Author Archives: Eric Thirteen

Perfect Blue + Enemy

Posted on September 15, 2018 by Eric Thirteen
Perfect Blue + Enemy

Identity, duality, and the public eye. Reflections and persona. What is personhood? Eric Thirteen’s new film Disposition now has a trailer! Disposition (2018) Trailer. Perfect Blue as an insight to an Asia-centric phenomena. Working Perfect Blue backwards. The psychological thrills of Denis Villeneuve. What’s up with the spiders? Enemy’s secret deeper meaning. Do people still have the stamina for puzzle solving? Working though a complex, layered narrative. Rearranging beats to solve a mystery. Find Disposition showtimes at https://dispositionfilm.com.

Thoroughbreds + The Craft

Posted on September 6, 2018 by Eric Thirteen
Thoroughbreds + The Craft

The outsider’s need to belong and the influence of the spooky peer-group. Wearing an aesthetic to sneak past the gate. Three fantastic performances. The public face and the private face. The role of score in Thoroughbreds. Well check out the first time feature director over here! Two halves make a oh no jesus christ don’t do that come back downstairs. The aesthetic of high society. Privilege, wealth, and using the institution to take down the institution. The Craft as a…visual effects buffet! 90s teen horror. The spooky teen film. Bad influences. Cult films and sub-divided communities. The aesthetic of witchy goth kids. Using Trojan horses to bring opposing communities together.

Hereditary + Kill List

Posted on August 30, 2018 by Eric Thirteen
Hereditary + Kill List

Two movies with a secret in common. Some people have heard of this little film called Hereditary. Stanley Kubrick, Ben Wheatley and the non-submersible unit. Creating icons before even starting on the plot. The boldest icons of Hereditary. That infamous scene with the thing that happens after the other terrible thing. Then things get worse by not getting better, and finally worse by getting much worse. The greatest all-time shock cut? What people seem to miss – the top line, broad-stroke metaphor of the film. Michael gets upset at a screening of Hereditary. Kill List finally makes its appearance on Double Feature. What the two films share in common: spoilers! The decision that hard-turns Kill List toward horror territory. Not all things need be revealed. A breakdown in carefully choosing which elements shall remain a mystery.

Dogtooth + Picnic at Hanging Rock

Posted on August 23, 2018 by Eric Thirteen
Dogtooth + Picnic at Hanging Rock

Dangers of growing up with a single source of knowledge. The films of Yorgos Lanthimos. Dogtooth as a comedy. Licking the keyboard. Kynodontas is Dog tooth in…Greek? Is Greek a language? Teenage isolation. Beware of cats. Kill is kiss. Growing up homeschool. A unique thing that only happens with a Yorgos Lanthimos film. It’s the Panic at Hanging Rock. Anticipating the thing. The things that happen up at Hanging Rock. Trying to piece together the mystery. The ending of Picnic at Hanging Rock as a mystery – if only more people had actually seen Picnic at Hanging Rock. That infamous thing that happens, how people feel about it, and why that thing is an interesting thing to do.

Good Time + Nice Dreams

Posted on August 16, 2018 by Eric Thirteen
Good Time + Nice Dreams

From hijinks to devastation, Double Feature does some drugs. Good Time, a film from a parallel universe. Robert Pattinson is not fucking around. Settle down, synthesizers. When bad times get worse. It’s getting harder not to just classify all of humanity in harsh black and white. The accountability of Connie Nikas vs the accountability of Nick Nikas. Who is the true Nice Dreams? Cheech and Chong run from the law and everyone loves it. What the legalization of pot can illustrate about counterculture films. A tasty Sprite to go with your ice cream. Explaining the short shelf life of comedy. How comedy cuts to the heart of the zeitgeist and why this should continue to be the North Star.

Black Swan + Patti Cakes

Posted on August 9, 2018 by Eric Thirteen
Black Swan + Patti Cakes

Female fame in different games at different levels. Black Swan as a mainstream arthouse horror film. Why the horror elements of Black Swan are worthy of callout – body horror! A fight between avoiding the most obvious conversation and avoiding the most delicate conversation. The lengths an artist goes through to achieve success, revisited. How Black Swan mostly avoids being rape-y when it basically is. Patti Cakes. Patti Cake$. Patti Cake Dollar Sign. A stunning turn in the plot when someone turns out to not be a cartoon villain. Who actually has talent or promises n Patti Cake$? Living the art life. Escaping the suburbs. Arrested development, lower-case d. Patti Cake$ and the simple art of never giving up. A suspicious lack of conversation around Black Swan’s portrayal of oral sex.

Horror of Dracula + Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Posted on August 2, 2018 by Eric Thirteen
Horror of Dracula + Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Horror of Dracula, very much not the same as original Dracula. Jonathan Harker upsets Dracula after after accepting a job at the vampire’s castle under false pretenses. Legends of hammer horror. The Universal Monsters and the Dark Universe reboot. What was happening in horror in 1958. Later, in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: exiled into the dangerous forest by her wicked stepmother, a princess is rescued by seven dwarf miners who make her part of their household. Disney’s place in the modern world. Dwarfs is more commonly spelled Dwarves now. Thanks, Tolkien. The intersection of Disney and angry progressives on Twitter. A case for ladies being chased around by mad men or what the fuck ever. The world as it could be vs living in the world as it is. Princess problems.

Blood and Black Lace + School of the Holy Beast

Posted on July 26, 2018 by Eric Thirteen
Blood and Black Lace + School of the Holy Beast

Yellow and Pink films. Italian giallo pulp films and a requisite number of Dario Argento jokes. Japanese pink films – pinku, pinky violence, and nunsploitation. Blood and Black Lace in high definition. A masked, shadowy killer brutally murders the models of a scandalous fashion house in Rome. That goddamn Suspiria 4k remaster. Putting on a play or opera or whatever behind the scene thing. The giallo fixation on props. School of the Holy Beast aka The Transgressor. What is a pink film? Japense pinku. Finding the canonical pinku and pinky violence films. In order to investigate her mother’s strange death, a woman enters a sacred convent run by hypocritical, perverse nuns. Peeing on Jesus. One of the most incredible things Double Feature has ever seen.

Bad Boys + Rush Hour

Posted on July 19, 2018 by Eric Thirteen
Bad Boys + Rush Hour

Double Feature does the bare-minimum to look at two 90s blockbuster buddy-cop movies. Bad Boys is an unlikely film in an unlikely time, all before you consider Michael Bay. Even stranger still, it didn’t look or feel weird at the time! Representation in big movies. Are buddy cop culture-clash films problematic? Is everyone tired of using the phrase problematic? Everything is easier when you can dismiss it out of hand. The self-conscious anxiety that projects mainstream problems onto obscure movies. Bad Boys was far to easy to defend, time to watch Rush Hour. A Los Angeles film totally lost on a Texan. Chris Tucker was loud and that was fine. Jackie Chan was a weirdly-gazed asian commodity and that was probably also fine. People saw these goddamn movies. For all the ill, there’s unsung power in tropes and clichés.

Road Games + Body Double

Posted on July 12, 2018 by Eric Thirteen
Road Games + Body Double

Contrasty Hitchcock covers. Tributes? Ripoffs? Probably not ripoffs, right? Road Games: two words. Although sometimes Roadgames, one word. The open road and how not to tune your guitar. Murder death. Murder death is how not to. A suspicious lack of jokes about dingos. Americans in the outback. The temporary towns that exist on road trips. What Illinois, California, Austin, and some random part of Australia all share in common. How a placement of extreme violence in one specific location can impact the entire viewing experience. Body Double, two words. One half of this episode, still featuring Barbara Crampton. Brian De Palma finally gets some air time on Double Feature. Voyeurism to the next level. Under the surface – what else do audiences get out of voyeurism? Another option for placing your extreme violence.