Engineered Criticism

1. A House Falling Upon You I tend to take general horror criticism with a grain of salt. The horror genre at large seems to be treated with disdain, a lower form of art, a genre meant to titillate rather than educate, enlighten, etc. So every once in a while, there will be a movie released which is hailed as A Great Horror Film. It Follows certainly had a number of people calling it “refreshing” and saying it was maybe the best horror films in recent history. Do I believe this? Not at all. I think – and this isn’t a particularly uncommon thought, from what I’ve read and heard – that part of the reason horror is looked down upon is because it is what is called a “body genre,” meaning that it plays on our visceral reactions rather than our thoughts and brains. It feels like there’s an almost puritanical drive against horror. In the same way that sex is regarded as “sinful” or “impure,” so too, we are to believe, is horror. It, too, is a passionate and emotional g...

I’d like to say something along the lines of, abuse – the nature of abuse, the experience of abuse, the trauma of abuse, etc. – has been on my mind a lot lately, but the truth is I never exactly stopped thinking about it. I suffered from emotional abuse for the better part of two years. It began the same way I hear many people describe it: it seems like love at first. Someone who seems to know you at your core. Someone who promises to help you be the best version of yourself, to paraphrase a line from yet another of the great movies about abuse, Lady Bird . It just doesn’t take too long for I can help you be your best self to become you’re no good as you are, you’re worthless, and you’re lucky to have even me. I was talking recently with a friend of mine about the nature of abuse and abusers, and out of this conversation came an insight about abuse that I had never considered before – abusers are, in fact, highly empathetic people. It’s this empathy that allows them t...