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A14 PEOPLE / ARTS
Friday 12 May 2023

From ‘Psycho’ to a new crop
of horror movies, the genre

has some mommy issues

ner as in “Infinity Pool,” but guilt-inducing mother was
from a monstrous maternal warranted.
creature who forces her “When I left ‘Beau Is Afraid,’
victims to feast. I heard a teenage wom-
Other films let the dynam- an ahead of me walking
ic between mother and out of the theater saying
child carry the drama. “ to her friends, ‘That just
Evil Dead Rise,” now avail- made me want to call my
able to rent on stream- mom and say I’m sorry for
This combination of images shows promotional art for the films “Evil Dead Rise,” “Barbarian,” and ing services, plays with the everything,’” Lowenstein
“Infinity Pool.”
Associated Press fear-inducing extreme of a recounted. “We think hor-
mom being possessed by a ror and we think fear and
By KRYSTA FAURIA (Alexander Skarsgård) in develops a split personal- demon. dread and haunting, but
Associated Press an invitation to breastfeed, ity after killing his controlling “I think it’s very terrifying to we don’t necessarily think
LOS ANGELES (AP) — If revealing a complicated mom and her lover out of imagine somebody so fa- guilt, shame, humiliation.
you’re stumped for how to tension between his actual jealousy. miliar to you in your world And Ari Aster clearly under-
spend this Mother’s Day, mother and his understand- His grief and guilt cause him becoming a subversion stands the connection be-
consider relishing a good ing of Gabi as his new one. to keep her corpse stashed of that, and becoming tween these things.”
scare. Since the genre’s While the genre has often away, and assume her per- something really danger- It is not insignificant that al-
inception, horror movies been dismissed as low- sonality when he commits ous and evil,” said director most all of these scary mov-
have tapped into the psy- brow, Adam Lowenstein, a violence against women Lee Cronin. “It just lent itself ies about protagonists’ re-
chological trauma and film and media studies pro- he becomes attracted to. to this exploration of mater- lationships with their moth-
terror that can only come fessor at the University of Part of what makes the ma- nal fears and what it might ers are directed by men.
from a mother, and a num- Pittsburgh who specializes ternal bond such a fertile mean if your mother was to But Lowenstein maintains
ber of recent films are em- in horror, said it is well-suit- one for exploring psycho- turn on you.” that the genre’s mommy is-
bracing that time-honored ed for grappling with these logical trauma, Lowenstein In Ari Aster’s new “Beau is sues began with a woman,
tradition. kinds of deep-seated, psy- said, is that it is so universal Afraid,” the central theme and long before film: Mary
Take, for example, Bran- chological issues. and freighted. is the fear and pain that Shelley’s classic 1818 hor-
don Cronenberg’s “Infin- “Horror is, at its core, a very “We all have real mothers, can come from the moth- ror novel, “Frankenstein,” is
ity Pool,” which became primal genre,” he said. “It just the way we have real er-child bond. The movie – often considered to be the
one of the buzziest films to makes absolute sense that constructs about mother- about a man trying to get inception of modern horror.
come out of this year’s Sun- things like family, sex, death hood that we subscribe to. to his mom’s house – is as “Her story is about a man
dance Film Festival. would all be things that the And these things are very much a surrealist epic as it who wants to be God,
It’s no surprise it was replete horror film is constantly min- hard to separate,” he said. is a horror movie. but he also wants to be a
with disturbing moments. ing because those are pri- The gap between expec- And while Aster’s third mov- mother.
The director, after all, has mal fascinations and expe- tation and reality becomes ie is admittedly less scary Really, he wants to create
surely learned a thing or riences.” fruitful territory for a good than his “Midsommar” or life without the intervention
two from his filmmaker dad Perhaps the seminal ex- scare. “Hereditary,” another film of women,” he said. “What
and giant of the genre, Da- ample of mommy issues in Zach Cregger’s “Bar- that exploits the terrors Mary Shelley shows us is
vid Cronenberg. a horror film is Alfred Hitch- barian” (2022) also turns of family dynamics and what a bad idea this really
In one talked-about scene, cock’s “Psycho” (1960). breastfeeding into a spec- mother-induced trauma, it is, and how male hubris re-
Gabi (Mia Goth) exposes In it, the infamous Norman tacle, not from an inviting is safe to conclude by the ally does monstrous things
her bare chest to James Bates of the Bates Motel yet depraved sexual part- end that Beau’s fear of his with motherhood.”q

Tucker Carlson says he’s coming back with show on Twitter

By DAVID BAUDER sage to his lawyer, Bryan Freedman,
AP Media Writer was not immediately returned.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fired Fox news host It’s unclear what these plans mean for
Tucker Carlson said Tuesday that he will his remaining contract with Fox; typi-
be putting out a “new version” of his cally television companies include a
program on Twitter. no-compete clause when someone
Carlson made his announcement in a leaves the air. A Fox spokeswoman
three-minute video posted on the so- didn’t immediately return a call for
cial media site, as part of a denuncia- comment.
tion of media. He called Twitter that last Axios reported on Tuesday that Carl-
big remaining platform that allows free son’s lawyers sent a letter to Fox accus-
speech. ing the network of fraud and breach of
“We’ll be bringing a new version of the contract.
show we’ve been doing for the last six Fox announced on April 24 that it was
and a half years to Twitter,” he said. cutting ties with Carlson, its most popu-
“We’ll bring some other things, too, lar prime-time anchor. Tucker Carlson, host of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” poses for photos in a
which we’ll tell you about. But for now The network offered no explanation for Fox News Channel studio on March 2, 2017, in New York.
we’re just grateful to be here.” the move, and Fox’s ratings in his old Associated Press
He offered no other details, and a mes- time slot have sharply fallen.q