REVIEW: Dune (2021)
Denis Villeneuve succeeds in bringing Frank Herbert's sci-fi epic back to the screen, but at the cost of some of its strangeness. by Kurt Schiller In one sense, I have seen Dune twice. In another, I have seen it dozens of times. I
Nowhere Here: Cyberspace & the Assassination of the Unreal
The 40-year rise and fall of cyberspace's symbolic unreality. by Kurt Schiller Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts . . . A graphic representation of data abstracted from
How Horror Helps Manage Depression, Anxiety and Trauma
Horror media can be a powerful tool for living with trauma by Mel Ashford As a sensitive and easily frightened person, I was surprised to find myself drawn to horror as a means of dealing with assault. The first thing that drew
Who Steals the Goose?
Untitled Goose Game may not be "leftist," but its structure recalls the fight against enclosure by Louis Evans It’s a lovely morning in the village and you are a horrible goose. – Untitled Goose Game tagline Is Untitled Goose Game, the video game
The Smol Bean Emperor
Science fiction and fantasy films tend to be fairly unsubtle in their depiction of authoritarianism. Children of Men is the exception.
Ostensible Projected Forms
How an Obscure Short Story by David Foster Wallace Almost Predicted Our Imminent Deepfakes Hellscape by Owen Morawitz Throughout much of its history as a form of genre storytelling, science fiction has consistently explored the tensions and contours that exist between the
The Architecture of Woe
We live amidst the dead temples of slumbering, industrial gods. What will we do if they wake once more? by Kurt Schiller // Illustration by Sam Hindman This novel dramatic paraphernalia consisted first of all of the Gothic castle, with
The Cosmic Sexuality of Stuart Gordon
Unpacking the hilarious, off-putting, otherworldly sexuality of From Beyond and Re-Animator by Ryan E. Torgeson The fiction of H.P. Lovecraft is well-known to readers for recurring themes of alienation, the ever growing fear of the unknown, and an overall hostile and
The Call of the Void
Cosmic horror's philosophy of cosmic nihilism is a tempting lens through which to examine our own existence. But at what cost?
Gnostic Horror and the Fall into History
The combination of cosmic horror with gnostic themes and thought is a perfect encapsulation of the antipathy of modernity to human lives and suffering.