I haven’t really seen any horror recently sadly!

My partner and I watched the shining together recently. First for them and a revisit from when I first saw it ages ago. It was rather fruitful to go back to it and talk about what it’s actually about. Like, compared to when I was young, it was so obviously about domestic violence and how the haunting of this world is within us (there are few really clear allusions to mirrors and jack really just being a vessel for what’s on the “other side”).

Told my partner about the one conversation Kubrick had with King, where apparently all Kubrick did was ask King if he believed in God. My partner reasoned that the film is also in someways about alcoholics and that Kubrick inferred that King was subconsciously writing about his own alcoholism. I don’t know if King has ever acknowledged anything like this, nor have I read the book.

This video essay also came out recently about how there’s a small but conspicuous tendency for Jack to stare into the camera for split seconds, but repeatedly across the whole film, which I think fits in with all of the above: the film is a mirror and its “haunting” is something that exists in our real world too for which some of us are just vessels.

Also generally interesting how it’s not really a horror movie … kind of a horror fusion film.

Other than that, while I had a bad bout of COVID recently I worked through Peele’s “Us”, Candyman sequel (loved candyman as a kid) and “Nope”. Generally, I like his vibe but find him frustrating … it’s as though he can’t let go of his comedy roots and always leaks some triviality or non-seriousness into his films that prevents their intensity or gravity from attaining heights that you feel like they should.