Category: Issue #9

England, in Caroline Hardaker’s literary horror novel Mothtown, is wracked by mysterious disappearances, victims lost without a trace, or returning “dried out like logs,” or laying “in the grass, twisted with the roots of trees.” This inexplicable phenomenon, drily referred to as “The Modern Problem,” has led to mass anomie and disconnection (unless, perhaps, the…

In his seminal text Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher illustrates the change from booming US post-war industrialism to the late twentieth century supply side economics through the evolving depiction of organized crime in film. He outlines the transition from tightly knit criminal families defined by culturally reinforced notions of duty and retribution, as seen in The…

When I read Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, I knew who the murderer was before I knew it was a murder mystery. That’s because she was the only member of the core cast to be visibly disabled. Disabled characters tend to be slotted into one of three archetypes: Victim (sacrificed to the plot); Villain…

It’s a hell of a thing to sit in the lap of luxury while the world burns around you. I’m able to work in the comfort of my home and write this essay for you to read, probably in similar comfort, while half a world away Gaza is burning, and everywhere the sea is rising,…

A helicopter soars over a vast, glaciated landscape bright with the crisp whites of boreal snow, the clear blues of glacial meltwater, and the lush greens of northern trees. It’s one of the opening shots of Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2014), and serves as both a natural backdrop with which to contrast the film’s technological…

Jonny Pickering: Hi Rebecca, thanks so much for chatting to us. Before we dig into your writing, I’d love to talk film with you for a minute. We both share a love of Ben Wheatley’s dark fantasy horror film A Field In England for its unsettling vibes and refusal to over-explain anything to the viewer….

Behold, sinners, and quail in terror, as the Holy Man emerges from his tomb! Borne on the broad shoulders of four strong friars, his mitre jostled, his robes caressed, as the palace doors fling wide, as the chamber’s great throng parts in a Red Sea of gasps, whispers, and living flesh before the grim procession….

Ottery St. Mary Tar Barrels [Event]: On November 5th, or thereabouts, of every year the inhabitants of Ottery St. Mary, a village in Devon, strap barrels of tar to themselves and set them alight. They then run through the crowds of people, who gather in the village for the event, while the barrels burn. The…

Here I am in glorious technicolour, standing in the lights that strobe and chase across my skin like flies on a carcass. There is a floor-length mirror, streaky with handprints and faceprints and lipstick stains, the ghost-tokens of dozens of lovers gone by. The dancefloor writhes. The dancers admire themselves and each other in the…

Shirtless and sunburned, a lone man climbs a hill. The bees buzz in his skull—relentless. Their drone drowns out the raging freeway, curses from tired drivers, a distant siren. Angry-red skin peels from his shoulders. Outgrown toenails peek through his torn sneakers. Sometimes he loses his footing, and the bees sting his eyes from the…