Some personal news, dear friends: I bought a baby theremin. Time to make some spooky sounds.
Not many horror films watched this week! Night of the Demon was a highlight of the month.
Quick Question for Followers: Should I keep allielembo.substack.com as my URL or change it to chocolatesyrup.substack.com?
This Week: Horror & The Oscars
Since the 20201 Oscars, I’ve made a point to see all the Best Picture nominees; it gets me to see films that are great, but not my thing, and I get some insight as to what The Silly Little Academy considers to be not just the best films of the year, but the most relevant, which is what I personally believe is the factor that determines Best Picture.2
Although horror movies are routinely overlooked by the Academy, I believe fear seeps into art more than anything else.
The Oil & Water History of Horror & The Oscars
There has only been one horror film to take home the Oscar for Best Picture in 95 years: The Silence of the Lambs.
The other horror films to get that are nomination are The Exorcist, Jaws, The Sixth Sense, Black Swan, and Get Out.
However, there are some significant winners:
Best Actress - Kathy Bates, Misery3
Best Screenplay - Get Out
Best Soundtrack - Jaws
Best Supporting Actress - Ruth Gordon, Rosemary’s Baby
Best Visual Effects - Alien
Best Sound - The Exorcist
Best Original Score - The Omen
Best Costume Design - Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Best Makeup and Hairstyling - An American Werewolf in London
In recent years, there’s been an ancestral cry in the horror community and the A24 film nerd crowd for The Biggest Snub of Them All: Toni Colette’s performance in Hereditary.4 Whether you think the movie is this generation’s The Shining, elevated horror5 sucks, or you’ve only seen the Carl Wheezer impression, her “I Am Your Mother” monologue is a sermon. In the film, she is both the tornado and the humble cow, swept up into its vortex, acting with such precision and empathy the film could not exist without her.
Y’all know how I feel about Shelley Duvall in The Shining, but here are some other recent performances in horror the Academy didn’t give a shit about:
Lupita Nyong’o (in a dual role!), Us
Mia Goth, Pearl
Florence Pugh, Midsommar
Daniel Kaluuya, Nope
Rachel Sennott (in a comedic role - double homicide), Bodies, Bodies, Bodies
Mark Rylance, Bones and All
Vincent Lindon, Titane
And that’s just for acting! If the nose6 from Maestro wins Best Makeup when Argentina’s When Evil Lurks created THIS GUY with a mix of practical effects and CGI on a not-Netflix budget, you will be able to hear my snort of disapproval from my very own shnoz on the evening of March 10th.
Boooo The Academy
The Oscars are stupid, but necessary.
I loathe how a win for one person could catapult their career, while a win for another could just add to the collection. While the point should be to honor the craft and the artistry, when the stakes and salaries for creatives hinge so much on these stupid awards, sometimes it feels yucky to root for the best, even if they are truly the best. The Academy also likes to give someone an award for a film that is not their best as an apology for snubbing them in the past or to honor their career legacy as a whole.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doesn’t just give out awards; they’re also a museum and an archival collection. I’ve talked before about how streaming does not replace physical assets; the Academy has a massive database of photos, publications, and even sheet music, that without the hard work of archiving is in danger of slipping through the cracks, despite cultural greatness and relevance.
I have no doubt this year the Academy will make some dumbass award decisions and faux pas and do something glaringly offensive. There won’t even be any gore to entertain me, but I will watch, like I do every year, because it’s the biggest night of film, snubs upon snubs and all.
Recommended Watchlist
Horror pairings for all ten 2024 Best Picture nominees.
American Fiction → In The Mouth of Madness (1994)
Haaate it when your work is unleashed into the world and grows a mind of its own.
Anatomy of a Fall → 3 Women (1977)
Uneasy truce endings.
Barbie → Coraline (2009)
Other worlds, delightful musical numbers, the representation of dolls! Fun for kids and adults.
The Holdovers → The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015)
Depressing academia! These both follow the kids stranded at boarding schools over the holidays, but one explores the warmth of human connection and the other, the warmth of a demon.
Killers of the Flower Moon → No Country for Old Men (2007)
Dark, sprawling tales, but Javier Bardem’s evil is so refreshing after DiCaprio and DeNiro’s wishy-washy ‘oh we’re not the baddies’ shtick.
Maestro → TÁR (2022)
There are ghosts in it, it’s a horror movie.
Oppenheimer → The Shining (1980)
Very long films with bold soundtracks. Men whose regrets become ghosts. They have the privilege of being haunted by their own actions, instead of being subjected to ungodly terrors against their will.
Past Lives → It (1990)
Childhood memories dragging you back to the past? Maybe you need to go back and sort that shit out! Or don’t, there might be a clown there.
Poor Things → Frankenhooker (1990)
Frankenstein-ish stories of a woman, reborn, coming into her own around men in big cities. Some similar shots! Emma Stone is up for Best Actress, but Patty Mullen was snubbed.
The Zone of Interest → The Cremator (1969)
Likely a major influence, The Cremator is an acerbic satire on a funeral cremator’s rise to power in 1930’s Prague. Deeply disturbing, a cinematic triumph, one of my favorite new-to-me watches from last year.
Next week: Unknown! It’s my birthday week :)
Some topics coming up in March and April:
H.R. Giger
The Internet Part Two: The Backrooms
How The Silence of the Lambs killed horror in the ‘90’s
xo,
the green ribbon flapping and fluttering in the wind just so as to remind you of the girl who moved away — where did she go? and why did she never take off that ribbon around her neck? — named allie lembo
For the 2019 Oscars, the only Best Picture Nominee I skipped was one I thought didn’t have a shot: Green Book. I still haven’t seen it. I’ve correctly predicted the winner as a frontrunner near every year since.
Here’s my order of Most to Least Likely to Win: Tier One (Frontrunners) - Oppenheimer, The Zone of Interest, Killers of the Flower Moon, Anatomy of a Fall. Tier Two (A Not Shocking Upset) - The Holdovers, American Fiction, Poor Things, Maestro. Tier Three (Shocked) - Past Lives, Barbie.
Noted in the most recent issue of Fangoria magazine, the only Academy Win for a Stephen King adaption.
Olivia Colman deservedly won that year for The Favourite. I try not to get attached to celebrities because their stupid views and actions continue to disappoint me but she is delightful as hell and I still watch her acceptance speech when I need a pick-me-up.
In my personal opinion, it looked much worse in the initial stills than on film, but I’m still not a huge fan.