All by Tim Barzditis
Parasite climaxes in tragic chaos because of the systems that dehumanize and punish lower class families, while actively preventing them from advancing toward social ideals of “success.” Beneath the satirical madness of Bong’s film lies the tragic truth: the hard lines of class are nearly impossible to transcend, and attempting to cross them might leave you worse off.
Rallying against many clichés that seemed built into the slasher genre at the time of its making, Cabin in the Woods was not only a rebuke of what the horror genre had become, but also a celebration of what it could be.
More than a quippy teen slasher brimming with meta-humor, Cabin is a teen slasher about making teen slashers. Leaning into filmmaking allegory and industry clichés, the film argues that the recycling of old ideas from the masters was unsustainable, that we needed to burn down the work of the Ancient Ones so that something new could rise from the ashes.
In the wake of overwhelming tragedy and faced with the uncertainty of life beyond their four-year relationship, the main characters of director Ari Astor’s instant classic Midsommar (2017) reluctantly depart for the sunny hills of Hälsingland—a foreign town that serves the couple as a kind of limbo, testing each to see who they will become in the aftermath of a clearly failing relationship. Dani emerges with newfound purpose and identity, but her boyfriend Christian, loses himself at every turn, burning every social bridge that formed his identity until flames consume the little bit that’s left.
