American filmmaker Edwin Porter is well known by his contemporaries in cinema for his revolutionary insights in continuity editing that led to the story film, the beginnings of narrative cinema, and the invention of editing. But what precisely was Edwin Porter’s significance in the development of film language? Film language…

One of the things that interests me with Tom Stall from “A History of Violence” is the duality of his character. In particular, how convincingly and effectively he is able to portray a caring father and husband to his wife Edie and children Jack and Sarah, while concealing his true…

In the article, The American Nightmare author Robin Wood outlines the basic formula to create horror. That formula consists of three variables including normality, the monster, and the relationship between the two. This third variable is most important in creating horror. Moreover, in this third formula normality is threatened by…

The psychoanalytic approach can be considered a most “dangerous method” as it can make a patient unearth self-deprecating irrational ideas they firmly believe, coupled with its ability to sidetrack a patient from what they want to improve. …

The film director Alfred Hitchcock is a well-renowned auteur, as his artistic style is so distinctive that it can be recognized through most of his filmography. Hitchcock’s recognizable style and thematic preoccupations revolve around suspenseful narrative action and using the audience as a voyeur. …

The Turning (2020) directed by Floria Sigismondi depicts psychological issues revolving around mental health and mental illness. This film makes the viewer look at the ugly side of mental illness through the perception of Kate Mandell. Kate aims to help others, by tutoring Flora and Miles Fairchild and visiting her…

At the narrative (diegetic) level the 2018 film Hereditary produces anxiety and dread in the viewer in many ways before the actual horror is revealed. Firstly, anxiety is produced when Charlie is unsupervised at a high school party in Utah and eats cake containing nuts, which she is allergic to…

If you’re looking for the quintessential gangster crime film then look no further. Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen (2019) is a deeply layered film in which the private detective Fletcher recounts the story of Micky Pearson, a man in charge of a large marijuana empire. When word gets out that Fletcher…

Parasite is what happens when economic and class inequality is personified in a monstrous form. Director Bong Joon-ho’s masterful cinematography and gripping dialogue leads to a suspense-filled classic of modern cinema. In the film, an idyllic upper-class life shadows a trail of deceit left behind by a lower-class Korean family…