Here’s a friendly reminder that, even though the news rn is scary and depressing, the answer should almost never be to “not watch because it makes [me] sad.” If the news upsets you, go out and try to change the world it reports. Ignorance is not bliss. #ignoranceisirresponsible
@sargent_jo90037 These are all prominent themes and motifs depicted in these films, almost certainly because the artists have felt these in their day-to-day lives.
Coralie Fargeat is 49-years-old. She isn’t Gen Z.
I’ll grant you "Backrooms" and "Obsession", but "The Substance" has less to say about Gen Z than it has to say older generations of women.
The aesthetics of it are more focused on the becoming-monstrous of beauty standards.
@sargent_jo90037 Both artists who crafted these stories are of the gen these fears weigh particularly heavily on.
The post-9/11 generation raised by the internet, taught that vulnerability is cringe-y and that the future is within their grasp, only to inherit an abysmal job market and pandemic.
@sargent_jo90037 I said the exact opposite. Did you read what I said?
I said these fears aren’t new, but the specific approach taken in these films is uniquely filtered through a Gen Z lens.
@sargent_jo90037 "Obsession" - Gen Z's fear of being vulnerable/cringe as a machine that produces quick fixes to complex emotions.
"Backrooms" - Gen Z's striving for a future that is lost.
These are common fears, but how they manifest in these films from Gen Z artists is very particular.
In a world that traps people in constant cycles of striving for a future that has been lost, is there not something desirable about escaping into a world that at least promises more honest chaos?
This is, for me, the kind of horror "Backrooms" (2026) conjures.
Having now seen "Backrooms", yeah this guy is just yapping nonsense.
He’s psychoanalyzed the movie and reduced it down to something more simplistic than what it actually is.
The Backrooms was good but Kane betrays the premise by making it all about "processing trauma".
Its a mark against feature length cinema as an artform when a creator's youtube content can better explore a high concept.
Obsession is for people weaned on narrative storytelling who grade films on a curve of how many plot holes and loose ends they can spot, but Backrooms is for the real dreamers.
if you’re gonna come for my drag at least look at my resume. I’ve been recognized by the National Jewish Plays project multiple times. I’m not a big and fancy playwright but at least my work has something to say.
@foreignhorrorhq I think it’s less something that filmmakers are beholden to and moreso that audiences need to understand. Any horror film can be analyzed this way, but audiences insist on reducing a film, and its many layers down to pure representation, rather than what the film is saying/doing.
When watching a horror film, don’t ask yourself what the monster represents.
Ask yourself what affect the monster produces in the characters and you the viewer, and try and see how it connects to other things in the wider world.
One artistic flaw in Obsession is that it shows Ian money falling from the sky after Ian wishes for a billion dollars. It would have been better to delete this scene, thus leaving it uncertain whether the one-wish-willow actually worked or not.
Folks are LOVING Valley Players AZ’s premiere production of "Plague Play"!
For my fellow Arizonans who haven’t yet seen it, get tickets! You’re in for a treat!
https://t.co/GWhbgah6pK