ZooScope

Tag: Thriller

  • Nope. Dir. Jordan Peele. Universal Pictures. 2022

    Nope. Dir. Jordan Peele. Universal Pictures. 2022

    Jordan Peele’s latest film nope follows siblings OJ and Emerald Haywood in the aftermath of their father’s unexpected death. The siblings ‘We ain’t got no more problems’ is the foreboding line said by Otis Haywood moments before his untimely death and the supernatural haunting begins on the Haywood family ranch. Jordan Peele’s latest film Nope…

  • 28 Days Later. Dir. Danny Boyle. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2002.

    Boyle’s 28 Days Later presents a devastated post-apocalyptic world in which a highly infectious rage virus spreads through humanity, causing those infected to be struck with mindless violent rage. The opening laboratory scene depicts the origin of the virus and moment the infection is first transmitted to humans.  The spread to humans happens through chimpanzees…

  • The Silence of the Lambs. Dir. Jonathan Demme. Orion Pictures. 1991.

    Alongside terrific and terrifying characters such as Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling, there is another sinister dramatis persona evoked in Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs – that of the ‘Death’s Head Hawk-Moth’ and Buffalo Bill’s relation to them. It is unsurprising that the moth in this scene invokes dread in Clarice and the audience,…

  • 2001: A Space Odyssey. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Metro-Goldwyn Mayer. 1968.

    As with the majority of Stanley Kubrick’s filmography (we’ll mutually agree to exclude Fear and Desire from this conversation), 2001: A Space Odyssey has been subjected to extensive film analysis and criticism. This article will explore the implications of the film’s perpetuation of sociologically-constructed human-animal boundaries in order to articulate the commonality of violence across…

  • The Platform (El Hoyo). Dir. Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia. Festival Films & Netflix. 2019

    Of course, it is odd to gaze from social isolation into absolute claustrophobia while still in a lockdown: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia’s twisted dystopian Sci-Fi thriller El Hoyo (in international release The Platform) is about being trapped in a large concrete construction that resembles a maintenance hole.  It is also about social hierarchies constructed as a result:…

  • The Platform (El Hoyo). Dir. Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia. Festival Films & Netflix. 2019

    In the twisted dystopian science fiction movie “The Platform,” inmates of a vertically piled up prison, with two inmates on each floor, fight for bare survival due to the lack of food for the entire population. An extensive buffet of the finest hearty and sweet food travels, from top to bottom through the middle of…

  • 1922. Dir. Zak Hilditch. Netflix. 2017.

    Zak Hilditch’s 2017 adaptation of Stephen King’s 1922 follows the story of Wilfred James, a corn farmer living in Nebraska, who, alongside the assistance of his teenage son, Henry, conspired to murder his wife, Arlette, after a dispute about selling her recently inherited land to move to the city. The story unravels the consequences of…

  • A Cure for Wellness. Dir. Gore Verbinski. Regency Enterprises. (2016)

    Gore Verbinski’s A Cure for Wellness uses the symbolic imagery of eels in this psychological horror film. The scenes in which they feature are some of the most perturbed, which disgusts both the audience and our protagonist, Lockhart. The horror comes as a result of psychoanalytic concern about sexuality; the marrying of sexual desire and…

  • The Shallows. Dir. Jaume Collet-Serra. Columbia Pictures. 2016.

    The Shallows uses the tale of Nancy (Blake Lively), a surfer alone and vulnerable in the picturesque coasts of Mexico only to be aggressively hunted by a great white shark with a taste for skinny blonde models (shock). Since Jaws, sharks have become a symbol of fear – an immediate indication of danger within the cinematic…

  • The Watchmen. Dir. Zach Snyder. Warner Bros. 2009.

    What can dogs tell us about criminality? With regards to Zach Snyder’s Watchmen, the answer is ‘quite a lot.’ Dogs are used within the film to align the binaries of legality and criminality with humanity and animality. There is a particular focus on the possibilities of transgression, as both the anti-hero and the villain commit…