#Duke had nightmares with crows that day | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

youshouldhavepaidattentiondad · 3 years

Text

Slow Descent: Chapter 4: Bring Me a Dream (Or Would You Prefer a Nightmare?)

Day 4 entry for @hatchetober

Prompt: Song

Ao3

Arlen races through the Witchwood, bursting through low limbs and bushes. The low hanging limbs and thorns shred his clothes like paper to claw desperately at his skin. Blood oozes from the stinging cuts. Fearfully, he glances behind him.

Wiley's strolling leisurely behind him, tossing and catching a rotting green apple as he moves. From his cruel, twisted lips, he croons a haunting rendition of Mr. Sandman.

No matter how fast Arlen seems to run, Wiley keeps gaining. The sound of the song just gets closer and closer-

With a gasp, Arlen's eyes fly open. His chest heaves, as if he really were just running. His eyes dart around wildly, taking in the suede furniture, the plush rug, and the fireplace before he realizes he's at home. He takes several deep breaths before sitting up on the couch. He grabs his phone to check the time. 6:47pm. Cursing, he scrubs a hand up his face. He must have dozed off.

The past few days have been rough. He had tried to convince himself that he had bought that apple during his last grocery trip. That had been believable enough. He liked apples. He must have grabbed it that morning and set it on the counter. Easy enough, he's scatterbrained sometimes. He probably meant to take it with him as a snack when he went to meet Duke and, in his anticipation, forgot about it. He wants to believe that, but no matter how many times he repeats it, he can't shake how wrong it is.

He stands, groaning as he stretches out. He needs to get out of this house. He can't count how many hours he's stared at the Polaroid on the fridge and thought about what Duke told him. He needs some fresh air, something to get his mind off of it.

Arlen sits at the scratched up bar of the Birdhouse, sipping a whiskey sour. The smokey air might not be fresh, but it's still a welcome change. His eyes scan the bar idly.

"Lookin' for somebody in particular?" Comes a smokey voice from beside him.

He twists around on the barstool to an older woman with a bad blonde dye job and mousy roots. Her lips are painted almost an offensive shade of red. Her tank top fits tightly in an unflattering way.

"No, I'm not," Arlen answers before taking another sip. She was probably gorgeous when she was younger. She has gorgeous blue eyes, the beauty offset by deep crows feet.

"Well…" she leans towards him, her breasts almost falling out of her top. "If you was smart, you'd be looking for me." She winks before ordering a beer.

This is a mistake. Arlen recognizes that clear as day. He leans in as well. "Oh? And who would you be?"

"My name's Pamela," she answers in a sultry voice. She looks him up and down, her bright red lips curling in a pleased smirk. "I ain't see you around, hot stuff. Who are you?"

"I'm Arlen." He watches in distaste as she reaches into her purse and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. "I moved here not too long ago."

Pamela accepts her beer from the bartender and takes a deep drink. "Oh yeah?" She takes a drag from her cigarette. "What brought you round to these parts?"

"Work," he answers vaguely.

That doesn't seem to bother her. She drains her beer quickly before giving him a predatory grin. "How's abouts me 'n' you get outta here and I can show you some real good hospitality." She winks again as she brings her cigarette to her lips.

That is definitely a bad idea. Arlen gets the bartender's attention and pays for his and Pamela's drinks.

"So, did you drive here?" Pamela asks as they step out of the Birdhouse.

"No," Arlen lies easily, "Did you?"

She leads him over to an old, beat up pick up truck. Almost reluctantly. Arlen climbs into the passenger side.

A short ride later, Pamela pulls into the yard of a small, rundown trailer near the back of a trailer park. Arlen considers bolting as soon as he steps out of the truck. Instead, he finds himself following Pamela up the stairs into the trailer.

Once inside, Arlen looks around cautiously. It seems clean enough. He takes a few steps forward before the sound of a ukulele reaches him, carrying the sounds of Mr. Sandman. He looks in horror, expecting to see Wiley standing in the trailer's narrow hall.

"For God's sale," Pamela mutters before raising her voice to an obnoxious yell. "Nanners, fuckin' knock it off or I swear-"

A door down the hall swings open and out storms a familiar looking teenager. "Don't fucking talk to her like that!" She seethes as she steps into the living room. She catches sight of Arlen and scoffs. "Oh, so now you're bringing men back here? Fan-fucking-tastic move, Mom."

"This is my home, Lex, and I'll do what I damn well please !" Pamela shouts back. "You're lucky I still let you live here, you ungrateful-"

Arlen starts backing up for the door. He glances down the hall to see a younger girl peeking out from around a doorframe. Her dark, serious eyes and braids are also familiar. He can't quite place-

"Hey! Stop fucking looking at her, you creep!" Lex shouts at him, moving to block his view of the hall.

Pamela yells something unintelligible as she grabs Lex's arm. Arlen doesn't bother hanging around. He opens the door and darts out, letting the door slam behind him.

He jogs back to the Birdhouse. He doesn't slow until he sees his car in the parking lot. He stops beside the Corvette, doubled over as he breathes heavily.

It's not until he's back home, scrubbing the smell of smoke off his body, that he remembers: the girl was the one who mentioned the Witchwood and Lex was the one in the Toy Zone vest beside her.

He turns off the shower, thinking hard. He definitely doesn't want to be around Pamela Foster again. He could go to Toy Zone to ask Lex if he could speak to the girl, but judging how she's reacted to him, that's not a good idea either.

He needs to find out more about that family.

Note: I am falling behind. I am so sorry. Arlen Mercier is my original character, please do not use without my permission.

#slow descent #arlen mercier #hatchetober 2021 #hatchetfield universe #black friday #tgwdlm #starkid #nightmare time #pamela foster #lex foster #hannah foster #fic

6 notes · View notes

politicalmamaduck · 4 years

Text

Reylo Fic Recs: Historical AU

through the burning night by @thewayofthetrashcompactor

Rey takes a wrong turn on the way back from Yule celebrations and ends up somewhere she doesn't expect with a stranger. Snow falls hard around them, and she's not sure of the way home.

A soft epilogue by @pillar--of--salt

The return of the Duke of Alderaan incited all manner of gossip and speculation.

lay then the axe to the root by @sciosophia

Rey drifts her hand up to his face. Her thumb brushes the scar bisecting it.“Beautiful,” she whispers, almost to herself, and Ben realises he is lost; tumbling away to infinity with only this girl and their sins. In which Ben, the reluctant Duke of Alderaan, cannot get the clever, beautiful, opinionated governess out of his head.

sun and moon by @kylorenaissance

“You look pale.” “I always look pale,” he says without thinking, and then flushes. Rey of Jakku laughs. “Pale as the moon, my lord.” “And you are as bright as the sun.”

Violent Delights by @shmisolo

The maze isn’t for me my ass, he thinks. He looks up, smiling beneath his bandana and his eyes are met with a horrified looking couple. The man is standing in front of the woman, as though worried that Ben’ll attack them next. He rolls his eyes as he stands up again, cleaning the simulation blood from his knife by rubbing it against his pant leg. “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” he snarls at them. “This is my fucking vacation.”

Heavy in Your Heart by @shmisolo

From @otpprompts: Person A, a princess/prince who decided to have one last good night before their arranged betrothal, fell in love (and possibly had sex) with a stranger at the bar. They don’t remember much except a voice. The next day, the first thing Person B (their betrothed) says is “I do” and FUCK that’s the exact same voice as last night’s stranger.

A Worthy King by @luminoustico

Recently made King after a lengthy war, and seeking an alliance with enemies still licking old wounds, Kylo Ren seeks a bride. For his choice, he decides upon Lady Rey Kenobi.

desperado (where you gonna run to) by @greyjedireylo

'It is my personal opinion that we cannot take Snoke down without you. Sorry excuse of a man that you are at the moment.' Rey's eyes skimmed him up and down as though searching for something, and coming up wanting.Kylo could not fault her for that. He’d failed at being a good man a long time ago, and a bad man more recently. He was adrift between two worlds, belonging in neither.

Edelwiess by @aionimica

Captain Kylo Ren hires Rey, a postulant from the local abbey to be a governess for his adoptive children. As time goes on, music grows in the Ren household and the Captain and Rey must choose: love or duty?

Follow Me by @transpogrrl

Welcomed into Leia Organa Solo’s Philadelphia household in the spring of 1777, Rey has just learned what it is to live among people who love her when Mrs. Solo makes an unexpected request. Her journey into the Pennsylvania wilderness reveals the truth about her past and brings her face-to-face with characters from her dreams and nightmares.

A Seasonal Peace by @transpogrrl

After the British occupy Philadelphia in September, 1777, Kylo Ren and his Knights find themselves without portfolio. In spite of attempts to avoid and then escape the city of his birth, Kylo finds himself a prisoner to the seasonal peace. What will he find to occupy himself?

Malleus Maleficarum by @monsterleadmehome

Ben Solo lives a quiet life in Hanna City, Massachusetts. Except for when he's asked to help with witch hunts. He does what he's asked, if only to keep the secret that he himself practices witchcraft aided by his familiar, a crow named Kylo.When the mysterious Rey Niima arrives on a boat from England, along with Witchfinder General Armitage Hux, they are about to shake up Ben's quiet life for good.

Per Aspera Ad Astra by @hellomelusine

Rey Niima was the newest Computer hire at 'Starkiller Base' on the Harvard Campus, she had heard the rumors, but she hadn't made it this far in her career by letting what other people had to say deter her. Of course, that in no way prepared her for coming face to face with Professor Kylo Ren. A terror of a boss, by all accounts, a monster, but Rey will not deterred.

My own historical AU fics:

you transfix me quite

It was as if a great shadow had descended upon Aldera Hall. Queer tales were told in the nearby village of strange happenings at night and bloodsoaked sheets that even the most skilled and robust laundresses could not wash out. Ghosts were said to wander the broad Yorkshire moors. These tales were once scoffed at by the hearty villagers, but they had gained currency of late. The ancient house was said to be haunted; not just by the spectres of the past, souls that had not yet gone on to rest, but by the sins of the present and wounds that could not be properly healed.

you pierce my soul

It was not common knowledge, and in fact was held only in the closest confidence by his most intimate associates, that Ben Organa-Solo’s heart had been captured by a Royal Navy captain as thoroughly as she captured and conveyed enemy vessels. However, despite his age and desire to be wed, he allowed himself to be persuaded against the match, for his dearly beloved mother was uncertain as to the young lady’s youth and her son’s proclivities for shouting matches and dueling.

Prevailed Upon to Marry

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” How Ben Solo and Rey Kenobi learned to look past their own pride and prejudice, and fall in love.

through the darkness hails the light

The Roman Empire, led by Emperor Snoke, is trying to colonize Ireland. The night before the winter solstice, there is an awakening in the old ways of magic. Rey and Kylo Ren journey to the ancient tomb at Newgrange for an unexpected discovery.

Tall Tales of the Western Wilds

They say there's three sides to every story: his side, her side, and the truth. No matter which you choose to believe, Ragin' Rey Kenobi was the greatest bounty hunter there ever was.

My other fic rec lists:

#reylo #rffa writers #historical au #fic recs #fan fiction #my writing #language tw

159 notes · View notes

theoriginalladya · 3 years

Text

WIP Wednesday

So, been working on Chapter 2 of If London Falls... Here’s a bit of that.

~~~~

2186, London, England, Earth; Day 1

Palace.

Well, she isn’t a native, but even she knows that, as the crow flies, it isn’t all that far from the clocktower to Buckingham Palace. Vaguely, she ponders the fate of the Royals. Were they even in the city when the Reapers hit? Did their security team get them out? The palace itself is less than a mile away; an easy jaunt on a good day. She’d barely break a sweat jogging there from here. Less than a ten-minute walk.

But today isn’t a good day, not by a long shot, and it’s going to take hours to get there. Birdcage Walk is a nightmare of devastation and Reapers; so bad that she opts to work her way through the back streets to avoid the worst of it, if that’s even possible, climbing from pile to pile, hole to hole, shadow to shadow.

She’s barely two blocks from the clocktower, picking her way past debris and rubble, and hoping those husk creatures stay way the fuck away from her as she has no ammunition left, when the reality of the situation hits her cold in the face.

Just days ago, sitting atop one of London’s famed double decker tour skybuses, she rode past this area. She can almost hear the tour guide’s voice now – Eddie, she thinks his name was? Lovely green eyes and a mop of honey-blond waves that her younger sister Lynn would love – And here we have Middlesex Guildhall which for years served as the Supreme Court for the entirety of the United Kingdom. Designed by James S. Gibson in an art nouveau gothic style, it was built between 1906 and 1913. The reliefs, friezes, and some of the statue-work were created by Henry Charles Fehr and depict various images from British history…

Abby digs her toe into a small pile of shattered stonework lying at her feet. The building itself smolders, chugging giant plumes of thick smoke from near the center of the block. She’s at the crossroads of streets whose names she can’t recall, signage now missing, but the building she isn’t likely to forget anytime soon. Ashley always had a thing for poetry, but Abby? She loves architecture. Something about the clean lines and precise angles of a shape, and the varied ways to decorate them. This particular building had a bit of both to it, and it was the friezes on the outer façade and the stories they told that fascinated her – King John at Runnymede handing over the Magna Carta to his barons, King Henry III granting the charter for Westminster Abby, and Lady Jane Grey being offered the crown by the Duke of Northumberland, her father. History plus beauty; Abby’d returned here after the tour to examine it in more detail and get some better pictures.

Those pictures are all that remain, now. She glances around the area, profound sadness growing exponentially. Those may be all that remain of anything by the end of this…

#wip wednesday #ladya write #If London Falls #Abboats #Abby Williams #London England #mass effect #snippet

1 note · View note

grigori77 · 4 years

Text

Summer 2020′s Movies - My Top Ten Favourite Films (Part 1)

20. THE OUTPOST – it’s been a great year for war movies already, but summer was definitely where the genre really blew up, showering a TRIO of crackers on us, starting with this intensely rugged actioner about the Battle of Kamdesh in 2009 Afghanistan, in which a small group of American soldiers fought against an overwhelming Taliban force in extremely hostile terrain. Director Rod Lurie (The Last Castle, The Contender) hasn’t had the most impressive career so far, but he shines here, as does a powerful ensemble cast which includes Scott Eastwood, Caleb Landry Jones and Orlando Bloom.

19. BIT – the first notable feature from indie director Brad Michael Elmore is an enjoyably offbeat little vampire flick in which small-town transgender teen Laurel (Supergirl’s Nicole Maines) moves out to Los Angeles and gets swept up in the strictly girls-only revolution of local head vamp Duke (Goliath’s Dianna Hopper) and her feminist pack. Maines and Hopper are both phenomenal, while Elmore does wonders with his tiny budget and really pays off on his film’s intriguing ideas.

18. DA 5 BLOODS – Spike Lee’s latest joint must be the most tripped-out and subversive Vietnam War movie since Apocalypse Now, letting his politically-charged mixture of reportage and personal drama run riot with particularly colourful results as we follow a group of ageing black Vets on their journey to retrieve the remains of a fallen comrade and a fortune in illicit gold. The cast are uniformly excellent, particularly Delroy Lindo as traumatised hothead Paul, while there’s a magnificent turn from Chadwick Boseman in one of his final roles.

17. THE LOVEBIRDS – director Michael Showalter reunites with Kumail Nanjiani, star of his indie hit The Big Sick, for this riotous screwball comedy in which lovers Jibran and Leilani (Nanjiani and Insecure’s Issa Rae) find their faltering relationship tested to breaking point when they’re forced to prove their innocence after being framed for murder by a corrupt cop. The laughs come thick and fast, but there’s an endearing warmth that adds emotional heft to the story, bolstered by the leads’ palpable chemistry.

16. UNHINGED – Russell Crowe brings every motorist’s worst nightmare to life as Tom Cooper, a deranged psychopath who harasses struggling divorcee Rachel (Slow West and Mortal Engines’ Caren Pistorius) and her son to increasingly terrifying extremes after one bad day leads to a road-rage misjudgement. The overblown revenge thriller plot works best if you don’t think about it too much, but the incredibly game cast give their all and director Derrick Borte (The Joneses) keeps the tension cranked up to breaking point.

15. THE NEW MUTANTS – the last ever Fox-based X-Men movie slumps into cinemas with little fanfare after a series of increasingly lamentable delays with an inevitable sense of Marvel Studios going through the motions out of mere obligation to what was once the franchise that MADE them. It’s truly criminal treatment because this is a CRACKING film, the property taking an intriguing swerve into horror movie territory as five young mutants trapped in a shadowy government institute are terrorized by their own worst fears. The Fault in Our Stars’ director Josh Boone shows a surprisingly sure hand with the superheroics AND the scares, but the film really belongs to its uniformly excellent young cast, particularly Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams as shapeshifter Rahne Sinclair and Anya Taylor-Joy as fan favourite Illyana Rasputin. It’s another worthy mutant-fest, which makes it all the more heartbreaking watching with the knowledge that, now that the X-Men and their ilk have been officially folded into the all-encompassing behemoth of the MCU, it’s the opening chapter of a new franchise we’ll never get to see …

14. BECKY – ambitious indie directing duo Jonathan Millott and Cary Murnion have been on my ones-to-watch list for a while now (ostensibly after their horror comedy Cooties but mainly thanks to supercharged single-shot action thriller Bushwick), but they’ve really outdone themselves with this left-field survival horror, in which a pack of neo-Nazi prison-breakers led by brutal genius Dominick (a cannily cast-against-type Kevin James) find themselves up against something they never bargained for – Anabelle: Creation star Lulu Wilson’s eponymous, unexpectedly lethal 13 year-old girl.

13. THE VAST OF NIGHT – despite its far more understated, super-low budget origins, there’s a strong dose of Super 8 in the DNA of this astounding debut from writer-director Andrew Patterson, an intriguingly ambitious first-contact sci-fi thriller set in small town America in the 1950s. Some Kind of Hate’s Sierra McCormick and newcomer Jake Horowitz are the endearingly sparky core of the film, putting the rich quick-fire screenplay through its paces while Patterson displays uncannily sophisticated flair behind the camera. I can’t wait to see what he’s going to deliver in the future …

12. IN SEARCH OF DARKNESS – not just the best feature I’ve watched so far in what’s already been an unusually strong year for documentary films, but one of the best I’ve watched in a good long while, this epic examination of ALL the key horror cinema releases of the 1980s and their enduring cultural impact makes for undeniably engrossing viewing. Despite clocking in at OVER FOUR HOURS, it never outstays its welcome, with writer-director David A. Weiner’s fascination for the subject proving overwhelmingly infectious.

11. GET DUKED! – four wayward teenage boys are pursued by gun-toting aristocratic psychopaths in the Scottish Highlands while doing their Duke of Edinburgh Award (well, it was that or Borstal) in this gleefully OTT comedy masterpiece from debuting writer-director Ninian Doff. One of last year’s major festival hits, it’s an absolute riot, a blissfully unapologetic non-PC laugh-fest powered by a quartet of astonishing turns from its young leads and brilliant support from Eddie Izzard, Kate Dickie and James Cosmo.

9 notes · View notes

flutistbyday2020 · 4 years

Text

Picture

This is a fan fiction work for “The Royal Romance”

TW for drug use.

“Picture”

A/N

I was inspired by all the things I see on Tumblr. This idea has been floating around in my head for a while, and I hope it does my dream justice.

Characters are a little OOC, and the universe is almost an AU. In this universe, MC (Riley) decides she isn’t quite ready to marry anyone but is a part of Liam’s council. He is heartbroken but puts on a brave face.

This is a one-shot.

Song inspiration: “Picture” by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow

Word count: 3,850

Liam's alarm clock beeped at him, almost angrily. Angry that he was coming down from a bender. Last night, it was a hooker, cocaine, and whiskey. He wasn’t proud; no, he was ashamed of who he was. Ever since Riley broke his heart, accepted her position as a duchess, and chose Valtoria over him, this was his life.

His head hurt. He was hungover as hell and had a meeting he needed to be at in an hour. He slowly pulled on his pants, his socks, and his shoes. He stumbled out of bed, his vision blurry from the hangover that he now had. This was his punishment. He glanced around his room. Much like himself, it was disheveled. This is what he gets for putting Riley what she went through. Riley had to watch Liam and Madeleine pretend to be in love for an entire month before her name was cleared. He deserved every ounce of heartache he had. Liam wonders to himself if he would ever be worthy of Riley‘s love.

Liam glanced at his nightstand, where a photo lay facedown. It was of him and his friends, Maxwell, Drake, Olivia, Hana, and Riley, all together, the night after Anton was hanged for his treason. They all had genuine smiles, except for Liam. He was heartbroken because the ruse was over that night. He had placed the photo on its face because he couldn’t look Riley in the eye while he slept with another woman. Silent tears fell as he combed his hair.

Bastien knocked at his door, his sign it was time to leave his quarters.

The day after Liam proposed, the train was quiet. Painstakingly quiet. Everyone knew that Liam was going to propose to Riley the second he announced his engagement to Madeleine was over, yet there was no ring on Riley’s finger.

Liam was heartbroken. He wanted to be showering Riley in kisses and adoration.

Drake was nervous. He was worried Liam knew about his feelings for Riley. He was worried that Liam would stop being his friend for his transgressions.

Maxwell didn't know what to say. The whole point of him bringing Riley to Cordonia was for her to be a Queen, but he had his suspicions that her heart was elsewhere.

Hana upset that Liam and Riley were on the rocks.

Hadn’t this been the whole point of clearing her name, Liam thought to himself that night, so that she and I could get married? Make my Kingdom stronger? He looked at Riley, but she was looking anywhere else but at him. Drake was ignoring him, too.

Liam didn’t know that Drake and Riley shared several passionate kisses while on the engagement tour. He didn’t realize that they shared one passionate night somewhere on the train between France and Italy. He didn’t know that Riley had begged Drake to take her away from it all, just after the first day of the Engagement Tour at Madeline’s estate. Liam didn’t know that Drake was also in love with Riley.

To be fair, everyone who ever interacted with Riley fell in love with her, at least a little. Hana had stolen a kiss the first night at Madeleine’s estate. She and Riley were in Riley’s room, drinking hot cocoa — Hana’s famous recipe— and catching up. Riley had whipped cream on her lip, and Hana had leaned in and kissed Riley before she could stop herself. Riley had smiled warmly at Hana in return, but even then, Hana knew that Riley’s love for Liam would outweigh any love Riley had for her. Or so Hana had thought.

Even when Maxwell had kissed Riley on the top of her head, in a protective manner, he wished his lips were on hers instead.

That night, after Liam proposed, all eyes were trained on Riley. Riley never looked up from her lap, though, because she knew she had broken four hearts that night.

Riley spent most of her days waking up, feeling the grating emptiness of her king-sized bed in her new Duchy. The Duchy that Liam had kindly gifted her, trying to keep her in his kingdom. Of course, she had her corgi, Duke Ramsford, to keep her warm. But it wasn’t the same. She knew that it should be Liam in the bed next to her. Maybe Drake. Maybe even Hana. Her heart and stomach churned.

It had been five months since Anton was hanged. She slept in the castle the entire time they hunted him. They lured Anton in with a fake wedding— hers and Liam’s. They let the whole country think their King was going to have a Queen. She tried to act interested in her ‘wedding,’ but she was terrified.

The nightmares were so nasty during those weeks of deception. She could hear Anton laughing in her dreams. Madeleine fell to her knees, blood pouring out of her mouth. Riley, Madeline called. Riley, save me! Madeleine was poisoned again and again in her sleep. Her nightmares exaggerated the event, playing on her fears.

The nightmares were worse after they were kidnapped by Anton. Oliva was covered in blood, dead. Riley’s legs never worked in her nightmares. She couldn’t scream at Oliva to stand. Night after night, Mara would come bounding into Riley’s room, gun drawn, searching for the perpetrator that made her Duchess scream, but there was never anyone there. Riley was always wide-eyed, sweaty, and teary, though.

After three weeks of relentless nightmares, alone in her Duchy, she begged Liam to let her stay in the castle. She didn’t tell him why, but he knew after the first night. He had heard Riley’s blood-curdling scream from down the hall. The cry had made the hair on the back of his neck and arms stand up. No shoes, no shirt, just his pajama bottoms, he flew to her room. The door was open, and Bastien was already there, Riley clinging to him. Liam’s eyes met hers, and he knew that it was just a bad dream. Wordlessly, he picked her up, bride style, and laid her in bed and curled up next to her. Her sobs ebbed, and she eventually dozed. The next night, he heard her screaming again. He ran faster this time, but Bastien was already there, Riley clinging to him then. The night after that, he just climbed into Riley’s bed instead of his own.

Months passed, no words spoken between anyone about the sleeping arrangements.

There was one night, after a few glasses of champagne and several rounds of poker, Liam and Riley were both tipsy. Riley’s nightmares had stopped, much to her relief, but to Liam’s dismay. She was going to leave him soon, and he knew it. But that night, when they went to bed, Riley didn’t just lay in the crook of his arms. No, she straddled Liam and kissed him fiercely, the alcohol knocking down that one last wall Riley had around her heart. He had gladly accepted her kiss and they spent the night tangled in the sheets together. Liam never made a move to do more than kiss her on the forehead after that night, and for that, Riley was grateful.

When Riley left for her Duchy, she allowed Liam to kiss her on the forehead. She smiled ruefully up at him.

“Call whenever you need something,” Liam had said.

Duke Ramsford nudged Riley with his nose, pulling Riley back into the present.

I can’t believe it’s been two months since I’ve seen Liam face-to-face, she thought. In those two months, Drake, Hana, Maxwell, Oliva, and even Bertrand visited her, trying to pry her out of her Duchy, to no avail.

She closed her eyes, squeezing them tightly, one last time before she got up for the day. She sat up, the wine hangover kicking her ass, making her dizzy and nauseous all at once.

She took a glance at her bedside table— an empty spot where a picture had been, the same one Liam had placed face down at his castle just days ago. Hers was tucked away in the top drawer, as she had a visitor in her room. She stood, pulled the picture from the top drawer, and traced all of the faces of her friends, Liam’s last. They were all happy, except Liam. No, Liam was heartbroken that day. Riley had left the castle two days after the hanging, not even saying so much as a goodbye to Liam. Then, three weeks later, she was on his doorstep. It wasn’t fair and she knew it. She knew Liam couldn’t say ‘no’ to her. The picture was laid back in the drawer and the drawer was shut.

Riley picked up her phone, although she knew there would be no notifications. Nobody had tried to contact her in almost a month.

Riley sent a text to Liam, although he hasn’t responded to her in three days. Hey, call me when you can. I want to talk.

She almost said, “I miss you,” but she didn’t.

Riley desperately needed to talk to Liam. She wanted to ask him if he still loved her. She needed to know if she should move on. Tears pricked her eyes, not knowing what she would do if he had moved on. The other night, lying next to another man, she realized she was in love with Liam. It was always him, and she was a fool for ever thinking it wasn’t. She was going to the castle today. She was going to beg him if that’s what it took.

Riley decided to text Hana.

Riley: I need to get out of the Duchy. Care to meet me at the Beer Garden? I could be there around 7.

A few seconds later:

Hana: I’m so glad to hear from you, Riley!! Of course, I’ll be there. See ya. ❤️

For the first time in almost two months, Riley was leaving Valtoria. She glanced at the clock. 2 PM. Riley mindlessly wandered to her closet, looking for something comfortable yet stylish.

What Riley didn’t know is that Hana was texting Drake. She knew Riley was miserable. She had to help in whatever way she could.

Hana: Riley texted me today!

Drake: Holy crow, you heard from Brooks?

Hana: I know!

She said she wanted to get out. I think you and Liam need to happen to be at the Beer Garden around 7:30 tonight.

Drake: You don’t have to tell me twice.

Riley arrived at her destination at 6:59, wearing a soft yellow dress, with a pair of wedges that complemented it.

Hana already had a table and waved at her. Riley saw that Maxwell was there too. She didn’t realize how much she had missed them both until they were in front of her.

“Hey, stranger,” Maxwell said as he wrapped her in a hug.

“Hey, yourself,” Riley responded as she wrapped both her arms around him and squeezed.

He kissed the top of her head and let go.

Riley gave Hana a side hug then sat down, her favorite ale already in front of her, no doubt thanks to Hana. Hana had artfully arranged the seating so that Riley’s back was to the entrance, so she couldn’t see Liam and Liam couldn’t see he when he came in.

“I didn’t realize how badly I needed to be out until just now, when I saw you two,” Riley admitted with a smile. “Thanks for meeting me here!”

“Of course, Riley. It’s our pleasure.” Hana always knew what to say.

The three of them sat and talked, two of them not paying attention to the time. Hana, however, was anxiously waiting for 7:30. She peeked at her phone for what felt like the 15th time.

“Hot date, Hana?” Riley inquired.

Hana blushed. “No,” she groaned out. But you’ll have one! She thought.

The time on Hana’s phone was 7:35. Drake and Liam will be here any second now.

Hana peered at the entrance, and just in time. Liam and Drake came into her sight, followed by Bastien, and Hana visibly relaxed.

Maxwell and Riley were caught up in conversation. Riley laughed loudly at one of Maxwell’s terrible jokes, beer snorting out of her nose. Hana laughed at Riley and handed her a napkin. Riley blushed but continued to laugh.

“Here,” Hana giggled.

Out of the corner of her eye, Hana spotted Drake and nodded slightly. He gave her a nod back.

7:50. 8:15. 8:47. Riley and Maxwell were tipsy. Riley laughed harder than she had in ages. 9:30. Riley was drunk. Hana gave her water. 10:00.

“I should go,” Riley said to Hana and Maxwell. Riley stood, but she felt the full effects of the alcohol and she faltered in her steps. She laughed loudly, uninhibited, while Maxwell rushed to hold her up. “Thanks, Maxie,” she giggled.

Hana pulled out her phone to text Drake. It’s now or never, Drake. Riley is leaving.

Drake had kept Liam’s attention all night. He somehow managed to keep Liam from staring at Hana, Maxwell, and... Riley. Drake, however, couldn’t help but stare. Especially after how much he had to drink.

“Hey, man, ” he said to Liam. ” I’m getting tired. You ready?” He motioned at the door.

“Ah, how the mighty have fallen,” Liam teased, setting money down on the counter.

“Oh, shut up. I’m thinking of you, Your Majesty,” Drake teased right back.

Liam laughed heartily as he turned. Just then, Liam caught a glance of Maxwell holding someone up. She was giggling at him, no doubt being charmed by his goofy personality.

Liam made his way to the table, noticing Hana as well. He approached and cleared his throat to gain their attention.

Hana turned and smiled brightly. “Liam! How pleasant to see you.”

Liam took her hand and kissed her knuckles. He turned to Maxwell, now sitting with the woman draped in his arms, her face in the crook of his neck. “Lord Maxwell.” He smiled. The lady looked up at him, and he felt foolish for not recognizing her immediately. Blame it on the alcohol.

Riley stiffened at the sound of Liam’s voice, but Maxwell gave her an encouraging squeeze. She looked up and smiled brightly. “Liam.” She was drunk, and everyone knew it. Her heart ached for him, and his heart ached for her. “How are you?”

Liam’s heart pounded. “I’m well, Lady Riley. Thank you for asking.”

“‘S gooooood,” Riley said, her words getting away from her. “I... appear to be intoxicated.” She giggled.

Maxwell stood, taking Riley into his arms once again. “You must forgive us, Liam, but Riley needs to get home. Lots of meetings tomorrow. Important ones, too. Yup, real important,” he rambled.

Riley leaned into Maxwell, letting him do the hard stuff, like walking, for her. She wrapped her arm around his waist; he was leading her with one of his hands on the small of her back and his fingers of his other laced with Riley’s on his stomach. They walked toward the exit, in their own world.

Hana stood, placing money on the table, watching Maxwell lead Riley away. Riley laughed again.

Liam wondered if he’d lost Riley to Maxwell somewhere along the way.

As if she could hear Liam’s thoughts, Hana said, “She still loves you, Liam.” She pressed her skirt down. “It was always you.”

Riley’s head whipped around, and she smiled brightly at Hana and Liam. She waved at them then disappeared from their sight.

Hana sighed. “Over me. Over Maxwell. Over Drake. It was always you, Liam.” She smiled sadly as Liam turned to look at her.

“Thank you, Lady Hana.” He bowed and took his leave.

Riley woke with another hangover. She glanced at her bedside table, wondering how the hell she got home last night. I’m such a lightweight. I can’t even have a few beers without getting drunk. She tried to mentally tally her beer intake. Seven? Was that before or after Maxwell's drinking game? Nine? Fuck. I have to see Liam today.

She picked up her phone. 6:30 AM. Liam should be awake by now.

Riley: It was great to see you last night, Liam. Can we do dinner tonight? Catch up?

Riley set her phone down and threw her hands over her eyes.

Liam woke up at the crack of dawn, his head pounding from the shots he and Drake did when they got back to the castle.

“I still love her,” Liam said to Drake as he threw back another shot.

“I know. We all do, Liam. The difference is she loves you. You’re both too goddamned stubborn to do anything about it.”

Another shot.

What time did Drake leave? I have to see Riley today.

His phone dinged and his heart stopped when he saw the name on his screen.

Liam: That sounds wonderful to me, Lady Riley. I’ll have supper ready at 6.

“Duchess Riley called to say that she left Valtoria and should be here by 5:30, Your Majesty.” Bastien watched for Liam’s reaction, knowing how he felt about Riley. He watched Liam’s heart break a little more every night when he held Riley. He also knew that Riley was in love with Liam, but was too broken up after what Anton did to her. She needed time, and he needed whiskey.

“Of course. Thank you, Bastien.” He nodded, dismissing him. He wanted to drink. He was worried she was going to leave him once and for all today.

He made Riley a Duchess with the hope that she would accept his marriage proposal. He was heartbroken, but understanding when she said no. He then hoped that with her staying in Cordonia, he could woo her the proper way, and not just stolen moments here and there, but she kept him at arm’s length. Even when they shared a bed, and she clung to him, scared witless from her nightmares, she kept him at arm’s length. Eventually, it just hurt his ego. He was strong, but only around her. When the nightmares stopped, and when she went back to Valtoria, his drinking habits got worse and he quickly started cocaine. It was the only thing that made him feel alive.

She used to come back to the castle for council meetings, but she stopped two months ago, much to Liam’s dismay. She would join via phone call.

Today was going to be different, though. After dinner, he was going to confess that he was still in love with her. That he still wanted to marry her. He didn’t know if he could stand to be away from her ever again.

After last night, seeing Riley all tangled up in Maxwell’s arms, after what Drake said— it just reaffirmed his feelings.

He walked to his room and opened the top drawer. A ring for Riley that was never worn sat in its box, not seen by the light of day for almost five months. He picked up the box, red satin, and examined the ring. The ring was his mother’s, and he was anxious to see it on Riley’s finger. Regina had given it to him after he ended his engagement to Madeleine. Even back at the beginning of the social season, Regina knew Liam’s heart belonged to Riley.

Riley’s town car pulled up to the castle, and her heart was beating so rapidly that it made her faint. Liam was outside, ready to open her door. His heart was pounding, too. They both had the same plan: make it through dinner and then profess their love. All of that went out the door as soon as Riley saw Liam on the steps.

The car hadn't even stopped when Riley almost ripped her door open.

“Ma’am!” Mara protested, slamming on the brakes, but it was already too late.

Riley was out of the car, running at Liam's full speed. She didn’t care who saw— she needed to kiss him. She flung herself at him, hoping he knew what she wanted when her door opened like that.

Liam was waiting at the top of the steps when Riley’s town car pulled closer to him. He smiled, thinking about his lips on hers. Her car door whipped open before Mara had come to a stop. His heart stuttered for a moment; he didn’t want to hope that she was going to run to him. He wasn’t ready for that heartbreak again. But Riley was running at him as fast as she could, so he braced himself.

Riley leaped into his arms, wrapping her legs around him, kissing him fervently. He held her closely, kissing her back with just as much passion. She pulled back much too soon for his liking, but he was dizzy and breathless. They both were. Her breath was warm and smelled like champagne— her liquid courage.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Duchess Riley?” His heart thumped. He smiled at her, wondering if this was all just a dream.

“Yes,” she whispered. Her eyes searched his, hoping he understood. She would die right here if he turned her down.

He chuckled, “What?”

“Yes, I’ll marry you.”

He faltered, loosening his grip on her legs, and they fell to the ground. Her eyes glazed over, and tears began to fall.

I’m so stupid, she thought to herself. Her heart shattered.

“Please, Liam. Please! I know I’m late. I know you may have moved on—” Sobs wracked her body. She was too late. He didn’t love her anymore. Her voice cracked as she spits out one last desperate plea: “But I love you. It’s always been you. Please, Liam. I want to be your wife.”

He sat there, watching her come unraveled in front of him. Finally, he thought. She sobbed violently, shaking from the emotions.

He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her close. He kissed her hard, and they crashed into each other like waves of a stormy sea. Every apology they never muttered out loud was conveyed with their lips. Every I love you. All of it was out in the open now. Liam kissed Riley until the tears stopped.

After several minutes, they parted. Riley’s eyes were red and puffy, but hopeful. Liam couldn’t contain his smile anymore.

“I was going to do this in the hedge maze after dinner, Riley,” he got down on one knee, ring in hand. “But you seem to have your plans,” he laughed.

She laughed, too, a real, hearty laugh. She gazed down at Liam. “I was going to wait until after dinner to confess my feelings, Liam, but once I saw you, I had to let you know.” She smiled brightly.

He looked up at her with loving eyes. His heart pounded but for a good reason this time.

“Duchess Riley Brooks, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

She squealed, pulled him up by the lapels, and kissed him. “Yes! A thousand times, yes!”

“It’s about Goddamn time,” Bastien muttered as he headed inside, carrying Riley’s bags.

“I’d say so,” Mara agreed.

#trr hana #trr #trr drake #trr maxwell #trr mc #trr fanfic #trr mc x liam #maxwell beaumont #drake walker #liam rys #riley brooks #trr bastien #trr mara #hana lee #hana x mc

71 notes · View notes

isadxrabanks · 4 years

Text

✶ — › give that read more button some sweet love to know more about my major headache, isadora !

INFORMATION ! ★

[ AUDREYANA MICHELLE / POLYTROPOS / HORME / MUSE 12 ] / ISADORA BANKS is a TWENTY-TWO year old ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE major. SHE is known for being SPONTANEOUS & ZEALOUS but AWKWARD & ERRATIC. when i think of them, i imagine WALLS ADORNED WITH USELESS KNICK-KNACKS, ENTIRE CONVERSATIONS SPILLING OUT WITHOUT TAKING A SINGLE BREATH, THE SIGNATURE AROMA OF COCONUTS AND SUNSHINE ANNOUNCING HER PRESENCE. and even though they’re a proud HU student now, we all have our roots. theirs run back to them being a MHP (IGNIS) graduate . i asked around and it turns out they AREN’T an AOP student. in their interview, they managed to woo the admissions team by BREAKING THE SCHOOL’S CURRENT 50 YARD FREESTYLE SWIM RECORD. i guess that’s all there is to know! unless…

DESCRIPTION !

(she treated herself and had some reconstructive surgery and now her fc is audreyana michelle from paris berelc!! if any of ya’ll know how to make gif icons, i beg u to make some of paris because she is being SLEPT on and didn’t have enough resources rkjlhglerjkfkrejf)

Isadora is very much is a free-spirit. One day she’s dressed in suburban witch fashion, the next she’s walking around in a bikini top and daisy dukes and acts like nothing changed. the kind of Bitch to wear impractical shoes that people can’t figure out how she walks in them

Incredibly disorganized and messy, her side of the dorm room can definitely earn her a spot on Hoarders.She’s an avid collector of crystals, succulents, cool-looking sticks, shiny things... essentially anything a crow would like.

Frantic and quick. She’s always stretching, jumping around, shuffling back and forth - it’s impossible for her to stand still. She can take up a lot of space and a lot of time. Conversations with her can either last hours or minutes before she gets distracted by someone/something else. Honestly, she’s kind of a headache, and someone who desires control’s worst nightmare.

Would much rather be outdoors than inside. She LOVES trees and flowers and animals. She’s probably changed her major a million times but always goes back to environmental science since that’s more her and she’s science/math comes weirdly easy to her ((canT RELATE))

She has a policy if she’s invited to something she’ll always show up to it. Even if it’s just for 10 minutes, she’ll be there!

nicknames whether its for herself or others- the shorter the better because she cant be bothered by too many syllables!!

CONNECTIONS !

Bruh, let’s see how our characters mesh and come up with something thicc and juicy, aight? I’m absolutely down for anything and everything. Squad, flirtationship, gym buddies, hateship, one saw the other drunk on the floor petting a cat at a party and laid down with them and they now send each other the dumbest cat pictures - you name it.

#hatchet:intro #❪ ⋅ ★ — YOU SHOULD STOP ME┊❛ INTRO ❜ ❫#(( this is a big Yikes but an A for effort ))

10 notes · View notes

pissedoffatouat · 6 years

Text

OK, so this post is for later, because I am going to live without an internet connection for a while (I hope no longer than a day) so I’m writing my thoughts now for @sieben9 to read ONLY after watching “The Tower” or 3x14 and is ready to discuss the ingenuity of this fun episode, and how it connects to Oz.

I am just scribbling my thoughts of this episode as I remember it because I didn’t get your input yet and I have nothing to answer to :)

It’s just a jumble of thoughts.

Apparently, Emma had a very easy time falling in love with people. Exhibit A: Walsh (B is Graham, C is Neal, etc. etc. and so on and so forth I won't even mention Regina. It's right there staring us in the face.)

And I absolutely love this new Henry - great story choice for his character.

I like how this episode starts out as a nightmare just like Dorothy had in Kansas, and Emma was swept away by a tornado-like whirlwind through the wardrobe. Oz references lol

Gotta give A&E credit where credit is due. Like the theme of "appearances."

David had to face his fear. That is what courage is all about. He was afraid of not being a good father, of failing his next child, he faced it, and that was courageous. Not to put down David's obvious bravery, (this is just to prove a point about appearances) let's count the times that Gold had to face his fears: 1) fear of being called a coward - he still shattered his ankle to get out of the war, 2) fear of dark-magic/knives/the duke etc. he took on the darkness to save his son and stop the Ogre's war, 3) fear of "the boy [Henry] being his undoing" - he walked into Nederland and actively prepared to die for the boy[Henry]. 4) he was obviously terrified of his father, and yet he faced him and saved his family, 5) afraid of being unloved/abandoned/getting his heart broken - he easily fell in love with anyone who showed him even the tiniest amount of kindness (even Cora, dammit) (There are probably many more, but I have no energy to remember them)

Now, in the original Wizard of Oz movie, when the scarecrow wanted a brain, the wizard gave him a diploma. That piece of paper is proof that he has a brain. Did anything change? No. But now the scarecrow was officially smart. It's all about image. Appearances. Gold is probably more courageous than most of the characters in this story, and yet his is the official coward. All stamped and sealed with a coward diploma, because for some reason THAT is his image. He appears to be the coward; even his son and Belle call him that. Why? Because this is what he calls himself. His self image rubs off on everyone else's image of him. It makes him appear this way.

And this whole idea of a man being able to spin straw into gold is very interesting. Figuratively, it can mean taking something mundane and making it beautiful. Almost like the character of Mr Gold, who took a "dream" which is something mundane that happens every night, and turned it into a real place - Nederland. (what was done with his creation was not really his fault.) (he even turned that voodoo doll his father gave him which was just an ugly thing and he made it special by giving it a beautiful name.) He would take mundane wool and spin it into beautiful thread that could be used for kings and queens.

Also, the scarecrow is a doll made out of straw (which hasn't been spun into gold) and is used to scare off the crows. The doll is harmless, really, but the crows are very afraid of it. Somehow I feel that Rumple, as scary as he made himself seem all these centuries, was really nothing but a person. (OK he did have darkness to battle, but he is not as scary as he appeared to be.) He just wants to protect like the scarecrow protects the crop.

OK enough about my favorite imp. I'll talk about another character now... Zelena is creepy. I wouldn't want to be at the receiving end of her wrath if she had a vendetta against me!

2 notes · View notes

elsewhereuniversity · 7 years

Text

Pieces of chaos

The Elsewhere University is rare place, where reality is thin, thin enough that you can slip through, that you can turn belief in reality, that you can see Crows and wyrms and other things mostly Else (but for cats. Cats care not for reality and walls between worlds. Cats walk where they want when they want how they want). But thankfully it isn’t so rare to attract True attention.

Oh there are courts. Petty tiny things when you look at it, seasons and times of days and even smaller, weaker minnows. And even then, you will never find whole courts or their rulers. Dukes and barons and princes yes, but not kings and queens.

Spring with its bloom and renewal and growth, strong enough to heal every wound of living and choke and conquer Earth like kudzu. Summer with its sunfire and strength and sea, powerful enough to burn and drown and smother world. Autumn with its harvests and decay and storms, mighty enough to unleash decay upon planet and bring rot and illness. Winter with its cold and darkness and silence, great enough to freeze and stifle and bury life itself.

Day with its blue sky and illusions, night with its black heaven and stars, golden dawn and grim twilight. Light, blinding and scorching and with radioactive smile. Night, deep and hungry and greedy and starving.

Fire that wants to feed and smother. Air that cannot be seen or heard, thinking itself above all but always felt. Earth from which all rise and all return to, mother of all. Water,deep and changing and most cunning and determined of them all.

Seelie, so beautiful and joyous and with endless order. Unseelie, terrible and painful and with unstoppable chaos.

Life that only wants to thrive. Death, most just, taking all.

They play their games, commoners and nobles alike, and their godlike rulers (pure things lsying deep beneath dreams, less people and more personificatipns) lustening to games, and forms belief bestows upon their subjects, ways humans interpret and respect and defile and fear nature, plotting against thousand other courts.

And knowing they are but small fishes swimming above great abyss.

There are three, Fair Folk know, three beings that can walk mortal world without shattering it. Three things from depths that were before time and will be after cosmos ends. Three beings resting in demersal zone, three avatars of True Royals, three pieces thrown to explore small small world.

Gentry know of them, though few have seen them. Stuff of legends and nightmares they won’t share with anybody. They learn of them, whispered in darkness of Underhill. Even Wyrm and crows know better than to challenge Three. Crows and Wyrms don’t trick or bargain, they take and devour. But neither does True Royalty, even avatars made to be weak-they walk and crush those who oppose them.

Do not ask of them. Gentry won’t dare answer. Do not seek them. They can’t be hunted. They may be exploring this young universe. They may be plotting. They may be hands and eyes of The Queen. It doesn’t matter. Pray you never find then.

Tall One is first. Thin and of long neck. Bone and mask, antler and crown. Where veil is thin they come and watch. They walk,silent, more unknown than Anna Monday. None know their motives or desires. They dwell in human world. Once you see them you know you are caught too deep. Question is are they warning or executor, neither or both.

Second is Hidden Darkness. It dwells in Underhill, hiding in tidal pools of Else, exploring reaches even most terrible fae avoid. Did it come to them because they were terrible or did it make them such. It seeks fun, and horror, and shall you find it- a formless shadow- it will devour you, body and mind and soul, power and existence and Name no matter what you are, mortal or Fair.

Third is Fairy Godmother. She waits in hall of sorrow between worlds, story attic warmed by fire of childhood dreams, cloak of tears and wand of silver bone. She goes where there is pain and need, bound by ancient promise of most famous tale. She seeks legends, and took all the best and worst world had to offer-wisest,strongest,bravest,most foolish,weakest and most cowardly. Only kindest remained free. If you are in need, she will bring you, and by magic and mundane, act and advice save you. Do not demand her help. Do not ask for more. Do not spit on tales.

And yes, I know I shouldn’t be speaking this. But I am doomed either way. As for you, dear enemy… do not turn your head. It will be easier that way.

#irleughlivelyatalanteangodfan #stories #royalty #fantastic #the tall one #hidden darkness #the fairy godmother #of all of this i love the comparison of the spring court to kudzu #wht a fantastic way of making growth and greenery horrifying #submission

219 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 4 years

Text

AFI Fest 2020 Features Some of the Year’s Best Films

https://ift.tt/2RPN4hK

This year, like just about every other film festival that managed to put on some kind of show in 2020, the 34th annual AFI Fest went nearly all-virtual. The yearly American Film Institute event, which usually combines major studio and independent releases, bypassed its usual eight-day blitz at the famous TCL Chinese Theatre complex in Hollywood for an online simulacrum that did not perhaps offer up the same glittering premieres and major studio contenders as in past years, but still managed to offer up a number of superb offerings.

“Attending” a film festival from one’s desk or couch can be a tricky proposition, so it remains to be seen how successful AFI Fest was overall with paying audiences (screenings were ticketed for the public). But as with other such events we’ve experienced this year, like Fantasia, the technical aspects were flawless and the ease of use and screening windows made the event largely stress-free. And we saw some truly extraordinary films, some premiering for the first time, and others coming from other festivals we missed. Check them all out below.

Anthony Hopkins and Riz Ahmed Lead Parade of Talent at AFI Fest

The Father

The best film we saw at AFI Fest was The Father, director and screenwriter Florian Zeller’s adaptation of his own stage play. Anthony Hopkins stars as Anthony, an elderly English man who is suffering from the onset of dementia. Olivia Colman is his daughter Anne, who is planning a move to Paris to live with her partner and is desperately trying to find a new caregiver for her father after he scared off the last one.

But as the film goes on, the viewer begins to wonder what is actually happening? People drift in and out of the narrative under different names, Anthony’s spacious apartment seems to change around him, and time itself seems to bend. Then we realize: we are seeing almost all the events from his point-of-view, which means that none of what we see can truly be trusted–making what could have been a conventional drama about illness and memory into something brilliant.

That realization, coupled with absolutely heartbreaking work from Hopkins and Colman, makes The Father a devastating look at a slow-motion nightmare from which there is no escape. Anthony (the character) is at once recognizable as a certain kind of man (and as such is both charming and mean-spirited), and the legendary actor (we swear we saw a flash of Hannibal Lecter in there at one point), makes his long, slow descent into an unmoored new reality even more profound. A nearly perfect film. (5 Stars)

Sound of Metal

Just as The Father brings us inside the world of someone in the grip of dementia, Sound of Metal gives us an up close look at what it feels like to suddenly go deaf. Riz Ahmed is excellent as Ruben, a recovering drug addict who drums in a heavy metal duo alongside his girlfriend, singer/guitarist Lou (Olivia Cooke). The two tour the indie rock circuit in a beat-up but cozy RV that also serves as their home. However, their gypsy lifestyle is upended when Ruben abruptly loses his hearing.

Director Darius Marder (who co-wrote the script with Abraham Marder) does not give into sentimentality, even as Ruben moves through grief, loss, denial, anger and self-pity, all the while clinging to the possibility that he may find a surgical way to restore his hearing. His journey also takes him to a home for deaf people in recovery (headed up by the marvelous Paul Raci, whose own life story involving deafness is remarkable), and eventually opens his heart and mind–at least a little–to the understanding that he can still live a fulfilling life. The excellent sound design is the final touch on a captivating and highly original story. (4 Stars)

Nine Days

Winston Duke (Black Panther), Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2), and Benedict Wong (Doctor Strange) star in this striking directorial debut from Edson Oda, who also wrote the script. Duke, one of our favorite up-and-coming actors, plays Will, an enigmatic being who once lived on Earth as a human and now decides which souls get their chance to proceed to do the same. When a slot becomes available due to an unexpected death, Will and his colleague Kyo (Wong) welcome five new applicants to their way station, one of whom (Beetz) challenges Will’s method of selecting a new soul.

Based on the concept alone, Nine Days would make an interesting double feature with Pixar’s upcoming Soul. The film touches on a number of sophisticated ideas about what defines humanity and what it means to live, doing so in a compelling and deeply moving way. Duke, Wong and Beetz are all excellent, as are Tony Hale (Veep), Bill Skarsgard (It), and Erika Vasquez as fellow applicants. This is a surreal fantasy that strikes at some truths about how we live. (4 Stars)

New Order (Nuevo Orden)

The sixth film from Mexican writer-director Michel Franco is less than 90 minutes long but will leave you battered and devastated. As a wealthy “white” family celebrates the marriage of their daughter with other upper class guests at their posh estate, trouble is brewing in the streets of Mexico City. The “brown” workers, including people toiling away at the wedding itself, erupt into a furious revolution in which almost no one is spared. But the forces behind the seemingly spontaneous uprising may not be what they seem.

Franco spares no one in this harrowing and absolutely relevant descent into societal breakdown, as the screen fills with the screams of the tortured, the murder of women and children, and the flames of burning bodies. He may cut away at the last minute in key instances, but you are fully aware of what’s happening nonetheless. The film’s hard-nosed approach extends to the motivations behind the chaos, which are more opaque and not as straightforward as one might expect. New Order will leave you shaken and disturbed–as it should. This may not be science fiction. (4 Stars)

Belushi

The first major documentary on the life and career of late comedian and Saturday Night Live alumnus John Belushi touches as expected on all the personal history, creative development, and psychological complexity of a man who many consider one of the great comic geniuses of his time. With many of the interviews with key people done as audio only (for an oral history project), director R.J. Cutler fills in the visual blanks with animation, excerpts from private letters, and various film and video clips, creating a shaggy, kaleidoscopic vision of a too-brief and just as frenetic life.

Since Belushi’s career is well-documented (although it’s weird to realize he only starred in seven films), and the circumstances of his death sadly all too predictable, what stands out most about the film is the central relationship with his wife Judy, who provided an anchor even when Belushi self-destructively pushed her away. Belushi the movie doesn’t offer many surprises beyond that, but does make us wonder what he might have done had he stuck around. (3.5 Stars)

I’m Your Woman

Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) stars in this new melodrama from Fast Color helmer Julia Hart, who weaves themes of motherhood, loyalty, love, and family into a 1970s crime thriller with a decidedly feminist bent. Brosnahan plays Jean, whose sheltered life as the wife of professional thief Eddie (Bill Heck) is upended by his gifting her with a baby (not hers) and then disappearing shortly thereafter. Jean learns that Eddie has betrayed his boss and that she and the baby must go on the run, with help coming from a surprising source.

I’m Your Woman kicks off in bracing fashion, laying out the contours of Jean’s dreamlike, aimless life, then ripping it all out from under her in a gritty, fast-paced first half. But the movie nearly grinds to a halt in its second hour, with a lot of exposition and some confusing narrative strands slowly letting the air out of the proceedings. Brosnahan is great in as a woman who must finally fill in the blanks of her own life, with excellent work as well from Marsha Stephanie Blake and Arinzè Kene as unexpected allies, but the movie doesn’t achieve the triumphant moment it’s striving for. (3 Stars)

Apples

This Greek dystopian fable could serve in some ways as a more metaphorical companion piece to The Father. A product of Greece’s recent wave of “weird” filmmaking (led by Yorgos Lanthimos of Dogtooth and The Favourite fame), this debut from director and co-writer Christos Nikou is set in an Athens where a strange virus is causing people to experience abrupt and almost total memory loss. There’s no cure and no one recovers, and while some amnesiacs are claimed by their families, others become part of a program to give the afflicted a chance at starting a new life.

Movies

Toronto International Film Festival 2020 Movie Round-Up

By David Crow

Movies

New Horror and Sci-Fi Movies Break Out at Fantasia Fest

By Don Kaye

Two of those in the latter category are Aris (Aris Servetalis) and Anna (Sofia Georgovassili), who try to recall the past while attempting to build a new future. He’s as melancholy as she is cheerful, and their different approaches are indicative of the ways all of us might face having our entire existence rebooted. Apples takes turns being absurd, sweet, and poignant, and while it’s a bit too self-consciously strange, it’s a touching twist on classics like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. (3.5 Stars)

Uncle Frank

Six Feet Under and True Blood creator Alan Ball has written and directed this intimate look at a New York University professor (Paul Bettany of WandaVision) who finally comes out to his semi-estranged South Carolina family when he returns home for the funeral of his father. Frank is aided in his efforts by his niece Beth (Sophia Lillis of It), who has always admired her worldly uncle, but didn’t even know his secret herself until attending NYU as well.

Bettany is fantastic, and supported by strong work from Lillis and Peter Macdissi as his longtime partner Walid. But there’s something that feels pre-programmed about the way the plot proceeds, and the film’s last half-hour goes off the rails in overwrought fashion. The engaging cast, led by Bettany’s dignity and humanity, steer it back however. (3.5 Stars)

One Night in Miami…

You can read a much more comprehensive review of Watchmen star Regina King’s directorial debut here, where movies section editor David Crow liked the movie a bit more than us. But after a slow start, there’s no denying that One Night in Miami… (adapted by Soul co-writer Kemp Powers from his play) builds to a powerful and inspiring finish.

Powers’ scenario envisions what happened on the night that Cassius Clay (El Goree), Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and football star Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) all assembled in a motel room after Clay defeated Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship. King can’t quite escape the movie’s origins as a play, but she projects confidence behind the camera and gets distinctive performances out of her four stars. Goree and Hodge are the strongest, but Ben-Adir’s doomed civil rights leader and Odom Jr.’s introverted singer are the heart of this timely story. (3.5 Stars)

The Intruder

A voiceover actress named Ines (Erica Rivas) has her vacation cut short by a tragic occurrence and comes home to find that the incident may have lasting supernatural repercussions in this low-energy chiller from Argentinian director Natalia Meta. The brooding atmosphere and sound studio setting seem almost like a deliberate nod to Peter Strickland’s eerie Berberian Sound Studio (2012), but Meta’s script can’t navigate the blurring lines between fantasy and reality as successfully.

The result is a movie that badly wants to be socially relevant enhanced horror but ends up being a sleepy letdown. Meta and the great Cecilia Roth as her mother both do their best, but there’s not enough substance to the story or Meta’s premise, and the scare tactics are predictable. (2 Stars)

Wander Darkly

We are mystified at the praise that this film has received since premiering at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, as we found it to be a confusing, pretentious mess. Sienna Miller and Diego Luna star as a young couple, with a house, a baby, not a lot of money, a growing distrust of each other, and all the pressure that brings to bear. Then their lives are changed in a horrific car accident from which Miller wakes up and begins a surreal journey through the couple’s past, with Luna as her guide.

Is Miller dead? Is she dreaming? The movie keeps the truth hidden but director/writer Tara Miele’s experimental non-linear narrative doesn’t pay off. The hopping through time and space is incoherent, even within its own rules (which are not clear either), and as a result the movie doesn’t build to anything emotionally true. The horror movie subplot and big “twist” at the end are also weak. Miller and Luna are both spellbinding, and have real chemistry, but they can’t save the film. (2 Stars)

The Boy Behind the Door

Two 12-year-old boys (Lonnie Chavis and Ezra Dewey) are kidnapped by a pair of what appear to be human sex traffickers in the tense opening moments of first-time directors David Charbonier and Justin Powell’s dark, dark thriller. Kevin (Dewey) is chained up inside the pair’s sinister house, which sits adjacent to an oil field; Bobby (Chavis) manages to escape from the trunk of their car, but valiantly enters the house to save his friend, knowing that at least one of their kidnappers is still inside.

After that gripping start, The Boy Behind the Door plunges further into inanity. The two boys are marvelous, but their characters are barely developed and the villains even less so. Stupid actions and implausible plot developments drain any believability out of what could have been a riveting tale, turning it into a subpar slasher movie that doesn’t even seem to know when it’s set: the boys don’t have mobile devices, yet Bobby treats an old rotary phone that he discovers like a find from an archaeological dig. Good cinematography and atmosphere can’t save this one from slamming shut on itself. (2 Stars)

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The post AFI Fest 2020 Features Some of the Year’s Best Films appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3e3amuP

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

0 notes

poorquentyn · 7 years

Note

What do you mean by saying that Gylbert is Good Euron?

This is something mah bestie @goodqueenaly and I have talked about a couple times. Gylbert and Euron bookend the kingsmoot, and while the candidates in between them (Erik Ironmaker, Dunstan Drumm, Vic, and Asha) are very much focused on the concrete matters of personal and collective history, Gylbert and Euron both instead promise to elevate the Ironborn above this “dry and dismal vale.” They basically have the same pitch: in my travels, I have stumbled across something that can allow us to escape the corner into which we have backed ourselves. In both cases, that “something” is rooted in their heavily psychedelic experiences in a far-off land–Gylbert in the west, Euron in the east. They both present themselves as singular radical prophets rather than administrators, more or less urging the Ironborn to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” GRRM emphasizes this parallel by having Damphair focus on their eyes as representative of their platforms:

His eyes, Aeron saw, were now grey, now blue, as changeable as the seas. Mad eyes, he thought, fool’s eyes.

The Crow’s Eye stopped atop the steps, at the doors of the Grey King’s Hall, and turned his smiling eye upon the captains and the kings, but Aeron could feel his other eye as well, the one that he kept hidden.

And they’re both probable skinchangers. Of course, while the foundations of their respective characterizations are very similar, the tones are oppositional, all the better to mutually illuminate. Gylbert has seen the light, and wishes to share it:

He told of a wondrous land beyond the Sunset Sea, a land without winter or want, where death had no dominion. “Make me your king, and I shall lead you there,” he cried. “We will build ten thousand ships as Nymeria once did and take sail with all our people to the land beyond the sunset. There every man shall be a king and every wife a queen.”

Euron has seen the darkness, and wishes to spread it:

“Crow’s Eye, you call me. Well, who has a keener eye than the crow? After every battle the crows come in their hundreds and their thousands to feast upon the fallen. A crow can espy death from afar. And I say that all of Westeros is dying. Those who follow me will feast until the end of their days.”

Gylbert is the wistful dream, Euron is the crushing nightmare. Indeed, while Gylbert promises to liberate the Ironborn from winter and death, I think Euron’s ultimate role in the story is acting as those forces’ agent and herald by blowing the Horn of Joramun, bringing down the Wall, and letting the Others in.

What makes Euron a successful politician and Gylbert not is that the former clothes his horrorshow vision in the tropes of the Old Way, which dovetails with how his identity-performance as the ultimate pirate (complete with eyepatch) covers up his true eldritch soul–hence that line above about presenting the “smiling eye” to the kingsmoot while keeping the Crow’s Eye hidden.

To bring it back to the post that prompted your ask: Gylbert is Angel Bowie, a Major Tom/Ziggy Stardust figure…

…and Euron is Devil Bowie, a drug-addled occult-obsessed Thin White Duke out to drag all of reality into his bad trip.

Gylbert is strummin’ his guitar and singin’ about how he’d like to come and meet us but he thinks he’d blow our minds, whereas Euron is crooning into the microphone with an evil grin that the European Valyrian canon is here. What Euron’s followers don’t understand is that unlike Gylbert, he doesn’t actually intend on sharing the feast with them. What you get is no tomorrow.

#euron greyjoy #is a monster wearing a pirate suit #gylbert farwynd #david bowie #asoiaf meta

49 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 4 years

Text

A24 Horror Movies Ranked From Worst to Best

https://ift.tt/3dkDWeU

It is arguable that no studio, distributor, or production company has had a greater impact on the horror genre in the last decade than A24. While Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions might also lay claim to that legacy, the remarkable thing about A24 is the company lacks a particular house style or formula for its filmmaker-driven indie releases. And yet the words “A24 horror movie” call to mind words like weird, offbeat, and unsettling. They’re frequently slow-boiling, and almost always greeted with reviews celebrating high-quality.

Every A24 horror movie is distinct, but they nevertheless claim a mystique which in less than 10 years has helped some critics make the dubious claim that the 2010s were “the decade of elevated horror.” We personally don’t subscribe to the theory that horror is a caste system of “elevated” vintages vs. cheaper swill. However, we are ecstatic A24 and other companies have provided unique voices the ability to reveal profoundly artful interpretations of cinematic dread. For that reason, we’re celebrating the indie tastemakers by ranking their very best (and sometimes not-so-great) thrillers and chillers.

So sit back and join us for a list voted on by our critics and horror aficionados.

18. Tusk (2014)

We begin our countdown with the rare A24 horror movie that comes not from a new perspective, but an old, one-time favorite. A defining voice in comedy and indie filmmaking during the ‘90s, Kevin Smith drifted away from studios by the beginning of the 2010s in favor of trying his hand at horror. I wish I could say the results were better than Tusk, yet this dispiriting attempt at body horror might be the high-point of his latter day monster movies.

Movies

Why Kevin Smith’s Superman Lives Was Ahead of Its Time

By Mike Cecchini

Originally constructed as a joke on Smith’s Smodcast podcast, the finished film is every bit as listless and rambling as a weed-fueled diatribe. Not that the movie is lacking in talent. Justin Long makes an appropriately smarmy podcaster named Wallace Bryton who’s travelled to Canada to find oddballs to interview and mock, but gets more than he bargained for when he winds up in the home of Howard Howe (Michael Parks). Ever the scenery-chewer, Parks gives more gravitas to the material than it deserves as a shut-in obsessed with recreating from a human subject the walrus which saved his life one snowy night following a shipwreck. The subsequent makeup effects are grotesque, but the movie stumbles over their reveals like a standup comedian who’s forgotten the punchlines.

It’s a bizarre and repellent narrative, and can’t even be saved by Johnny Depp’s admittedly amusing French-Canadian accent and Peter Sellers-eque transformation as a late arriving police detective. – David Crow

17. Slice (2018)

Austin Vesely’s Slice plays like the pilot of a potential television series. This isn’t because when it’s over you wish there was more, but that the film is so muddled in its narrative threads that you’re sure it was cancelled before more talent could be wasted. It’s a shame because conceptually there is a lot of appeal in Slice’s setup. As a horror-comedy about a small town where ghosts walk among the living as second class citizens, witches are pushy real estate developers, and the local werewolf is a misjudged Chinese food-delivering vegan played by Chance the Rapper, on paper this reads as hilarious.

Movies

Best Horror Movies to Watch on Shudder Right Now

By Rosie Fletcher and 1 other

Buffy: The Animated Series – The Buffy the Vampire Slayer Spin-Off That Never Was

By Caroline Preece

Unfortunately, the actual film is paper thin. Loosely following a series of murders inflicted on a crappy pizza joint’s deliverymen, the film never unties its tangled and knotted threads about ghosts and humans living side by side, or witches manipulating local city politics in a bid for demonic gentrification. And more damning than its Gateway to Hell is that none of this is very funny. At only 83 minutes, Slice feels like an eternity of waiting for a pizza that never arrives. – DC

16. In Fabric (2018)

When it comes to horror movies, A24 has certainly done its best to (mostly) steer away from the traditional tropes of vampires, zombies, werewolves, and masked killers. As a result, the company has attracted talent like British filmmaker Peter Strickland, who followed up the atmospheric Berberian Sound Studio (2012) and the erotic The Duke of Burgundy (2014) with this bizarre tale of a haunted dress.

The clothing item in question is a red number that passes from one owner to another, leaving a trail of death and destruction in its wake. Fortunately, Strickland plays a lot of this for laughs, smartly realizing that a sentient dress might test the patience of even the most diehard horror fan. The film is a slow burn, but Strickland finds just the right balance of weird humor and surreal horror to wring both laughs and genuinely eerie moments out of his odd premise. – Don Kaye

15. The Monster (2016)

Bryan Bertino’s The Monster is a strange one to include on this list, if only because at its heart this is an archetypal creature feature with little more to say than “boo.” Compared to other horror movies released by A24 this can seem slight, but when The Monster works, its boo is occasionally bloodcurdling.

Movies

Katharine Isabelle on How Ginger Snaps Explored the Horror of Womanhood

By Rosie Fletcher

BBC/Netflix Dracula’s Behind-the-Scenes Set Secrets

By Louisa Mellor

Centered on a mother and daughter trapped at night on a country road with an obscured beastie in the woods trying to get into their broken down car, The Monster could’ve been produced as B-schlock in the ‘80s. Why it’s better is twofold: First the film leans into its atmospheric use of shadows and silhouettes by cinematographer Julie Kirkwood—who takes Steven Spielberg’s “less is more” approach in framing the monster—and second, there is the headlong dive into the unpleasant by Zoe Kazan. Playing a young mother who has little interest in her daughter or her well-being, Kazan’s Cathy reveals in one flashback at a time a cruel apathy far more beleaguering than the attacks of the titular monster in the present.

Alas the third act turns into pure pulp when the creature comes out of the shadows, and the cast and body count are needlessly increased. Still, the effect of some of the attack scenes, and Kazan’s nuanced exploration of a mother who fails to impress even herself, makes The Monster worthwhile. – DC

14. The Hole in the Ground (2019)

Being a single parent is hard. Being a single parent is harder when your child suddenly turns into a monster and you have to deal with the consequences. Such is the plot of The Hole in the Ground, A24’s solid but vaguely underwhelming chiller.

Lee Cronin’s debut may hit all the right parental panic beats, summon up a couple of worthy performances, and stick the mysterious, open-ended landing, but it still suffers compared to other A24 efforts because genre fans have seen it all before. As the film slaps a slick coat of paint over its influences, from Don’t Look Now to The Babadook and beyond, it elevates its fairly standard ‘changeling child’ theme, but in doing so it also gives us way too much room to breathe when we should be suffocating under the weight of tension between Seána Kerslake’s spiralling mother and her demonic son.

The result? A middling horror that you’re more likely to describe as “quite good” rather than “great.” – Kirsten Howard

13. Life After Beth (2014)

When a relationship is over, it’s over and it’s never the same if you go back: This is the central theme of Life After Beth, a zombie comedy about moving on. Dane DeHaan stars as Zach, a boy devastated after the death of his girlfriend Beth (Aubrey Plaza). But when she unexpectedly returns from the dead things just don’t quite click. Is it because the relationship has run its course? Or is it that she’s gradually turning into a flesh hungry undead monster? Either way things can’t carry on…

Movies

Zombie Comedies Ranked

By David Crow

The Walking Dead vs. Real-Life Survivalists: How to Prep for The Zombie Apocalypse

By Ron Hogan

A light comedy with a strong supporting cast (Molly Shannon, John C Reilly, Anna Kendrick, Paul Reiser) Life After Beth made its debut at Sundance in 2014. Though zombie rom-coms are somewhat a dime a dozen these days, this one stands out for its performances and certain set pieces like zombie Beth hiking with an oven strapped to her back. – Rosie Fletcher

12. The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015)

As what I would argue is the most underrated horror gem in A24’s catalog, The Blackcoat’s Daughter is a wicked subversion of horror tropes that benefits from the less you know about its story. Suffice to say the film is a slow-burning march toward perdition told in triptych. With three protagonists, first-time writer-director Oz Perkins seamlessly drifts between the perspectives of Kat (Kiernan Shipka), Rose (Lucy Boynton), and Joan (Emma Roberts).

Movies

Gretel & Hansel and Returning to Dark Fairy Tale Roots

By Don Kaye

Movies

Best Modern Horror Movies

By Don Kaye

It is easy to see how the first two intersect, with Kat and Rose being the only two girls at their Catholic boarding school whose parents haven’t come to pick them up for winter break. How their long weekend connects with Joan’s separate hitchhiking through a snowy stretch of America is not immediately clear, but the bubbling sense of despair in all three narratives is omnipresent, even before Rose gives it shape by mentioning the urban legend of nuns worshiping the Dark One in the boiler room below.

The Blackcoat’s Daughter trades in horror archetypes, but then digs deeper by revealing untapped, feminine complexities to previously well-worn narratives where young women are merely vessels or victims. Unspooling like a waking nightmare, Perkins’ dreamlike atmosphere is only for the patient, but the climax is so shocking and brazenly subversive that it demands to be reexamined as the full extent of its desolation becomes clear. – DC

11. Climax (2018)

One could argue that every one of the five feature films directed by Argentine filmmaker Gaspar Noe, including such controversy-courting titles as I Stand Alone, Irreversible, and Enter the Void, has been a horror film in some way. Noe’s movies are often filled with nihilism, despair, and existential dread, with even the act of sex portrayed as an often violent invasion instead of an expression of love.

Having said that, Climax is clearly Noe’s most formal attempt at the genre yet, as a troupe of dancers isolated at an abandoned school begin to suffer from the effects of punch spiked with LSD during an after-rehearsal party. Predictably, the wheels quickly come off as the assembled dancers rape, beat, torture, and kill each other throughout the horrifying, increasingly frenzied night. – DK

10. Saint Maud (2020)

The directorial debut of Rose Glass sees a pious young nurse (Morfydd Clarke) who believes God talks to her directly, on a mission to save the soul of her dying patient (Jennifer Elhe). Saint Maud is a mix of psychological, religious, and body horror against the setting of a run down seaside town which plays like hallucinogenic social realism.

Clarke as Maud is terrific–slight of frame with a troubled mind, she is still a fierce warrior doing what she believes is God’s work from the humble hovel of her home. While Maud punishes her body in service of her spirit, her patient, Amanda, celebrates hers while it lets her down. As a former dancer, she will drink, smoke, and love in her final days.

Movies

The Scariest Films Ever Made and How They Frighten Us

By Matt Glasby

Movies

Saint Maud Review: Elevated Horror That’s a Revelation

By Rosie Fletcher

Glass’ debut is beautiful and powerful with a score, visuals, and setting that all contribute to a sense of disquiet that grows to a euphoric/horrific conclusion. An unforgettable film that singles Glass out as absolutely one to watch. – RF

9. It Comes at Night (2017)

The exact nature, origin, and spread of the grisly infectious disease that shreds society to pieces in It Comes at Night is never deeply examined; the movie is not interested in exploring the end of the world on some epic scale. Instead the effect it has is on a very small, very frightened group of people–two families that include Joel Edgerton, Christopher Abbott, Riley Keough, and Carmen Ejogo among their dwindling ranks–who are trying their best to stay alive and sane.

In that sense, the title of the movie (and, to a degree, the way it was marketed) is somewhat misleading. What comes at night is not some rampaging horde of flesh-eating walking corpses but rather the cold, insidious effect of fear, grief, and distrust. These two invisible threats eat away at what’s left of our civilized selves.

Director Trey Edward Shults (Waves) spares nothing and no one in this grim fable; by the time it reaches its inconsolably bleak conclusion, the cumulative effect of this quiet, bare bones film is devastating. – DK

8. Enemy (2013)

Before he tackled science fiction epics like Blade Runner 2049 and the upcoming Dune, French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve made smaller, independent dramas and psychological thrillers. One of those was Enemy, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal in a double role as two men who are exactly the same physically but quite different in temperament and personality.

Based loosely on the novel The Double by Jose Saramago (who wrote the horrifying novel Blindness), Enemy is less a horror film and more an exercise in neo-noirish surrealism. It’s anchored by Villeneuve’s chilly direction and two excellent performances from Gyllenhaal, who deftly explores the definition of manhood, the male-female dynamic (as he navigates the wife of one man and the girlfriend of the other), and the nature of identity.

Enemy doesn’t offer easy answers and its shocking ending is very much open to wide interpretation. It’s a challenging early work from a director who’s now moved on to become one of cinema’s most ambitious science fiction auteurs. – DK

7. Under the Skin (2013)

Jonathan Glazer’s loose adaptation of Michel Faber’s novel is a strange beast to be sure. Developed over more than a decade, using several first time performers with scenes shot with hidden cameras, it stars Scarlett Johansson as a predatory alien scouring the Scottish countryside, picking up men that she then lures into a strange black liquid which consumes them.

It’s a convincing look at humanity through the eyes of an extraterrestrial, in all its oddness–from the kindness of girls in nightclubs, the utterly futile act of a man trying to save his drowning wife, and in doing so ending both their lives, to the idiosyncrasies of beans on toast and Tommy Cooper. Johansson is a revelation, going unrecognized in her interactions with real people, bringing an authenticity and later an aching sympathy to her performance.

If the ending is bleak, and there are moments of true horror, there’s levity here too, as well as something quite profound to be said about human nature. – RF

6. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos–already a purveyor of the weird, surreal and darkly satiric before this or The Favourite, as seen with 2016’s The Lobster–went into full horror mode for this relentlessly unsettling tale of supernatural revenge in which a surgeon (Colin Farrell), his wife (Nicole Kidman), and their kids are made to pay for the death of a man who Farrell lost during surgery.

The impetus of all this is the man’s son, Martin, played by Barry Keoghan in one of the most disturbing performances of recent years. Farrell and Kidman are equally unnerving as their purposely stilted work in the early part of the film gives way to show the cracks in their seemingly perfect family façade.

Games

How Scorn Turned the Art of H.R. Giger into a Nightmarish Horror Game World

By John Saavedra

Movies

The WNUF Halloween Special: The Making of the Most Fun Found Footage Horror Movie Ever

By Gavin Jasper

The Killing of a Sacred Deer is horror at its purest: an unexplainable examination of what happens when the irrational intrudes on the rational. It leaves you rattled without a single jump scare or visual effect. – DK

5. Green Room (2015)

Writer/director Jeremy Saulnier followed up his excellent breakout feature, 2013’s Blue Ruin, with this taut, suspenseful and dread-inducing thriller set in the grimy, sweaty environs of an out-of-the-way punk rock club. There, a hardcore group on a micro-budget tour of the Pacific Northwest manage to grab a make-up gig after their original show is canceled, but find to their horror that the bar is a white supremacist hangout… and they’ve just witnessed a murder to boot.

It’s not surprising that Saulnier rings maximum tension out of the situation since Blue Ruin was such an accomplished piece of work. What is surprising is seeing Captain Picard himself, Patrick Stewart, playing the local neo-Nazi leader with such believable, low-key malevolence. The rest of the cast, including the sadly missed Anton Yelchin and the always reliable Imogen Poots, is equally effective in making this an exceptionally smart, intense roller coaster ride. – DK

4. Midsommar (2019)

Emerging director Ari Aster made two very different horror movies for A24 virtually back-to-back with Hereditary and Midsommar, and was vocal about the mental and emotional breakdown that ensued thanks to this near-impossible endeavor. Accordingly, Midsommar evolved into what could be considered a “difficult second album,” one which managed to exorcise some of his personal demons for both the entertainment and discomfort of an intrigued audience.

Movies

Midsommar: Florence Pugh Considers Ending Theories, May Queen Fandom

By David Crow

This ambitious, unsettling masterpiece about one young woman’s struggle to process trauma while she is simultaneously expected to perform the emotional labor of holding together a substandard relationship became a visual flipside to Hereditary’s darkness, creating a bright, horrifying world full of flowers, lush green pastures, and organic pagan rituals that all combine delicately to present us with a piping hot mug of “good for her” energy.

Though the argument over whether Hereditary or Midsommar is the superior film will probably never end, this often-hallucinogenic folk tale isn’t just one of A24’s best horror projects, but one of the greatest horror movies of all time, period. – KH

3. The Lighthouse (2019)

“How long have we been on this rock?” It’s a simple question posed by one lighthouse keeper (or “wicke”) to another in Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse. But as anyone who’s viewed the movie can attest, its answer is nigh unknowable. Eggers’ follow-up to The Witch is as phallic as that first movie was feminine, as evidenced by the titular structure that old seaman Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) constantly demands his new second Ephraim (Robert Pattinson) keep scrubbed clean.

Filmed in black and white, and in a 1.19:1 aspect ratio—similar to what Fritz Lang used to shoot Expressionist serial killer movie M (1931)—The Lighthouse is steeped in the old ways of doing things, both as a piece of cinema and as a sea shanty of a tale. As writers, Robert and his brother Max Eggers revel in the nautical jargon of their characters, particularly Dafoe’s Wake, who is like a corncob pipe given legs. Yet Dafoe and Pattinson never descend into caricature; they instead feast on their Sisyphean characters.

Movies

The Lighthouse: the myths and archetypes behind the movie explained

By Rosie Fletcher

Movies

The Lighthouse: Willem Dafoe Reveals the Secret of a Two-Hander Film

By David Crow

More esoteric and ambiguous than The Witch, some might defy categorizing The Lighthouse as a full-throated horror. But the picture’s haunting ghost story setup and heightened use of both claustrophobic interiors and barren exteriors beg to differ, as do the film’s final Lovecraftian overtures toward madness. A masterful exercise in the macabre and hellish, The Lighthouse confirms Eggers as one of the most interesting voices to emerge from his generation. – DC

2. The Witch (2015)

To fully appreciate The Witch, it must be made clear that there’s a literal witch in the woods. Writer-director Robert Eggers emphasizes this early on, allowing the audience to glimpse her scraggly and unholy shape as the crone sacrifices a newborn to Satan. This not only signals the movie is playing for keeps, it also removes any sort of psychological ambiguity about what’s going on.

Movies

The Witch Has One of Horror’s Greatest Endings

By David Crow

Intensely committed to immersing audiences in the daily lives and nocturnal dreads of 17th century Puritans, The Witch is steeped in a deep-seated anxiety for supernatural entities that could poison your crops, or live in every bump heard in the black of night. With a meticulous eye for historical detail, Eggers creates the best cinematic approximation of Calvinists ever put to screen, and in so doing, allows viewers to both live with superstitions of the Dark One taking the shape of animals, and to judge those obsessed with him.

For The Witch is also an unnerving character study about a family disintegrating before our eyes, and allowing their biases and patriarchal repressions to lead them toward the damnation. With a captivating ensemble of actors, including a star-making turn by Anya Taylor-Joy as Thomasin, the Puritan who is desperate to remain pure, the film basks in its dexterity with early modern English. All of which heightens the tension until a transcendent third act, which can rightly be read as an embrace of despair or liberated ecstasy, depending on who you ask. More than just a great horror movie, The Witch is flatly one of the best American movies produced in this century. – DC

1. Hereditary (2018)

Ari Aster’s directorial debut has become something of a benchmark for horror of a particular kind, whether you want to label it “elevated,” “artsy,” or anything else. Whatever you want to call it, Hereditary is an exceptional debut and a crushingly oppressive work about a cursed family laden with grief.

Movies

Hereditary Ending Explained

By David Crow

Movies

Hereditary: The Real Story of King Paimon

By Tony Sokol

A shock scare about 20 minutes in will leave you reeling and everything just gets worse from there, leading to a finale that is so insane and horrific that it almost comes as a relief after the excruciating misery and unease of the rest of the movie.

Toni Collette won multiple awards (though notably she wasn’t Oscar nominated) for her extraordinary performance as Annie, the doomed daughter of the dead matriach whose demise sets in a motion a series of events that are disastrous for her disaffected son (Alex Wolff), stoic husband (Gabriel Byrne), and strange daughter (Milly Shapiro). A story about family, tragedy, and inexorable catastrophe Hereditary is one of the best horror movies of the century so far. – RF

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The post A24 Horror Movies Ranked From Worst to Best appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3lyfA3V

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

1 note · View note