Pier Paolo Pasolini

On the surface, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò seems like it requires some unpacking, at least for those of us without graduate degrees. Relocating the Marquis de Sade’s depraved novel The 120 Days of Sodom to Mussolini’s northern Italy in 1943, it name-drops Nietzsche, Proust, Ezra Pound, and others as it systematically humiliates and tortures a group of eighteen captive adolescents. But Salò’s goal is not opaque intellectualism for its own sake. Its poetic and… See more →

Every October, I try to watch as many horror/suspense films that I haven’t seen before as possible. Dates and times (subject to change) are listed for any friends who want to join me.

The Devil’s Backbone

Guillermo del Toro (Spain, Mexico, 2001)

After Carlos – a 12-year-old whose father has died in the Spanish Civil War – arrives at an ominous boys’ orphanage, he discovers the school is haunted and has many dark secrets which… See more →