Category: Country: US
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The Craft. Dir. Andrew Fleming. Columbia Pictures. 1996.
The Craft is a 1996 supernatural teen horror film, in which animals feature heavily as a representation of the otherness felt by four teenage girls who possess extraordinary powers. The film presents witchcraft and magic as something that is inextricable from nature and animals, in line with Neo-Pagan traditions. This scene is particularly striking, as…
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Willard. Dir. Glen Morgan. New Line Cinema. 2003.
Glen Morgan’s disturbing horror film Willard portrays the life of social misfit Willard Stiles (played by Crispin Glover), and a colony of trained rats who live in the basement of his somewhat derelict mansion. Whilst at first Willard intends to dispose of the rodents, he instead connects with a distinctive white rat whom he names…
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Seven Pounds. Dir. Gabriele Muccino. Sony Pictures. 2003
Seven Pounds is a 2003 drama film directed by Gabriele Muccino which explores the relationship between humans and non-human animals, specifically focusing on the bond between human and dog. The film highlights how through feelings of trust and dependency, combined with overcoming societal stereotypes, both humans and dogs can utilize the time they spend together…
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Ted 2. Dir Seth MacFarlane. Universal Pictures. 2015.
Ted 2 is the second instalment of the Ted series in which John (Mark Wahlberg), as a child wishes for his teddy bear, Ted (Seth MacFarlane), to come to life. What follows is thirty-something years of memories, shenanigans and improper behaviour. The first film follows the pair as John finally learns to ‘grow up’. We find…
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Midsommar. Dir. Ari Aster. A24 Films. 2019
– ‘So are we just going to ignore the bear then?’ – ‘It’s a bear.’ This sequence focalises through the eyes of the newcomers in unfamiliar territory and instills a sense of foreboding and uncomfortable mystery into the film through the conspicuous image of a caged bear. The questions brought about by the bear’s filmic…
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The Lighthouse. Dir. Robert Eggers. A24. 2019.
“𝑩𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒚’𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒖𝒍𝒍𝒔 𝒃𝒆. 𝑰𝒏 ’𝒆𝒎𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒔𝒂𝒊𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒎𝒆𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒎𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒓.” The Lighthouse is a film about madness and evil. The film uses the arrival and death of a seagull, at the hands of Thomas, to explore the threshold between sanity and madness, and our capacity for evil. Thomas’ sanity is questioned…
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The Fox and the Hound. Dir Ted Berman, Richard Rich and Art Stevens. Walt Disney Productions. 1981.
The Fox and the Hound (1981) revolves around an orphaned red fox named Tod (Mickey Rooney) who befriends a young hound puppy, Copper (Kurt Russell). The two grow very fond of one another, despite their natural born differences, although their human owners Slade (Jack Albertson) and Tweed (Jeanette Nolan) do not share the same friendliness.…
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The Grand Budapest Hotel. Dir Wes Anderson. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2014
“Did he just throw my cat out the window?” The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014) uses the death of a domestic animal to drive the dark comedic elements within the film, without accentuating sinister undertones that the audience would expect to accompany the death of a beloved animal. Anderson transforms the cat into a…
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It: Chapter Two. Dir. Andy Muschietti. Warner Brothers. 2019
Following this scene, we see the characters of Richie (Bill Hader) and Eddie (James Ransone) petrified by Pennywise, a shape-shifting creature known as a Glamour, following them; they open a door and are greeted by a cute Pomeranian dog, creating an air of bathos. Here, we have a conflict of genres as the primary classification…