomas Alfredson’s unique 2009 genre masterpiece. Like Let the Right One In, The Transfiguration casts a young’n, Milo (Eric Ruffin), as its protagonist, contrasting the horrible particulars of a vampire’s feeding habits against the surface innocence of his appearance. Unlike Let the Right One In, The Transfiguration may not be a vampire movie at all, but a movie about a lonesome kid with an unhealthy fixation on gothic legends. You may choose to view Milo as O’Shea’s modernized update of the iconic monster or a child brimming with inner evil; the film keeps its ends open, its truths veiled and only makes its sociopolitical allegories plain in its final, haunting images. —Andy Crump

4. Prevenge Director: Alice Lowe Maybe getting close enough to gut a person when you’re seven months pregnant is a cinch—no one likely expects an expecting mother to cut their throat—but all the positive encouragement Ruth’s (Alice Lowe) unborn daughter gives her helps, too. The kid spends the film spurring her mother to slaughter seemingly innocent people from in utero, an invisible voice of incipient malevolence sporting a high-pitched giggle that’ll make your skin crawl. “Pregnant lady goes on a slashing spree at the behest of her gestating child” sounds like a perfectly daffy twist on one of the horror genre’s most enduring contemporary niches on paper. In practice it’s not quite so daffy, more somber than it is silly, but the bleak tone suits what writer, director, and star Lowe wants to achieve with her filmmaking debut. Another storyteller might have designed Prevenge as a more comically-slanted effort, but Lowe has sculpted it to smash taboos and social norms. Because Prevenge hates human beings with a disturbing passion—even human beings who aren’t selfish, awful, creepy or worse—in it, child-rearing is a form of real-life body horror that’s as smartly crafted and grimly funny as it is terrifying. —Andy Crump / Full Review

3. The Blackcoat’s Daughter Director: Osgood Perkins Looking at his first two horror features, it becomes clear that director Osgood Perkins seems to have a distinct distaste for both plot and film convention. His films defy easy description, as anyone who watched I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House on Netflix could attest. The Blackcoat’s Daughter, meanwhile, was completed and exhibited as early as 2015 under the title February, but has been floating around in limbo ever since until A24 decided to finally give it a limited release this spring. Compared with Pretty Thing, Blackcoat’s Daughter is at least easier to grasp and marginally brisker, which makes it more effective overall. Perkins’ style is languid, atmospheric and deliberate, favoring repetition and a slowly multiplying sense of unease and impending doom. The story follows two high school-aged students who are both left relatively alone at their uptight Catholic boarding school over break when their parents fail to pick them up. As one descends into what is implied to be either madness or demonic possession, the events are interwoven with another story about a young woman journeying on the road in the direction of the boarding school. The two stories inevitably intertwine. The film’s pace sometimes leaves something to be desired, but patience is largely repaid by its final third, which contains several moments genuinely disturbing in their violence and transgressive imagery. In the end, The Blackcoat’s Daughter comes together significantly more neatly and logically than one might consider while watching its first hour, rewarding careful attention to detail throughout. —Jim Vorel

2. Raw Director: Julia Ducournou If you’re the proud owner of a twisted sense of humor, you might tell your friends that Julia Ducournau’s Raw as a coming of age movie in a bid to trick them into seeing it. Yes, the film’s protagonist, naive incoming college student Justine (Garance Marillier), comes of age over the course of its running time; she parties, she breaks out of her shell, and she learns about who she really is as a person on the verge of adulthood. But most kids who come of age in the movies don’t realize that they’ve spent their lives unwittingly suppressing an innate, nigh-insatiable need to consume raw meat. “Hey,” you’re thinking, “that’s the name of the movie!” You’re right! It is! Allow Ducournau her cheekiness. More than a wink and nod to the picture’s visceral particulars, Raw is an open concession to the harrowing quality of Justine’s grim blossoming. Nasty as the film gets, and it does indeed get nasty, the harshest sensations Ducournau articulates here tend to be the ones we can’t detect by merely looking: Fear of feminine sexuality, family legacies, popularity politics, and uncertainty of self govern Raw’s horrors as much as exposed and bloody flesh. It’s a gorefest that offers no apologies and plenty more to chew on than its effects. —Andy Crump / Full Review (for a slightly different take on the film)

1. Get Out Director:   Jordan Peele   Peele’s a natural behind the camera, but Get Out benefits most from its deceptively trim premise, a simplicity which belies rich thematic depth. Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and Rose (Allison Williams) go to spend a weekend with her folks in their lavish upstate New York mansion, where they’re throwing the annual Armitage bash with all their friends in attendance. Chris immediately feels out of place; events escalate from there, taking the narrative in a ghastly direction that ultimately ties back to the unsettling sensation of being the “other” in a room full of people who aren’t like you—and never let you forget it. Put indelicately, Get Out is about being black and surrounded by whites who squeeze your biceps without asking, who fetishize you to your face, who analyze your blackness as if it’s a fashion trend. At best Chris’s ordeal is bizarre and dizzying, the kind of thing he might bitterly chuckle about in retrospect. At worst it’s a setup for such macabre developments as are found in the domain of horror. That’s the finest of lines Peele and Get Out walk without stumbling.