Category: February

When I was getting back into horror films, I remember looking for movies that I’d either missed or had been released during my break and I would frequently pick up films that I could find cheaply while doing minimal research. One of those films was American Mary which I found on Blu-ray for relatively cheap and, when I decided to watch it, knew little about. I was truly stunned by how much I adored the film and I immediately began looking into who was behind the movie. Given that, I thought it would be interesting to share my newfound love for the films of the Soska Sisters, who they are, which ones I’ve seen and haven’t seen and why you should check out their filmography.

The Soska Sisters consist of Jen Soska and Sylvia Soska, identical twins who were born in North Vancouver on the 29th of April, 1983. After initially attempting acting and being dissatisfied, the Soska Sisters ended up directing, writing, acting and producing their own film called “Dead Hooker in a Trunk”. Made for a paltry sum of $2500, Dead Hooker in a Trunk ended up catching the attention of Eli Roth, director of films such as Hostel and Cabin Fever, who advocated for them, gave them encouragement and advice during the production of American Mary (interestingly, he got the film dedicated to him in the credits). Since then, they’ve continued to write and direct films while also working on comics and as hosts for a horror game show called “Hellavator” and running their own shop on Etsy.

When one thinks of the medium of animation, it’s quite likely that you’ll think of American animation or perhaps anime. I certainly think it’s fair to say that the animation industries of America and Japan tend to dominate global animation but I really want to emphasise that there are loads of wonderful animated movies that are produced all around the world. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at animation that isn’t from America or Japan and why these works should be supported.

Outside of America and Japan, I’ve probably seen more French animated films than from any other country. Despite a large film industry and a long history of animation, the French animated film industry is rather underdeveloped. However, this doesn’t take away from the fact that they produce a great number of wonderful animated movies. Some of my favourites have been Ernest and Celestine, Persepolis, Long Way North and The Illusionist and I’m eagerly looking forward to watching some classics such as Fantastic Planet and The King and the Mockingbird.

If you’ve been reading my blog for even a small amount of time, you’ll know that my preferred format in general is physical. However, as part of my passion for horror, I ended up subscribing to a streaming service called “Shudder” last year and have been making use of it for horror films that I either can’t get or are too pricey in their physical release. However, an interesting discovery I made recently was that Shudder do actually release some of their exclusive content on DVD/Blu-ray. I was quite stunned and overjoyed but, upon thinking about it further, it reminded me how much content is becoming locked behind streaming. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at streaming services, their relationship to DVD/Blu-ray and how I wish that they released their content on home video.

Let’s begin by looking at the history of arguably the most notable of all streaming services, Netflix. Interestingly, Netflix actually started out as a rental service for DVDs. Subscribers originally were able to pick from a catalogue of DVDs which would be sent via a package whose return was already paid for. Once Netflix actually began to produce original content, a smattering of their initial releases eventually found their way to DVD such as House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black. However, as time has gone on, we’ve seen less and less of these series make their way over. That’s not even mentioning that hardly any of their original films have made their way over! It would be one thing if this issue merely applied to Netflix but we’ve seen other streaming services such as Disney+ and Amazon Prime take a similar approach.