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Who tells your story: Journalists must confront racism in the media industry – The Daily Princetonian

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4 years ago

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“Perhaps the most insidious and least understood form of segregation is that of the word. And by this I mean the word in all its complex formulations, … the word with all its subtle power to suggest and foreshadow overt action while magically disguising the moral consequences of that action and providing it with symbolic and psychological justification. For if the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to blind, imprison and destroy.” 

Ralph Ellison wrote these words in 1953, as he reflected on how portrayals of Black people in fiction warped the way white Americans perceived them. The language that people in power use to describe marginalized peoples — what they choose to highlight and to ignore — shapes how society views them. 

When used conscientiously, words have the power to “free.” But, crucially, when wielded disingenuously or maliciously, they compound injustice and “destroy.” That is why language is so powerful. That is why what we say matters. 

The same idea applies to journalism. This summer, The Daily Princetonian’s Opinion section has explored the impact of racist language. Columnists have discussed the bounds of reasonable debate in the wake of Professor Joshua Katz’s Quillette column and statements by the Princeton Open Campus Coalition. Professors and students have argued about the limits of acceptable academic inquiry. 

The reason I joined the ‘Prince’ as a columnist was to point out when institutions fail to confront racism. Many of my columns have taken on this topic in sports, politics, higher education, the Princeton community, and the media. 

So as this summer’s protests grew, I paid special attention to how the journalism industry confronted its role in this moment of reckoning over institutional racism, particularly in media portrayals of the protests that have erupted in response to police murders of Black people, most recently seen with Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. 

In the weeks and months since, millions of people have gathered in big cities and small towns across America — and around the world — to declare that Black lives matter and demand justice. We are seeing protests on a historic scale, but we are also seeing a media landscape ill-equipped to accurately portray this movement to the public.

Inevitably, these mass protests have commanded wall-to-wall coverage. But a long-standing lack of diversity in newsrooms, combined with a misguided fixation on the unattainable ideal of “objectivity,” has prevented many media outlets from effectively capturing this moment. 

All protest movements are complex and nuanced. People fill the streets for different reasons, carry different attitudes towards events, and hold different motives. The job of the press is to sort through these complexities and present a story to the public about what is happening.

But all too often, biases within the media have warped coverage of these protests. In order to accurately explain what is happening, one must understand the context from which this moment arose. In this instance and many others, the media has failed to do so.

Among many examples from this summer, two clear instances, one at a local paper, the other at a national one, exemplify this issue. 

The first demonstrates the focus on the spectacle — police cars on fire, windows smashed, looting — at the expense of the broader, more accurate, picture. On June 2, the Philadelphia Inquirer published a story with the headline “Buildings Matter, Too.” 

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The headline represented a common theme in media coverage, especially in the early days of unrest. Such a statement co-opts the rallying cry of the movement, Black Lives Matter, to undermine it. It draws an offensive false equivalency between the lives taken by racist violence and the property damage during the response to that violence. To write and approve such a headline reveals a distance from the stakes of the issues that have driven people to the streets. The internal newsroom reaction reflects that. 

The following day, more than forty staffers of color at the Inquirer called in “sick and tired” and signed onto an open letter demanding change in the newsroom. By the end of that week, the top editor of the paper had resigned.

The staff’s letter shows that they were responding not only to this specific headline, but to what it represents: the weight of “shouldering the burden of dragging this 200-year-old institution kicking and screaming into a more equitable age” and being told to “show both sides of issues there are no two sides of.” 

As those staffers explain, running a story like that dismisses the very real injustices that sparked the protests. By trying to satisfy an ill-defined idea of objectivity by presenting “both sides” of the protests, the paper in fact did choose a side. And in doing so, it not only offended its staff, but it also alienated the community it is responsible for covering. The staffers highlighted the importance of building trust with their communities, a difficult task that is “eroded in an instant by careless, unempathetic decisions.” 

Those two words, “careless” and “unempathetic,” tell the whole story. The people who wrote and approved that headline clearly did not consider the effect such language has. But it is incumbent upon journalists to understand the impact of their words — that’s the whole game. If a paper does not value its community, it cannot provide truthful coverage; it can only do harm. 

A better use of time and resources would be to investigate why the property damage occurred — why was frustration so high? Both James Baldwin and Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of the context that gives rise to riots and looting. King called riots “the language of the unheard.” It is a journalist’s job to translate that language to the broader public. 

Baldwin told Esquire in 1968: “The mass media — television and all the major news agencies — endlessly use that word ‘looter.’ On television you always see black hands reaching in, you know. And so the American public concludes that these savages are trying to steal everything from us, and no one has seriously tried to get where the trouble is. After all, you’re accusing a captive population who has been robbed of everything of looting. I think it’s obscene.”

A journalist decrying looting without calling attention to the conditions that precipitated it and the perspectives of the people participating in it has failed their responsibility to tell the truth to the public. This is how the media misunderstands objectivity.

In an op-ed in The New York Times, journalist Wesley Lowery suggests that the media adopt a “fairness-and-truth focus,” rather than a fixation on “neutral ‘objective journalism.’” Lowery explains that in trying to appear objective — when in fact no person actually is — journalists end up perpetuating a “public thoughtlessness.” 

This captures the issue with the Inquirer headline: No one in the process of writing and approving it thought about its impact. And that is a problem both because those in power are not equipped to cover this transformational moment and because those who would report thoughtfully are not empowered to do so. 

The same issues of journalistic responsibility came to light with an editorial decision by The New York Times. On June 3, the Times published a column by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) entitled “Send in the Troops,” which called for “an overwhelming show of force” to “restore order” to the nation’s cities. 

The many misleading elements of Cotton’s essay, which the Times later acknowledged, demonstrate why the paper should not have published it on a technical level. But, like the Inquirer, the decision to do so also reflects a concerning philosophy about the role of journalism that reaches beyond this specific newsroom. 

It is this concern that caused many Black staffers, as well as non-Black allies, to publicly show their disagreement with their paper’s decision. They tweeted a screenshot of the headline with a variation of the statement “Publishing this puts Black NYT staff in danger.” More than 800 staffers signed a letter expressing their disagreement. After initially defending the column, editorial page editor James Bennet and A.G. Sulzberger, the paper’s editor, apologized, acknowledging that it should not have been published. Four days after the column ran, Bennet resigned. 

The crux of the argument from the column’s defenders, Bennet and Sulzberger included, was that the opinions page should be open to opposing viewpoints. But a fixation on a both-sides narrative without actually considering the context of the issue, and the consequences of a given argument, betrays the problem. 

Newspapers don’t just publish every argument they come across — they select which ideas to elevate and lend legitimacy to. This means that by inviting Cotton to write this article (the Times approached him, not the other way around), the Times chose to give greater voice to an idea that directly threatened protesters who already faced arbitrary violence from police in the form of tear gas, rubber bullets, and batons.

Cotton proposed using the U.S. military in an “overwhelming show of force” to suppress dissent. That is what the Times legitimized. It should also be noted that they published such an essay on the eve of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. 

Of course, like the Philadelphia Inquirer, the editors of Cotton’s op-ed appear not to have considered these implications — this is precisely the problem. For some, the argument about whether or not to send the military into protests is an intellectual hypothetical; for people of color, it is life and death. 

The fear of state violence is not some trivial or abstract thing — that’s the whole point of these protests, and the police response to them has only underscored that point. To play with that fundamental existential fear is despicable; to be unaware of it is the height of privilege. To neglect to communicate that reality to your readers is journalistic malpractice. 

When the op-ed was published, the nation had already witnessed the consequences of Cotton’s mindset. It was that same attitude that motivated the Trump administration to unleash tear gas, pepper balls, and police in riot gear upon a crowd of thousands to clear the way for the president to stage a photo op in front of a church. 

At the time, the concern was merely imagining that mindset applied on a national scale; in the months since, it has become a reality. Deployed to Portland, Ore., federal officers escalated tensions, rounding up protesters into vans without explanation and using force indiscriminately against crowds. Protesters were forced to protect themselves with helmets, masks, and shields. The very danger that readers warned the Times about in the moment has, unsurprisingly, materialized.

It is that very real threat that the Times elevated by publishing Cotton’s column. In its apology, the paper explained that a rushed editorial process led to the essay being regrettably published. This admission reveals a deeper problem with the media. The fact that this column didn’t raise alarm, that no one in the position to stop the piece spoke up, demonstrates the consequences of an industry that refuses to integrate Black voices into positions of power and influence.

This is the cost of failing to diversify. Journalists cannot do their job — to inform the public — if they do not understand the impact of their role. 

Journalism is often described as the first draft of history. At best, journalism informs and transforms people’s understanding of the world around them. But the events of this summer have shone a light on the many ways that journalism falls short, and it all comes back to a central question: Who is telling the story, and what do they care about?

This concern has brought the fight for equity playing out on the streets into newsrooms themselves, as Black journalists pressure their publications to hire, retain, and elevate a diverse staff. Soledad O’Brien called this a “MeToo moment for journalists of color.”

This moment draws on a long history. In 1968, the Kerner Commission (otherwise known as the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders) concluded that “the press has too long basked in a white world looking out of it, if at all, with white men’s eyes and white perspective. That is no longer good enough.” Fifty-two years later, the press is still not doing enough. 

The first concern is that newsrooms must reflect the communities they cover more accurately. For example, while Washington, D.C., is approximately 45 percent Black, only 19 percent of all the employees at the Washington Post are Black, and only 9 percent of news and editorial employees are Black. Only last month did the Post name its first Black woman, Krissah Thompson, to the position of managing editor. In New York City, where 24 percent of residents are Black, only 9 percent of The New York Times staff were Black in 2019, the same percentage as in 2015. 

But simply increasing the number of Black journalists and journalists of color will not solve the problem. As Karen Attiah, Global Opinions editor at the Washington Post, tweeted recently, “Diversity is a means, not an end. If your plans for a better work environment end at ‘diversity,’ it’s not enough. Diversity — without empowerment of Black people and other people of color — is tokenization. And tokenization reinforces white supremacy.”

Newsrooms need decision-makers who understand the gravity of this moment and the importance of accurate reporting. They need to create environments where journalists of color feel heard and included, not dismissed and overlooked.

White reporters and those not on the “race beat” must understand that race and racism affect every corner of American life. The events of this summer — the pandemic, the police brutality, the incoming election — prove this fact. Media coverage of issues from climate change to the economy and everything in between must take race into account. It should not fall to Black journalists to shoulder the labor of bringing their newsrooms to these standards, nor to deal with the fallout when these institutions fail to live up to their purpose.

As student journalists we must critique the media and strive to do better ourselves. As young readers, we must be critical consumers and demand better from the media. Now is the time when we must be clear-eyed and intentional about our language. Decades of failing to call out racism racism has created a society where people must see murder on camera to raise their voices against century-old systems of oppression.

If we want people to understand the depth and persistence of oppressive structures, we have to report their causes and effects, not just their manifestations in the moment. We must empower journalists of color to tell their stories and implore white journalists to reckon with race and bias in their coverage. The time is now for a new era of journalism. 

Julia Chaffers is a junior from Wellesley, Mass. She can be reached at chaffers@princeton.edu.

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Bayo Onanuga battles yet another media – Punch Newspapers

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2 weeks ago

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October 31, 2024

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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!

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3 weeks ago

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October 22, 2024

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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:

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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

4 weeks ago

 on

October 19, 2024

By

 

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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