Ghost in the Shell: The Horror of Mass Production
Masamune Shirow's cyberpunk masterpiece envisions a world where people, not just products, are mass produced by Nicola Kapron We now live in a world where nearly everything you can touch is being mass produced—everything except people. Masamune Shirow's 1989 manga
The Hegelian Emptiness of Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk faces a choice between stark materialism and subjectivity by Lapo Lappin The release of the long-awaited Cyberpunk 2077 was expected to be something of a turning point for the cyberpunk genre. Christening a work after a whole subculture is a
Fear of a Black Mirror
How sci-fi visions of vengeful androids recall white delusions of a Post-Reconstruction world by Michael Trigilio On June 12, 2021, the Washington Post reported a story out of Huntersville, North Carolina, about a planned event at a former human-trafficking and torture
Sifting Through the Future-Present
Science Fiction in Non-Speculative Art by Kola Heyward-Rotimi To live in our contemporary era is to live thinking of a future in decay. The proliferation of digital environments has reconfigured how power is channeled through traditional outlets like nation-states, and the
The Original Cyborg: Asian Women & The Machinations Of Power
Even alongside literal cyborgs, Asian women have been used as artistic shorthand for dehumanization and objectification by Kelly Pau In Alex Garland’s 2014 film Ex Machina, a computer programmer named Caleb Smith is tasked by CEO Nathan Bateman to evaluate whether
The Unseen: Fear, Abuse, and The Invisible Man
Leigh Whannell's 2020 film makes the experiences of abuse survivors terrifyingly real by Fran LoIacono The best kind of horror film is one that stays with the viewer and makes them think: it’s one of the reasons why films like The
Why Women Watch Horror
Horror media has become a vital and transgressive artistic inflection point for women by Lindsay Lee Wallace // Illustrations by Lauren Sophie Gletty The theater is dark, and vibrant with the film’s staccato soundtrack and an accompaniment of whispers and shushes.
I Gave You My Soul (and I Am Dead): Gender & Faustian Fiction
A lesson in gender norms, compliments of the Devil by Matilda Lewis The motif of the Faustian pact with the Devil is an old and colorful one, remixed and reinterpreted time and again. Always, it invites the audience to consider: What
REVIEW: Fear Street Reveals the Poverty of Pastiche
Leigh Janiak's Fear Street sets out to revive the teen slasher, but seems content to play around with its corpse by Kurt Schiller Fear Street—the new three-part horror series from Netflix and director Leigh Janiak—begins with a promising burst of neon, blood,
The Monstrous Men of Mary Harron
Mary Harron's films reveal the impotence of the male abuser by Rose Gunn On the night of August 8th, 1969, four followers of failed-musician-turned-cult-leader Charles Manson murdered five people, including the actress Sharon Tate, who was eight months pregnant at the