Articles
Nosferatu as folklore
This essay uses Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu to explore how folklore and mythology thrive on repetition and variation. Drawing on vampire traditions from Slavic demonology to 18th-century “vampire panics,” it argues that retelling—rather than invention—is the engine of myth, and that Eggers’ film treats the Dracula lineage as a living, evolving form.
Excuse Me: Who Are You?
In a world where we are expected to play a variety of conflicting roles, in which our lives are all interconnected, broadcast and dissected, we invariably develop situational identities. We are not one person, we are many people who go by the same name.
A Long Road Out of Hell
Despite its somewhat lurid imagery, Jacob’s Ladder is not horrifying because of what it shows, like Hellraiser, not even because of what it doesn’t show, as with Hitchcock’s Psycho. It is horrifying because you never know how solid the ground beneath you is.