Are we, as a society, okay?
One Halloween movie, one plea.
An Arkansas drunk (Andy Griffith) with mean guitar skills and every-man candor is plucked from a jail by a radio producer (Patricia Neal) and propelled to stardom—and eventually the White House. His rise in fame and right-wing-leaning politics occurs precisely with a descent into megalomania, all made possible, and overwhelmingly visible, by television media.
Elia Kazan’s 1957 film A Face in the Crowd is not a horror movie—it’s a satirical work that ends up leaning more towards melodrama. But, it functions as one of those prescient truer-than-true-life movies, serving a warning about the powers of entertainment as well as a surreal, chilling reminder of how we arrived at our current moment. (Most recently it’s been adapted into a musical featuring songs by Elvis Costello, where its creators deny a connection to Trump.)
Let’s not have history repeat itself. Go out and vote.
Relatedly…
SOFT & QUIET (Beth de Araújo, 2022)
IDIOCRACY (Mike Judge, 2006)
WILD IN THE STREETS (Barry Shear, 1968)
TRASH HUMPERS (Harmony Korine, 2009)
THE FOREVER PURGE (Everardo Valerio Gout, 2021)
And, perhaps John Carpenter’s THEY LIVE (1988), which I’ll be watching tonight before it expires.
For some actual Halloween fun, I will point out you to ⊹ ࣪ ˖ The Cakewalk 🍰₊˚⊹. I wrote about a few of the most potentially horrifying and iconic foods in the movies for
‘s most jubilant candy-colored newsletter. It’s maybe not what you’d expect!
