Media

Trump’s New Social Media Company Is His Biggest Scam Yet – Vanity Fair

Published

3 years ago

October 22, 2021

TRUTH Social will probably be a flop, but Trump is likely to make hundreds of millions anyway.

October 21, 2021

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, Donald Trump announced Wednesday night that he will be launching his own social media network, the embarrassingly named TRUTH Social. For those of you scratching your heads and wondering, But wait, didn’t Trump already launch a new social media company? you are likely thinking of (1) one of the right-wing networks tangentially associated with the ex-president, like Gab, Parler, or Gettr, or (2) something called “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump,” the blog that published Trump’s comments and was shut down after just a month because it had almost no readers.

Obviously, the lack of readers was upsetting to the former president, who spent much of the last decade tweeting every deranged thought that came into his head, from “I would like to extend my best wishes to all, even the haters and losers, on this special date, September 11th” to “NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE” to “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama’s birth certificate is a fraud.” Unfortunately for Trump, his ban from Twitter, on account of inciting an insurrection, remains in effect. Hence, TRUTH Social.

Like most Trump initiatives, TRUTH Social is incredibly cringeworthy and embarrassing. For one thing, before it even launched, per The Washington Post, patriotic pranksters were able to find a seemingly unreleased version and post “a picture of a defecating pig to the ‘donaldjtrump’ account,” causing it to be pulled offline. For another, the network’s terms of service dictate that users must refrain from “excessive use of capital letters,” i.e., the only way Donald Trump knows how to type. Then there’s also the fact that TRUTH Social, billed as a vehicle for “stand[ing] up to the tyranny of Big Tech,” which conservatives claim hates free speech, prohibits users from saying anything to “disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site.” Meanwhile, the whole thing is basically a crappier version of Twitter. Per the Post:

The site looks almost entirely like a Twitter clone: A user can post Truths, which are like tweets, or Re-Truths, which are retweets. There’s also a news feed, called the Truth Feed, a notification system so users can know “who’s interacting with your TRUTH’s,” the social network’s App Store profile states.

So yes, the whole thing already looks like a big flop that will no doubt have very few users, and Trump himself will probably get bored of the app and only post there sporadically. But in this case, it doesn‘t actually matter, and Trump might have actually figured out a way to make millions despite the product being a joke. How? We’re glad you asked!

TRUTH Social is being formed through a merger of a new company set up by Trump, the Trump Media & Technology Group, and a special purpose acquisition company, a.k.a. a SPAC. SPACs, which are all the rage these days for reasons that will soon become clear, are shell companies that are listed on exchanges like the NYSE or the Nasdaq and exist for the one and only purpose of merging with companies that want to go public—like the Trump Media & Technology Group. In this case, the SPAC TMTG will merge with is called Digital World Acquisition Corp., which is run by a guy named Patrick Orlando, a former investment banker who once cofounded a sugar-trading company. As Axios’s Dan Primack tweeted this morning, “Trump social media SPAC thing filed SEC paperwork this morning, but it’s basically just the press release again. Nothing of substance, including management, etc. So far, this is a shell buying a shell.” Normally, this would be pretty embarrassing for a company, but in this case, due to the SPAC of it all, plus Trump’s uniquely gullible supporters, it doesn’t matter.

As Bloomberg’s Matt Levine writes:

I am not going to pretend to make a business case for [a Trump social media network]—there is a long history of hilarious failure in the “social media for Trump” category—but maybe you can. It is not a sure thing, in any case. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn’t. When Twitter Inc. went public, it had never been profitable, and it was, you know, a real social network that people used. Maybe Twitter But Trump would immediately be profitable, but boy, I have some doubts. On the other hand, if Donald Trump launched a company that was like, “I am going to start a social media platform for Trump fans,” could he get people to buy the stock? I think that two fundamental lessons of the last few years are:

You can get people to buy any stock; and

Donald Trump can get people to buy anything.

So if Donald Trump announced, “Hey, I’m gonna do a social media company, buy some stock,” people would buy some stock. And then he’d get a lot of money. And then if the social media platform did not end up being profitable—as I cannot imagine it would be!—then he would, uh, still have that money? And if the social media platform did not end up being launched—if Trump and his crack team of technologists just couldn’t actually build a well-functioning online social network—then he would, uh, still have that money? And if there was no crack team of technologists at all, if nobody even tried to build the social media platform—then you see where I am going with this, right?

The point is that if you launch a company with the goal of making it profitable, you have to, like, have a workable business plan and execute on it and deal with a million different operational complexities. If you launch a company with the goal of selling a lot of stock, you have to get people to trust you and give you their money. There is some overlap between those things! But they are different things!

As Levine notes, and as we’ve learned from other SPACs over the last few years, “if you go public by merging your private company with a special purpose acquisition company, then you can just make up whatever you want and no one will check.“ Is that actually the law? No, but in practice, it’s basically how SPACs work and is obviously incredibly appealing to Team Trump. Basically, they can get rich without actually having a profitable or even functioning social media network.

Here’s Levine again:

Traditionally, SPAC deals are often announced with PIPEs, private investments in public equity, in which institutional or strategic investors commit hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money alongside the SPAC investment. Here, there is no PIPE; no institutional investors seem to be involved. Trump Very Tech Company Group is raising its money only from public investors in the SPAC.

Ordinarily, that would be risky: The SPAC investors have withdrawal rights—they can take back their $10 per share in cash, plus a little interest, instead of leaving it in the pot for the merger—so the company might not get any money. Here, it is not risky. The reason it is not risky is that people who like Trump will buy the stock. (Also: People who think “people who like Trump will buy the stock” will buy the stock; the Keynesian beauty contest applies here too.) Yesterday, before this announcement, DWAC’s stock closed at $9.96, a bit below the approximately $10.20 per share that it has in its trust, sort of a standard price for a SPAC with no deal yet. At 11 a.m. today it was trading at about $19.38, implying a valuation for Trump Thing of something like $1.7 billion. If you think Trump Thing is worth $19.38 per share, you are not going to take your $10 back; you’re going to keep the stock and let Trump have your $10. He will definitely get all $293 million.

Want proof? Here’s some depressing news from CNBC:

The stock price of SPAC company Digital World Acquisition Corp. skyrocketed on extremely heavy trading volume Thursday after news of a merger that would launch former president Donald Trump’s planned social media platform. DWAC’s stock surged 356.8% to close at $35.54 per share. Trading in the SPAC was halted multiple times due to volatility. At one point the stock was up more than 400% to hit a high of $52.

Digital World Acquisition was the single most actively traded stock on the Fidelity platform Thursday, and was by far the most traded name on the consolidated tape of New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq listings. More than 470 million shares of DWAC changed hands during Thursday’s session, according to FactSet. In comparison, SPY, the exchange-traded fund that tracks the S&P 500, only traded about 32 million shares.

So yeah, TRUTH Social appears to be just as much of a joke as “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump,” but in this case, Donald J. Trump might actually make some real money off of it, which he definitely needs considering he’s reportedly in debt for $1 billion.

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Joe Manchin says Dems are unlikely to reach an agreement on social safety net programs “anytime soon”

Conveniently, the senator from West Virginia left out the part about how he is the one leading the charge to scale back initiatives that might actually help people, many of whom are children. Per Reuters:

Democrats have spent months arguing about the size and scope of what was initially proposed as a $3.5 trillion plan to expand the social safety net and fight climate change, which Democratic leaders have agreed this week will be cut to well below $2 trillion. Manchin—who along with fellow moderate Senator Kyrsten Sinema has been pushing for a smaller package—had said earlier he believed Democratic negotiators could settle on a final figure by Friday. That would resolve a key sticking point, although progressives and moderates would still have to sort out the substance of the bill, including what programs to keep, what to cut, and how long to fund them.

Fellow Democratic Senator Ben Cardin said he expected Democrats would agree on a total price tag within the next few days, leaving lawmakers to fill in the details. “I think they’ve got to stay in over the weekend to try to get this resolved,” he said. Biden told lawmakers on Tuesday he thought he could get Manchin and Sinema to agree to a figure in the range of $1.75 trillion to $1.9 trillion, according to a source familiar with the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Getting to that number would mean giving up priorities, including a plan to offer all Americans the opportunity to attend two years of free community college, and scaling back others such as a child tax credit and funds for affordable housing.

Manchin has been adamant that child tax credits must include work requirements, which, among other things, would penalize households in which children are being raised by their grandparents. He has also explained to protesters that he doesn‘t support the expansion of Medicare from the deck of his yacht.

Don’t be coming at Republicans with facts!

Elsewhere!

FDA authorizes Moderna and J&J boosters, says people can get a shot different from original dose (The Washington Post)

Pfizer-BioNTech Booster Shot Restores Full Covid Protection (Bloomberg)

Democrats Look for Tax Options If They Have to Ditch Rate Hikes (Bloomberg)

Texas targets Roe v. Wade, urges U.S. Supreme Court to maintain abortion ban (Reuters)

The Elizabeth Holmes trial: The prosecution produces a smoking gun (Insider)

Prosecutors urge conviction of Giuliani associate (Politico)

Grateful Dead T-shirt auctioned for a record-breaking $17,640 (UPI)

Accused Burglar Said Motive Was Desire to “See His Imaginary Girlfriend Emma” (TSG)

Pablo Escobar’s Cocaine Hippos Are Legally People, Court Rules (Gizmodo)

More Great Stories From Vanity Fair

— How Sarah Everard’s Murder Revealed Feminism’s Fault Lines
— Trump May Be Hit With Charges for Trying to Overturn the Election in Georgia
— Congressman Adam Schiff Describes January 6 From the House Floor
— Surprise: Ivanka’s to Blame for Trump’s Disastrous COVID Address
— Inside a Father’s Desperate Quest to Sue the Juárez Cartel
— Democrats’ Last, Best Hope May Be…Conor Lamb
— Cori Bush Is Ready to Talk About Her Abortion
— Jared and Ivanka Fancy Themselves the Duke and Duchess of South Florida
— From the Archive: The Vicious Rivalries That Brought Down the Gucci Dynasty
— Not a subscriber? Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now.

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Bayo Onanuga battles yet another media – Punch Newspapers

Published

1 week ago

October 31, 2024

Harry Miller

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Bayo Onanuga battles yet another media Punch Newspapers

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Blood In The Snow Film Festival Celebrates 13 Years!

Published

3 weeks ago

October 22, 2024

Sasha Stoltz

Blood in the Snow FILM FESTIVAL

Celebrates

13 YEARS

“Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid”

Toronto, on – Blood in the Snow Film Festival (BITS), a unique and imaginative showcase of contemporary Canadian genre films are pleased to announce the popular Festival is back for its 13th exciting year. The highly anticipated Horror Film festival presented by Super Channel runs November 18th– 23rd at Toronto’s Isabel Bader Theatre. The successful, long running festival takes on many different faces this year that include Scary, Action Horror, Horror Comedy, Sci-Fi and Thrillers. Festival goers will be kept on the edge of their seats with this year’s powerful line-up.

Blood in the Snow Festival begins with the return of alumni (Wolf Cop) Lowell Dean’s action horror feature Dark Match featuring wrestling veteran Chris Jericho followed by the mysterious Hunting Mathew Nichols. The unexpected thrills continue with Blood in the Snow World Premiere of Pins and Needles and the Fantasia Best First Feature Award winner, Self Driver. The festival ends this year on a fun note with the Toronto Premiere of Scared Sh*tless (featuring Kids in the Hall’s Mark McKinney). Other titles include the horror anthology series Creepy Bits and Zoom call shock of Invited by Blood in the Snow alumni Navin Ramaswaran (Poor Agnes). The festival will also include five feature length short film programs including the festivals comedy horror program Funny Frights and Unusual Sights and the highly anticipated Dark Visions program, part of opening night festivities. Blood in the Snow Film Festival Director and Founder, Kelly Michael Stewart anticipates this year’s festival to be its strongest. “This was the first time in our 13 year history, all our programmers agreed on the exact same eight feature programs we have selected.”

Below is this year’s horror fest’s exciting lineup of features and shorts scheduled to screen, in-person at the Isabel Bader theatre.

**All festival features will be preceded by a short film and followed by a Q&A with filmmakers.

Tickets for the Isabel Bader Theatre lineup on sale now and can be purchased https://www.bloodinthesnow.ca

Super Channel is pleased to once again assume the role of Presenting Sponsor for the Blood in the Snow Film Festival. We extend our sincere appreciation to the entire BITS team for their unwavering commitment to amplifying the voices of diverse filmmakers and providing a platform for the celebration of Canadian genre content. – Don McDonald, the CEO of Super Channel

Blood in the Snow Festival 2024 Full screening schedule:

Monday November 18th
7pm – Dark Visions

Shiva (13:29) dir. Josh Saltzman

Shiva is an unnerving tale about a recently widowed woman who breaks with a long-held Jewish mourning ritual in hopes of connecting with her deceased husband.

How to Stay Awake (5:30) dir. Vanessa Magic

A woman fights to stay awake, to avoid battling the terrifying realm of sleep paralysis, but as she risks everything to break free, will she be released from the grip of her nocturnal tormentor?

Pocket Princess (9:45) dir. Olivia Loccisano

A young girl must take part in a dangerous task in order to complete her doll collection in this miniature fairytale.

For Rent (10:33) dir. Michèle Kaye

In her new home, Donna unravels a sinister truth—her landlord is a demon with a dark appetite. As her family mysteriously vanishes, Donna confronts the demonic landlord, only to plunge into a shadowy game where the house hungers for more than just occupants. An ominous cycle begins, shrouded in mystery.

Lucy’s Birthday (9:29) dir. Peter Sreckovic

A father struggles to enjoy his young daughter’s birthday despite a series of strange and disturbing disruptions.

Parasitic (10:00) dir. Ryan M Andrews

Last call at a dive bar, a writer struggling to find his voice gets more than he bargains for.

Naualli (6:00) dir. Adrian Gonzalez de la Pena

A grieving man seeks revenge, unwittingly awakening a mystical creature known as the Nagual.

The Saint and The Bear (6:34) dir. Dallas R Soonias

Two strangers cross paths on an ominous park bench.

The Sorrow (13:00) dir. Thomas Affolter

A retired army general and his live-in nurse find they are not alone in a house filled with dark secrets.

Cadabra (6:00) dir. Tiffany Wice

An amateur magician receives more than he anticipated when he purchases a cursed hat from the estate of his deceased hero.

9:30 – Dark Match dir. Lowell Dean Horror / Action

A small time WRESTLING COMPANY accepts a well-paying but too good to be true gig.

Tuesday November 19th
7pm – Mournful Mediums

Night Lab (15:00) dir. Andrew Ellinas

When a mysterious package arrives from one of the lab’s field research stations, a promising young researcher uncovers a conspiracy against her masterminded by her jealous boss. She soon finds herself having to grapple with her conscience before making a life-or-death decision.

Dirty Bad Wrong (14:40) dir. Erica Orofino

Desperate to keep her promise to host the best superhero party for her 6-year-old, young mother Sid, a sex worker, takes extreme measures and books a last-minute client with a dark fetish.

Midnight at the lonely river (17:00) dir. Abraham Cote

When the lights go out at a seedy little motel bar, at the crossroads of a seedy little town, nefarious happenings are taking place, and three predators are enacting their evil deeds. Enter Vicky, a drifter who quickly realizes what’s happening right under everyone’s nose. After midnight, In the shadows of this dim establishment, evil begets evil, and the predator becomes the prey.

Mean Ends (14:58) dir. Émile Lavoie

A buried body, a missing sister and an inquisitive neighbour makes for a hell of an evening. And the sun isn’t close to settling on Eric’s sh*tty day.

Stuffy (18:26) dir. Dan Nicholls

A young couple sets off in the middle of the night to bury their kid’s stuffed bunny, as one of them is convinced that the stuffy might be cursed.

Dungeon of Death (18:33) dir. Brian P. Rowe

Torturer Raullin loves a work challenge, especially if that challenge involves hurting people to extract information from them.

9:30 – Hunting Matthew Nichols (96 mins) dir. Markian Tarasiuk

Twenty-three years after her brother mysteriously disappeared, a documentary filmmaker sets out to solve his missing person’s case. But when a disturbing piece of evidence is revealed, she comes to believe that her brother might still be alive.

w/ short: Josephine (6:15) dir. John Francis Bregar

A man haunted by his past seeks forgiveness from his deceased wife, but a session with two spirit mediums leads to an unsettling encounter.

Wednesday November 20th
7pm – BITS and BYTES

Ezra (10:57) dirs. Luke Hutchie, Mike Mildon, Marianna Phung

After fleeing the dark and demonic chains of his shadowy old home, Ezra, a killer gay vampire, takes a leap of faith and enters the modern world.

Head Shop (18:14 episode 1-3) dir. Namaï Kham Po

In a post-apocalyptic world, Anna’s life and work are dominated by her father Sylvestre, a short-tempered mechanic with a terrible reputation for tearing the head off anyone who dares cross him. He decides that she’s old enough to follow in his footsteps, much to her dismay. To prove herself, she must now decapitate her first victim. Can she find a way to defy fate?

D dot H (18 :15 episodes 1-2) dirs. Meegwun Fairbrother, Mary Galloway

Struggling artist Doug is visited by the beautiful and enigmatic H, who claims he holds the power to visiting “inconceivable places.” Still half-asleep, Doug is shocked when H vanishes suddenly and her doppelganger, Hannah, strides past.

Creepy Bits: “Last Sonata” (21:08) dir.

Adrian Bobb, Ashlea Wessel, David J. Fernandes, Sid Zanforlin and Kelly Paoli.

Set among forests, lakes, and small towns, Creepy Bits is a horror anthology series helmed by five innovative filmmakers exploring themes of human vs. nature, the invasion and destruction of the natural world by outsiders, and isolation within a vast, eerie landscape that is not afraid to fight back.

Tales from the Void: “Whistle in the Woods” (24:36) dir. Francesco Loschiavo

Horror anthology TV series based on stories from r/NoSleep. Each tale blends genre thrills & social commentary exploring the dark side of the human psyche.

9:30 – Self Driver dir. Michael Pierro Thriller

Facing mounting expenses and the unrelenting pressure of modern living, a down-on-his-luck cab driver is lured on to a mysterious new app that promises fast, easy money. As his first night on the job unfolds, he is pulled ever deeper into the dark underbelly of society, embarking on a journey that will test his moral code and shake his understanding of what it means to have freewill. The question becomes not how much money he can make, but what he’ll be compelled to do to make it.

w/ short: Northern Escape (10:38) dirs. Lucy Sanci, Alexis Korotash

A couple on a cottage getaway tries to work on their relationship but ends up getting more than they bargained for when they discover something sinister lurking beneath the surface.

Thursday November 21st
7pm – Funny Frights

Midnight Snack (1:41) dir. Sandra Foisy

Hunger always strikes in the dead of night.

Hell is a Teenage Girl (15:00) dir. Stephen Sawchuk

Every Halloween, the small town of Springboro is terrorized by its resident SLASHER – a masked serial killer who targets sinful teenagers that break ‘The Rules of Horror’ – don’t drink, don’t do drugs, and don’t have sex!

Gaslit (10:36) dir. Anna MacLean

A woman goes to dangerous lengths to prove she wasn’t responsible for a fart.

Bath Bomb (9:55) dir. Colin G Cooper

A possessive doctor prepares an ostensibly romantic bath for his narcissistic boyfriend, but after an accusation of infidelity, things take a deeply disturbing turn.

Any Last Words (14:22) dir. Isaac Rathé

A crook trying to flee town is paid an untimely visit by some of his former colleagues. What would you say to save your life if you were staring down the barrel of a gun?

Papier mâché (4:30) dir. Simon Madore

A whimsical depiction of the hard and tumultuous life of a piñata.

The Living Room (9:59) dir. Joslyn Rogers

After an unexpected call from Lady Luck, Ms. Valentine must choose between her sanity and her winnings – all before the jungle consumes her.

A Divine Comedy: What the Hell (8:55) dir. Valerie Lee Barnhart
Dante’s classic Hell is falling into oblivion. Charlotte,

sharp-witted Harpy, navigates the chaos and sets out despite the odds for a new life and destiny.

Mr Fuzz (2:30) dir. Christopher Walsh

A long-limbed, fuzzy-haired creature will do whatever it takes to keep you watching his show.

Out of the Hands of the Wicked (5:00) dirs. Luke Sargent, Benjamin Hackman

After a harrowing journey home from hell, old Pa boasts of his triumph over evil, and how he came to lock the devil in his heart.

The Shitty Ride (9:13) dir. Cole Doran

Hoping to impress the girl of his dreams, Cole buys a used car but gets more than he bargained for with his shitty ride.

9:30 – Invited dir. Navin Ramaswaran Horror

When a reluctant mother attends her daughter’s Zoom elopement, she and the rest of the family in attendance quickly realize the groom is part of a Russian cult with deadly intentions.

w/ shorts: Defile dir. Brian Sepanzyk

A couple’s secluded getaway is suddenly interrupted by a strange family who exposes them to the horrors that lie beyond the tree line.

+ A Mother’s Love dir. Lisa Ovies

A young girl deals with the consequences of trusting someone online.

Friday November 22nd
7:00 pm – Creepy Bits (anthology horror series)

Creepy Bits is a short horror anthology series that explores pandemic age themes of isolation, paranoia and distrust of authority, serving them up in bite-sized chunks. Directed by Adrian Bobb, Ashlea Wessel, David J. Fernandes, Sid Zanforlin and Kelly Paoli.

9:30 – Pins and Needles (81 min) dir. James Villeneuve Horror / Thriller

Follows Max, a diabetic, biology grad student who is entrapped in a devilish new-age wellness experiment and must escape a lethal game of cat and mouse to avoid becoming the next test subject to extend the lives of the rich and privileged.

w/ short: Adjoining (11:42) dirs. Harrison Houde, Dakota Daulby

A couple’s motel stay takes a chilling turn when they discover they’re being observed, leading to unexpected consequences.

Saturday November 23rd
4pm – Emerging Screams (94 mins)

Apnea (14:58) dir. David Matheson

A single, working mother finds her career and her offbeat son’s safety in jeopardy when she discovers that her late mother is possessing her in her sleep.

Nereid (7:48) dir. Lori Zozzolotto

A mysterious woman escapes from an abusive relationship with earth shattering results.

BedLamer (15:00) dir. Alexa Jane Jerrett

On the shores of a small fishing village lives a lonely settlement of men – capturing and domesticating otherworldly creatures that were never meant to be tamed.

Blocked (6:30) dir. Aisha Alfa

A new mom is literally consumed with the futility of cleaning up after her kid.

Dance of the Faery (10:23) dir. Kaela Brianna Egert

A young woman cleans up her estranged, great aunt’s home after her death. Upon inspection, she soon realizes that her eccentric obsession with fairies was not born out of love, but of fear.

Deep End (7:36) dir. Juan Pablo Saenz

A gay couple’s heated argument during a hike spiral into a nightmare when one of them vanishes, leading the other to a mysterious cave that could reveal the chilling truth.

Ojichaag – Spirit Within (11:21) dir. Rachel Beaulieu

An emotionally devastated woman seeks comfort in her choice to end her life. As she faces death in the form of a spirit, she must decide to let herself go to fight to stay alive.

Lure (9.56) dir. Jacob Phair

A tormented father awaits the return of the man who saved his son’s life.

Let Me In (10:00) dirs. Joel Buxton, Charles Smith

A reluctant man interviews an unusual immigration candidate: himself from a doomed dimension

7:00 pm –The Silent Planet (95 mins) dir. Jeffrey St. Jules Sci-fi

An aging convict serving out a life sentence alone on a distant planet is forced to confront his past when a new prisoner shows up and pushes him to remember his life on earth

w/ short: Ascension (3:57) dir. Kenzie Yango

Deep in a remote forest, two friends, Mia and Riley, embark on a leisurely hike. As tensions run high between the two, a strange humming noise appears that seems to be coming from somewhere in the woods.

9:30 – Scared Shitless (73 mins) dir. Vivieno Caldinelli Horror / Comedy

A plumber and his germophobic son are forced to get their hands dirty to save the residents of an apartment building, when a genetically engineered, blood-thirsty creature escapes into the plumbing system.

w/ short: Oh…Canada (6:20) dir. Vincenzo Nappi

Oh, Canada. Such a wonderful place to live – WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT. A musical look into the artifice surrounding Canadian identity.

Tickets for the Isabel Bader Theatre lineup on sale now and can be purchased https://www.bloodinthesnow.ca/#festival

Follow “Blood In The Snow” Film Festival:

https://www.instagram.com/bitsfilmfest/

Media Inquiries:

Sasha Stoltz Publicity:

Sasha Stoltz | Sasha@sashastoltzpublicity.com | 416.579.4804
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It’s time for a Halloween movie marathon. 10 iconic horror films

Published

3 weeks ago

October 19, 2024

Anne Joseph

Sometimes, you just have to return to the classics.

That’s especially true as Halloween approaches. While you queue up your spooky movie marathon, here are 10 iconic horror movies from the past 70 years for inspiration, and what AP writers had to say about them when they were first released.

We resurrected excerpts from these reviews, edited for clarity, from the dead — did they stand the test of time?

“Rear Window” (1954)

“Rear Window” is a wonderful trick pulled off by Alfred Hitchcock. He breaks his hero’s leg, sets him up at an apartment window where he can observe, among other things, a murder across the court. The panorama of other people’s lives is laid out before you, as seen through the eyes of a Peeping Tom.

James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter and others make it good fun.

— Bob Thomas

“Halloween” (1978)

At 19, Jamie Lee Curtis is starring in a creepy little thriller film called “Halloween.”

Until now, Jamie’s main achievement has been as a regular on the “Operation Petticoat” TV series. Jamie is much prouder of “Halloween,” though it is obviously an exploitation picture aimed at the thrill market.

The idea for “Halloween” sprang from independent producer-distributor Irwin Yablans, who wanted a terror-tale involving a babysitter. John Carpenter and Debra Hill fashioned a script about a madman who kills his sister, escapes from an asylum and returns to his hometown intending to murder his sister’s friends.

— Bob Thomas

“The Silence of the Lambs” (1991)

“The Silence of the Lambs” moves from one nail-biting sequence to another. Jonathan Demme spares the audience nothing, including closeups of skinned corpses. The squeamish had best stay home and watch “The Cosby Show.”

Ted Tally adapted the Thomas Harris novel with great skill, and Demme twists the suspense almost to the breaking point. The climactic confrontation between Clarice Starling and Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) is carried a tad too far, though it is undeniably exciting with well-edited sequences.

Such a tale as “The Silence of the Lambs” requires accomplished actors to pull it off. Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins are highly qualified. She provides steely intelligence, with enough vulnerability to sustain the suspense. He delivers a classic portrayal of pure, brilliant evil.

— Bob Thomas

“Scream” (1996)

In this smart, witty homage to the genre, students at a suburban California high school are being killed in the same gruesome fashion as the victims in the slasher films they know by heart.

If it sounds like the script of every other horror movie to come and go at the local movie theater, it’s not.

By turns terrifying and funny, “Scream” — written by newcomer David Williamson — is as taut as a thriller, intelligent without being self-congratulatory, and generous in its references to Wes Craven’s competitors in gore.

— Ned Kilkelly

“The Blair Witch Project” (1999)

Imaginative, intense and stunning are a few words that come to mind with “The Blair Witch Project.”

“Blair Witch” is the supposed footage found after three student filmmakers disappear in the woods of western Maryland while shooting a documentary about a legendary witch.

The filmmakers want us to believe the footage is real, the story is real, that three young people died and we are witnessing the final days of their lives. It isn’t. It’s all fiction.

But Eduardo Sanchez and Dan Myrick, who co-wrote and co-directed the film, take us to the edge of belief, squirming in our seats the whole way. It’s an ambitious and well-executed concept.

— Christy Lemire

“Saw” (2004)

The fright flick “Saw” is consistent, if nothing else.

This serial-killer tale is inanely plotted, badly written, poorly acted, coarsely directed, hideously photographed and clumsily edited, all these ingredients leading to a yawner of a surprise ending. To top it off, the music’s bad, too.

You could forgive all (well, not all, or even, fractionally, much) of the movie’s flaws if there were any chills or scares to this sordid little horror affair.

But “Saw” director James Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell, who developed the story together, have come up with nothing more than an exercise in unpleasantry and ugliness.

— David Germain

Germain gave “Saw” one star out of four.

“Paranormal Activity” (2009)

The no-budget ghost story “Paranormal Activity” arrives 10 years after “The Blair Witch Project,” and the two horror movies share more than a clever construct and shaky, handheld camerawork.

The entire film takes place at the couple’s cookie-cutter dwelling, its layout and furnishings indistinguishable from just about any other readymade home constructed in the past 20 years. Its ordinariness makes the eerie, nocturnal activities all the more terrifying, as does the anonymity of the actors adequately playing the leads.

The thinness of the premise is laid bare toward the end, but not enough to erase the horror of those silent, nighttime images seen through Micah’s bedroom camera. “Paranormal Activity” owns a raw, primal potency, proving again that, to the mind, suggestion has as much power as a sledgehammer to the skull.

— Glenn Whipp

Whipp gave “Paranormal Activity” three stars out of four.

“The Conjuring” (2013)

As sympathetic, methodical ghostbusters Lorraine and Ed Warren, Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson make the old-fashioned haunted-house horror film “The Conjuring” something more than your average fright fest.

“The Conjuring,” which boasts incredulously of being their most fearsome, previously unknown case, is built very in the ’70s-style mold of “Amityville” and, if one is kind, “The Exorcist.” The film opens with a majestic, foreboding title card that announces its aspirations to such a lineage.

But as effectively crafted as “The Conjuring” is, it’s lacking the raw, haunting power of the models it falls shy of. “The Exorcist” is a high standard, though; “The Conjuring” is an unusually sturdy piece of haunted-house genre filmmaking.

— Jake Coyle

Coyle gave “The Conjuring” two and half stars out of four.

Read the full review here.

“Get Out” (2017)

Fifty years after Sidney Poitier upended the latent racial prejudices of his white date’s liberal family in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” writer-director Jordan Peele has crafted a similar confrontation with altogether more combustible results in “Get Out.”

In Peele’s directorial debut, the former “Key and Peele” star has — as he often did on that satirical sketch series — turned inside out even supposedly progressive assumptions about race. But Peele has largely left comedy behind in a more chilling portrait of the racism that lurks beneath smiling white faces and defensive, paper-thin protestations like, “But I voted for Obama!” and “Isn’t Tiger Woods amazing?”

It’s long been a lamentable joke that in horror films — never the most inclusive of genres — the Black dude is always the first to go. In this way, “Get Out” is radical and refreshing in its perspective.

— Jake Coyle

Coyle gave “Get Out” three stars out of four.

Read the full review here.

“Hereditary” (2018)

In Ari Aster’s intensely nightmarish feature-film debut “Hereditary,” when Annie (Toni Collette), an artist and mother of two teenagers, sneaks out to a grief-support group following the death of her mother, she lies to her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) that she’s “going to the movies.”

A night out with “Hereditary” is many things, but you won’t confuse it for an evening of healing and therapy. It’s more like the opposite.

Aster’s film, relentlessly unsettling and pitilessly gripping, has carried with it an ominous air of danger and dread: a movie so horrifying and good that you have to see it, even if you shouldn’t want to, even if you might never sleep peacefully again.

The hype is mostly justified.

— Jake Coyle

Coyle gave “Hereditary” three stars out of four.

Read the full review here. ___

Researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed from New York.

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