NOTE: This episode contains MAJOR spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to hit pause and come back when you’re ready.
Jordan Peele’s film Us intricately deconstructs the American dream, portraying it as a distorted hall of mirrors that reflects the complex interplay of class, privilege, and identity. Through the meticulous use of symmetry, deliberate sound design, and compelling performances, Peele reveals the subtle horror of recognition — the unsettling realization that our deepest fears are not external threats or strangers, but the unacknowledged parts of ourselves. This episode explores themes of duality, the phenomenon of othering, and the film’s precise formal craftsmanship, which collectively form a social anatomy that exposes the underlying guilt and primal instincts of survival embedded in American society.
At its heart, Us isn’t a story about invasion.
It’s a story about recognition and the cost of pretending we’re not connected to what lives beneath us.
Recommended Reading:
“The Souls of Black Folk” by W.E.B. Du Bois. An essential exploration of “double consciousness,” a concept that deeply informs Peele’s portrait of divided identity.
NOTE: This episode contains MAJOR spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to hit pause and come back when you’re ready.
Ari Aster’s Hereditary is less a story about grief than it is about inevitability. Evil doesn’t stalk from outside; it festers within the walls of family, passed down like memory or blood. In this episode, we explore how the film dissects generational trauma, control, and the illusion of choice, using formal precision and psychological collapse to expose the darker side of inheritance.
By the end, Hereditary reminds us that horror doesn’t need monsters or ghosts. It only needs a home and a family willing to repeat the pattern.
Suggested Reading:
The Family Romance by Sigmund Freud – A foundational text in understanding the psychological patterns that shape family identity and repetition.
Dedicated to Ace Frehley. You will be missed.
NOTE: This episode contains MAJOR spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to hit pause and come back when you’re ready.
William Friedkin’s The Exorcist isn’t just a story of demonic possession; it’s a powerful and haunting collision of faith and reason set against a backdrop where the world seems to have forgotten how to accept and understand true mystery. This episode explores how the film forces both science and religion to confront the uncomfortable limits of their own understanding and beliefs. Using Regan’s possession as a visceral reflection of cultural doubt, spiritual crisis, and human suffering, the narrative explores the profound tension between doubt and faith. Through a postmodern lens, we’ll analyze how the institutions that once promised absolute certainty—medicine, psychology, and the Church—struggle and sometimes fail to make sense of the unexplainable, revealing broader questions about belief, knowledge, and the nature of reality.
At its core, The Exorcist is not about a girl possessed by a demon.
It’s about a culture possessed by doubt.
Recommended Reading:
“Faith and Doubt in the Modern World” by Charles Taylor
An insightful exploration of how secularism has reshaped the Western understanding of faith, belief, and transcendence, making it a perfect companion to Friedkin’s crisis of meaning.
NOTE: This episode contains MAJOR spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to hit pause and come back when you’re ready.
Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining isn’t merely a straightforward haunted house story; it’s a richly layered, postmodern exploration into a chaotic universe where traditional notions of meaning and perception continually dissolve and escape understanding. Through innovative cinematic techniques such as
The ominous Overlook Hotel transforms into a haunting mirror of Jack Torrance’s fractured, unstable psyche. This eerie environment reflects his psychological unraveling in visceral, visual terms, emphasizing the instability of identity and perception. This episode examines the intricate interplay between
intertwining them into a labyrinthine maze that has no clear center or exit. This complex spatial and psychological structure embodies a universe where certainty is illusory, and ambiguity reigns supreme, immersing the viewer in a world devoid of stable ground or definitive meaning.
NOTE: This episode contains MAJOR spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to hit pause and come back when you’re ready.
Beneath the surface of shark attacks and summer screams lies a profound and thought-provoking film that explores the complex themes of institutional collapse, mounting disillusionment, and a society that has gradually lost its ability to understand and interpret the world around it. Spielberg didn’t merely terrify audiences with a monstrous creature; he masterfully illuminated the devastating consequences of cherished myths and perceptions failing to withstand scrutiny. The film serves as a powerful commentary on societal fears, the fragility of collective belief, and how the breakdown of institutions can lead to chaos and despair.
NOTE: This episode contains MAJOR spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to hit pause and come back when you’re ready.
John Carpenter’s Halloween revolutionized the horror genre not through an abundance of gore and shocking violence, but through its masterful use of quiet, subtlety, and atmosphere. This episode explores how minimalist techniques, extended long takes, and meticulous sound design work together to evoke genuine fear in plain sight, turning the mundane suburban landscape into the perfect backdrop for mounting dread. Additionally, we will analyze Laurie Strode's character through the lenses of gender and survival, exploring why the relentless, shape-shifting presence that haunts her becomes even more terrifying when it chooses not to run or react.
Men, Women, and Chain Saws by Carol J. Clover The origin of the “Final Girl.” If you want to understand how horror films reflect gender and survival, this book is essential. Smart, sharp, and still cited in nearly every serious discussion of slasher cinema.
In Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival, the most profound discovery isn’t merely the revelation of extraterrestrial life, but the profound transformative power of language to fundamentally reshape our understanding of time, perception, and reality itself. This episode examines the captivating Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, highlighting how language shapes thought and perspective. It also highlights Amy Adams’ luminous and emotionally resonant portrayal of Louise Banks, a linguist caught between human emotion and cosmic mystery. Additionally, the film’s intriguing central paradox is examined: would we choose love and human connection, knowing fully well how our story might unfold in the grand tapestry of time?
NOTE: This episode contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to hit pause and come back when you’re ready.
In Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, the director masterfully transforms the narrative of human existence into a profound visual language that encapsulates themes of evolution, advancing technology, and the mysterious unknown. This film episode meticulously employs pure imagery and soundscapes to portray the profound leap of humanity from primitive survival instincts to a state of cosmic transcendence and enlightenment. Every carefully composed frame is imbued with deliberate intent, and even the silence between scenes conveys meaning, creating a rich tapestry of sensory experience. By applying formalist techniques and posthumanist theory, we analyze how Kubrick’s exacting craftsmanship elevates a simple bone into a groundbreaking spacecraft, transforms an ordinary machine into a deadly killer, and depicts a journey that serves as a meditation on humanity's future trajectory and destiny in the universe.
NOTE: This episode contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to hit pause and come back when you’re ready.
This episode explores Interstellar, examining it through the complex scientific principles of Einstein’s relativity as well as the profound emotional humanism that underpins its narrative. Nolan’s expansive space epic masterfully bends the fabric of time and space, creating a mind-bending voyage across cosmic horizons. Yet, amidst the vastness of the universe, the story remains anchored by what truly matters—the enduring love we carry with us and the hope we send ahead into the unknown. In Interstellar, it becomes clear that what ultimately saves us isn’t raw force or technology but the depth of our feelings, connections, and hope that propel us forward.
If you’d like to read more about Vivian Sobchack’s approach to phenomenology, her landmark texts are:
• The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience (1992)
• Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture (2004)
Both works dive deep into how film is not just a story we interpret but a lived, bodily experience we inhabit.
NOTE: This episode contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to hit pause and come back when you’re ready.
In Logan’s Run, life is programmed to end at the age of thirty, a brutal societal norm that is unquestioned by its citizens. This episode explores the film from Michel Foucault’s perspective on biopolitics, examining how rituals surrounding death, a techno-theocratic government, and a society founded on artificially constructed belief systems serve as tools of silent control. The society manipulates perception, turning gentle light into an instrument of subdued authority. Obedience to these rules is mistaken for purpose, rebellion is deemed heresy, and death is transformed from tragedy into a ceremonial act, a dark celebration of societal order.
NOTE: This episode contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to hit pause and come back when you’re ready.
This episode explores Blade Runner through Alison Landsberg’s theory of prosthetic memory.
In a future where memories are manufactured and identity is built from fiction,
the question isn’t whether your past is real—it’s whether it feels real enough to matter.
Because in Blade Runner, the soul may be synthetic,
but the sorrow is always genuine.
Learn more about prosthetic memory in Alison Landsberg’s Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture.
NOTE: This episode contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to hit pause and come back when you’re ready.
In Alex Proyas’ Dark City, reality is portrayed as a fragile construct, meticulously crafted and easily manipulated. Memory, within this dystopian universe, transforms into a potent weapon, used to control, deceive, or conceal the truth. This episode explores the film's themes through the lens of sci-fi existentialism, examining questions about the nature of identity when memories are deliberately altered, erased, or fabricated altogether. As John Murdoch begins to unravel the hidden truths embedded within the mysterious city, we are confronted with a haunting question: if all that you hold as memories are illusions, then who are you truly beneath the veneer of falsehoods?
NOTE: This episode contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to hit pause and come back when you’re ready.
In this episode, we explore the intricate tapestry of Chinatown, examining it through the provocative lenses of Marxist political theory and existentialism. Jake Gittes embarks on a labyrinthine journey, grappling not only with the pervasive corruption that envelops him but also unearthing a deeply entrenched system where the very notion of truth is rendered powerless. In this bleak landscape, justice assumes a haunting irrelevance, and the noble pursuit of righteousness ultimately leads to a chilling silence. In the world of Chinatown, resolution is not an outcome; it is a concession. The mysteries that Gittes confronts remain unresolved, leaving an unsettling void that echoes the futility of his quest for clarity in a place where shadows loom larger than light.
NOTE: This episode contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to hit pause and come back when you’re ready.
This episode dives deep into David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, a film that peels back the polished layers of suburbia to reveal the chaos crawling underneath. We explore themes of voyeurism, suppressed violence, and the illusion of innocence, examining how Jeffrey Beaumont’s descent reflects our own discomfort with the truth. In Lumberton, the birds chirp, the lawns are green… and the rot never left.
NOTE: This episode contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to hit pause and come back when you’re ready.
This episode examines 'Out of the Past' through an intricate exploration of fatalism and the fragile nature of memory. We follow Jeff Bailey across time via flashbacks, false starts, and fleeting moments of hope, only to discover that in film noir, history doesn’t simply repeat itself. Instead, it pulls you deeper into its dark, unrelenting grip.
NOTE: This episode contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to hit pause and come back when you’re ready.
In Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity, doom isn’t a surprise; it’s a destination. This episode explores the film through fatalism and post-war disillusionment, analyzing how Walter Neff’s descent into murder is driven not by passion, but by weariness, control, and the illusion of escape. In Film Noir, every perfect plan is just the slowest path to ruin.
In the world of Ballerina, violence transcends brutality to become a mesmerizing form of choreography, while vibrant colors convey profound emotions and narratives. This episode delves deep into the film, employing the lens of color theory, feminist film analysis, and the intricate art of movement. We embark on a journey alongside Eve, tracing her evolution from a quest for vengeance to the discovery of her own identity, all while operating in the formidable shadow of the John Wick legacy. This is not merely a spin-off; it serves as a distinctive leap forward in storytelling and character development.
Note: This episode contains spoilers for Ballerina. Watch first, then press play.
In the poignant Chapter 4, John Wick ceases his frantic sprint from the specter of death and instead strides resolutely towards it. This installment delves deep into the realms of thanatology, the study of death and the intricacies of dying. It unfolds with ritualistic violence and a mythic structure, weaving a narrative that gradually ascends towards a haunting silence. The saga transforms into a funeral in motion, each scene echoing with the weight of impending loss. And at the apex of this treacherous journey up the metaphorical stairs, he ultimately discovers the solace he has been seeking, a long-awaited rest amidst the chaos.
In the gripping narrative of Parabellum, John Wick finds himself with just one hour before the relentless forces of the world conspire to wipe him from existence. This intense episode explores the harrowing transformation of a once-vulnerable man into an enduring myth, as the brutal rituals of violence, profound betrayal, and primal instincts for survival systematically strip away the remnants of his former identity. No longer a mere fugitive fleeing the shadows, he embarks on a chilling metamorphosis into something altogether more powerful and enigmatic—something that transcends his past.
In the intricate and merciless world of John Wick, freedom comes at an exorbitant price. This episode examines John Wick: Chapter 2, unraveling its themes through the compelling framework of social contract theory, where oaths are etched in blood and debts are exacted through ruthless violence. John Wick, once driven by a thirst for revenge, now finds himself ensnared in a perilous game where each life taken is a desperate act of survival against a brutal system that punishes those who dare to seek an escape. Here, loyalty and betrayal intertwine like the shadows cast by flickering candlelight, illuminating the stark reality that in this realm, to walk away is to invite death.
