Avsnitt
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Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu (2024) inspired a strongly negative reaction in me. But it was a reaction that arose from a tangle of mixed feelings. I’ve continued to circle and reconsider my take on the movie—not only because my network of friends and amateur critics largely seem to have enjoyed it—but also because of the particular subject matter and style on display.
In many ways, Nosferatu is not only the kind of movie I could see myself making; it’s the movie I’d be worried that I’d make: something that others with shared sensibilities would clock as phony, pseudo-intellectual, and out of its depth.
I understand what people are responding to in Nosferatu, and it brings me no pleasure to criticize it so harshly. For a while, I questioned whether I should even do the video, as I’d much rather spent time studying work that I find interesting and enjoyable. It’s actually not much fun explaining what you don’t like about something.
I hope the criticisms I’ve offered will come across as minimally thoughtful and respectful, even where I refrain from pulling punches.
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This is the first video in a planned series on nunsploitation cinema. One of the most notorious and mischaracterized subgenres of exploitation film, nunsploitation movies offer complex and provocative treatments of themes like desire, taboo, and transgression.
For many years I was not a fan of these movies. The reason for this, I discovered a few years ago, was that I just wasn’t digging deep enough. Once I expanded my research, I discovered that these are some of the most fascinating exploitation films ever made.
This first video introduces nunsploitation film generally, identifying its key themes and characteristics, and also discussing the genre’s literary tradition and emergence in the late 1960s.
The remainder of this video provides an analysis of Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971).
Timestamps:
0:00 - Definitions, key themes, and essential features
2:24 - Cultural history of the naughty nun as medieval trope
4:39 - connections to the Marquis de Sade
6:16 - proto-nunsploitation in film history: Angels of Sin (1943); Black Narcissus (1947); The Nun (1966)
8:22 - conditions for the emergence of nunsploitation proper: Vatican II, Italian film industry, and The Lady of Monza aka The Awful Story of the Nun of Monza (1969)
11:03 - Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971) as the foundation and epitome of nunsploitation
21:22 - Conclusion
Future entries in this series will explore individual films in more depth. For those that would like to “read ahead,” the next part of the series will cover the following, which are four movies that I think represent some of the very best of the genre:
Story of a Cloistered Nun (1973)
Satanic Pandemonium (1975)
Alucarda (1977)
Killer Nun (1979)
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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This video offers a detailed interpretation of Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession (1981), viewed through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis. My hope is that it works both as a close reading of Żuławski’s film, which can be baffling as much as it is beloved, as well as a primer on the work of Jacques Lacan.
No prior understanding of psychoanalysis or Lacan is necessarily. It’s strongly recommended, however, that you watch Possession first. This is not only because the video contains substantial spoilers, but also because the interpretation will make the most sense after you’ve had a chance to experience the movie on a visceral, emotional level. That is the “real” way to experience Possession, with intellectualization and interpretation coming later.
In fact, watch it twice! 😉
Timestamps
0:00 - Introduction: a competition of fantasies
2:44 - Spy games as queer intrusion
5:19 - Primer on Lacanian psychoanalysis
8:07 - Mark’s fantasy of phallic possession
14:48 - Anna’s fantasy of feminine masquerade
20: 58 - Conclusion: the other’s desire
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This essay interprets two films—The Witch (2015) by Robert Eggers, and Antichrist (2009) by Lars von Trier—through the lens of the existentialist feminism of Simone de Beavoir. Note that the discussion involves heavy spoilers for both films.
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Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
3:04 - The Witch (2009)
5:45 - The existentialist feminism of Simone de Beavoir
9:12 - The Witch (2009) continued
11:20 - Antichrist (2009)
19:10 - Conclusion
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For the holiday season, I’m reposting my Christmas horror video from last year. I’m glad to do so, because when I first tried posting to Youtube, the platform’s capricious AI copyright monitoring wouldn’t let me include the segment on Christmas Evil. That’s perhaps the strongest part of the video, and the most popular film analyzed here, so it was a shame.
I’m delighted now to present my full analysis of three overlooked Christmas horror movies!
0:00 - Introduction
0:25 - Silent Night, Bloody Night aka Night of the Dark Full Moon (1972)
4:08 - Elves (1989)
7:22 - Christmas Evil (1980)
I’m already thinking about what to cover next year. Maybe a full analysis of the entire Silent Night Deadly Night franchise? A comparison of three generations of Black Christmas iterations? More obscure Santa slashers? Supernatural Christmas horror?
Let me know in comments email etc what you’d like to see!
Thank you as always for your support, and happy holidays to you and your inner circle.
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From the Gutter Studies Vault, this is a video summarizing and discussing the first part of Carol Clover’s book Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Clover is best known for coining the term “final girl”, a rare example of a phrase that has come into popular usage from film theory.
The video covers both this concept and Clover’s wider theory about the horror genre as a return to the unconscious fantasies of so-called “one-sex” sexuality.
What does that mean? Watch to find out.
This is the first part of a planned four-part series covering Clover’s entire book. So far I’ve done the second video, covering Clover’s theory of supernatural horror, but I stopped halfway to focus on other stuff. The second half covers rape-revenge films, as well as Clover’s take on “gaze” in modern horror.
It’s an interesting book covering lots of territory, so I’d love to finish the series one day. If you’re keen on seeing more, let me know via comments, email, etc.
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In this second episode of GUTTER TALK, I chat with lifelong horror fan Cynthia Rzucidlo about the year in horror. Cynthia counts down a top 13 horror movies on the year, and we compare notes along the way. At the end, we also talk about the horror movies we’re still looking forward to as the year comes to a close.
Follow Cynthia on Instagram.
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Goth Renaissance concludes. This chapter ties together everything we’ve seen so far, identifying the key themes and characteristics of Italian gothic horror, and showing how it laid the foundation for decades of Italian exploitation film.
Giallo, nunsploitation, spaghetti western, the gorefests of the 80s—all of it owes something to the Italian gothics.
If you enjoyed the series, please consider supporting the project in the following ways:
* Share on social media
* Recommend to friends
* Become a free email subscriber
* Make a donation by becoming a paid subscriber
As always, thank you for watching and for your high opinion of low culture.
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In the fourth chapter of our series Goth Renaissance: A Critical Introduction to Italian Gothic Horror, we analyze three of Barbara Steele’s best movies. We’ve already encountered Steele twice in previous installments, but these three are essential entries for any overview of Italian gothic horror.
More than that, this trilogy of films represents not only the best work featuring Barbara Steele, but also can be seen as a certain culmination of Italian gothic horror. They pull together so many of the genre’s essential features, represent some of the finest work the period had to offer, and also point the way toward the genre’s dissolution in the late 1960s, as Italian exploitation film continued to evolve.
In many ways, and for better or worse, the story of Italian gothic horror is the story of Barbara Steele.
Timestamps
0:00 - the Fellini detour
1:15 - Castle of Blood (1964)
5:21 - Nightmare Castle (1965)
8:59 - An Angel for Satan (1966)
15:10 - conclusion
This is also the final “main” installment of Goth Renaissance. The fifth and final chapter will offer concluding thoughts on this period in Italian filmmaking, and explain how the gothic slowly gave way to Italian exploitation film.
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This is a video essay from the Gutter Studies Vault, exploring three movies that seem to confirm the worst fears of radical feminism.
Fair warning: it’s one of my most challenging and provocative essays on horror so far, drawing on some of the most grisly themes and images in the genre. The essay reads the graphic and disturbing nature of these films alongside the complex and controversial radical-feminist theory of Catherine MacKinnon, Andrea Dworkin, and Carol J. Adams, as well as the post-Lacanian feminism of Luce Irigaray. As you’ll see, the feminist theorists of the 1980s were themselves incredibly dark and morbid, and it’s interesting to observe that their work was roughly contemporaneous with the trend of films discussed here.
This essay works as a tie-in to the subject matter covered in part 3 of our Goth Renaissance series:
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This is part three in our ongoing series GOTH RENAISSANCE: A Critical Introduction to Italian Gothic Horror. You can explore the full series here, or dive right into this one.
In previous installments, we’ve seen how Italian gothic horror exhibits a preoccupation with female monsters, villains, and characters.
Beginning in 1962, a counter-tendency began to emerge. These films not only shifted a focus to the masculine perspective, but ended up on its dark side.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
1:52 - The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock (1962 dir. Ricardo Freda)
4:08 - understanding morbid desire in the gothic tradition
7:28 - trashy paperbacks and the birth of Italian giallo
8:14 - Horror Castle aka The Virgin of Nuremberg (1963 dir. Antonio Margheriti)
11:27 - Bloody Pit of Horror (1965 dir. Massimo Pupillo)
16:54 - sociological and film-historical perspectives on Italian masculinist cinema
Next time, as a “see further” on some of the more challenging and provocative themes covered here, we’ll be reposting a classic from the Gutter Studies Vault:
Stay tuned (if you dare!)
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GUTTER TALK is an audio-podcast supplement featuring casual, freewheeling discussion on subject matter covered on Gutter Studies.
On this episode, I talk to writer, collector, and pop-culture obsessive Mark Ambrose about Mario Bava’s foundational Black Sunday (1960), as well as other early Italian gothics Lust of the Vampire (1957) and The Vampire and the Ballerina (1960), and later Italian horror in general.
The conversation here can be listened to on its own, or alongside episodes one and two of the GOTH RENAISSANCE video series.
Follow Mark on his new Twitter/X account.
Follow Gutter Studies on Instagram.
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This is part two in our ongoing series GOTH RENAISSANCE: A Critical Introduction to Italian Gothic Horror. Watch part one here, although this installment can be watched on its own.
In the first part, we covered the emergence of a distinctly Italian form of horror, noting the ways that Italians were already changing the genre. But those movies were prologue. It was a modest cinematographer named Mario Bava that truly changed the game, starting with his iconic directorial debut Black Sunday (1960).
Following that movie’s wild international success, Bava continued to lay the foundation for Italian horror with some of his finest work: Black Sabbath (1963) and The Whip and the Body (1963). Of all the movies we cover in this series, these three movies are the most essential.
Today, more than any other, the name Mario Bava has become synonymous with Italian gothic horror.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro covering Mario Bava’s pre-directorial career; ideation and significance of Black Sunday;
2:40 - Black Sunday (dir. Mario Bava, 1960)
9:19 - Black Sabbath (dir. Mario Bava, 1963)
18:16 - The Whip and the Body (dir. Mario Bava, 1963)
22:39 - Summing up the significance of Bava’s early directorial career
As mentioned previously, I’m deeply indebted to the work of Tim Lucas in creating this segment. Nobody has done more to surface and immortalize Bava’s merits and the fascinating details of his remarkable career.
Note: Subtitles are auto-generated and may have inaccuracies.
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Welcome to the first installment of GOTH RENAISSANCE: A Critical Introduction to Italian Gothic Horror.
The series will run biweekly for a total of five installments. For a full watchlist of the films covered, see the series announcement page.
In this first installment, I discuss the context in which Italian gothic horror emerged, including the unique conditions of the Italian film industry, as well as the evolution of horror movies internationally since the silent era. With that foundation, I discuss in detail three of the earliest and most important examples of the genre.
Read together, we’ll see how these first Italian gothics set the stage not only for the gothic horror craze of the 1960s, but also for the thing that horror movies would become from the 1970s forward: an exploitation film genre centered around graphic sex and violence.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction and context
5:49 - I Vampiri aka Lust of the Vampire (dir. Ricardo Freda, 1957)
11:40 - The Vampire and the Ballerina (dir. Renato Polselli, 1960)
15:58 - Mill of the Stone Women (dir. Giorgio Ferroni, 1960)
21:05 - Concluding observations: commonalities, themes, and key characteristics
24:35 - Up next
Finally, I must acknowledge that in creating this series, I stand on the shoulders of giants. More than anyone, I am indebted to the work of Tim Lucas, whose magisterial tome Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark furnished me with not only endless factual information and technical observations, but also a tremendous amount of inspiration. Nobody has done more to give this genre its due. I also relied heavily on Roberto Curti’s Italian Gothic Horror Films (1957-1969) for its comprehensive coverage of this moment in horror history, as well as Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell’s textbook Film History: An Introduction (3rd Ed.) for crucial background on Italian film history in general.
On the off-chance that any of these scholars happen across this page, please know that this series is dedicated to you.
Note: Subtitles are auto-generated and may have inaccuracies.
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BANNED ON YOUTUBE!
In March 2024, Gutter Studies was banned on Youtube. It had only been live for a few months. The reason given was “severe or repeated violations of [the] sex and nudity policy.”
My appeals failed, even though the channel’s content was well within the platform’s guidelines.
Gutter Studies does not create content for sexual gratification, but instead to research, analyze, and understand niche segments of film history. That includes movies that have been dismissed, marginalized, overlooked, and misunderstood. The project necessarily entails a frank encounter with adult content, including both graphic violence and sexuality.
Gutter Studies does not seek to offend or disturb, but it does encourage its audience to explore controversial subject matter with maturity, courage, and thoughtfulness.
The ban was a setback. But it was a blessing in disguise. It gave me the opportunity to slow down, take a step back, to reassess the project.
Having done that, Gutter Studies is back.
1. Why not relaunch on Youtube?
The first thing you’re wondering is why I don’t just go back to Youtube. One reason is because I’m not allowed. My understanding is that the ban is considered permanent and that it’s not worth trying to circumvent.
Do people get away with it? I don’t know, probably. But I don’t want or need to play that game.
The bigger reason is because I realized that Youtube was not the right platform for this project. I was already spending too much time struggling with its content moderation system, which is conducted with artificial intelligence and constantly resulted in annoying, arbitrary roadblocks. I was meticulously editing around content, and its copyright checks were preventing me from even talking about certain movies.
Even if I somehow got the channel back, or set up a new channel, it’d only happen again. Or I’d need to create content that is completely different from the project I’ve envisioned.
Finally, there’s just an internal culture to Youtube as a platform that I didn’t love or relate to. The logic of the almighty algorithm, the activities of adjacent creators, the UX of the platform—all of it has an insidious way of creeping into your mind, even if you try to shut it out.
In short, even as I was excited by the channel’s early success, I could already feel it morphing into something I didn’t really want. So it’s best that I just put Youtube behind me.
2. Why Substack?
All in, Substack is the best new home for Gutter Studies. There are a number of reasons for this, including:
The platform’s content moderation policy
The platform’s free-speech oriented philosophy on content moderation, which is premised on a respect for the intelligence and judgment of its user base, aligns with my own personal beliefs.
But more specifically, because of my previous experience with Youtube, the platform’s policy on “nudity, porn, erotica” is exactly what this particular project needs:
We don’t allow porn or sexually exploitative content on Substack, including any visual depictions of sexual acts for the sole purpose of sexual gratification. We do allow depictions of nudity for artistic, journalistic, or related purposes
In addition to the text of the policy, I’ve heard that it’s enforced fairly and reasonably, which is just as important.
The subscriber model
Once I learned that Substack was supporting video, I began to consider it as a viable option.
When it comes to reaching and building a wide audience quickly, nothing compares to Youtube. But because of the nature of this project, quality of engagement is far more important than quantity of engagement. The newsletter-subscriber model provides a more intimate framework than Youtube, and I believe it will lead to higher-quality interactions between me and the people who enjoy my content. These quality interactions will help me create better content.
The Youtube model is an incredible thing for many creators. But for me I think it’d lead to crapper content. Youtube’s platform ran off of onerous monetization requirements that inevitably have too much influence over creative decision making.
By contrast, Substack’s subscription system connects us directly and provides maximal flexibility. More on that below.
Technical features
I like the idea of being able to send new videos to subscribers’ inboxes. That way, it’s there waiting for them whenever they feel like watching.
People will have to sign up, of course, but once they do they won’t miss out on new content. And there’s no risk of a new video getting suppressed by the algorithm (which was another thing that sometimes happened to me on Youtube).
Additionally, Substack has other cool features. For example, I’ll be able to publish an audio-only podcast feed of the video essays, which will be available for those who want to listen rather than watch.
3. Are you charging?
No. Gutter Studies will remain 100% free for the foreseeable future.
However, I appreciate the fact that people will now have the direct option to pledge or subscribe at monetary tiers. This cuts out the whole swamp of Youtube ads for you, and it spares me from ever thinking about monetization thresholds ever again.
To be clear, I do this for the love of the game. I just kind of feel compelled to. I don’t expect it to ever become a real money-making venture or anything wildly popular. That’s in no way the goal.
If you’re interested in Gutter Studies, please subscribe for FREE and know that I consider that the default.
But paid subscriptions, if they come, will feel like real encouragement. For a creator, after a certain point, it’s important to feel like the world values your work, even at some infinitesimally modest level. Time is precious, and every day we must justify to ourselves how we are spending it. You have to be a little weird to undertake a project like this to begin with, and I’ve done enough projects to know the reality: it won’t survive forever without some form of concrete validation.
Again, I don’t expect anyone to select a paid subscription. I want you to subscribe for free.
But if there are those who do want to throw me a few extra dollars, even if it’s just a teensy-tiny handful of people, it’ll go a long way toward keeping me motivated to continue for the long term.
4. Are you republishing your old stuff?
Yes. My previous work will be going back up. Eventually.
Additionally, I’m focusing on a new project and want to start with that. Over time, I will rerelease videos from the Gutter Studies Vault.
Some of them I want to re-edit to include NSFW stuff that wasn’t possible on Youtube.
Some videos were part of an unfinished multi-part series, and I want to finish the series first and release it all together.
5. What’s next?
Gutter Studies will officially relaunch with new content in the fall.
I’ve been working on a new series for the past few months, which I’m super excited about. It’s the most complex project I’ve undertaken so far, and I’m happy with how it’s turning out. Can’t wait to share it with everyone.
I’ll be announcing the series in August, as well as dropping a trailer in a couple weeks.
6. How can I help?
Subscribe and share!
For better or worse, this’ll be almost entirely word-of-mouth from here on. I’ll need your help.
Please encourage your friends, weird coworkers, and online acquaintances to sign up.
I beg of you.
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