The Mist Review

Malmar McKnight’s frightening story, “The Storm”, weaves a violent storm and murder together to heighten the horrific fears that engulf Janet Willsom. “The Storm” is a combination of Mother Nature, Janet’s emotions, and her heartbreaking dilemmas. The eerie mood is revealed throughout the story. Figurative language helps the reader bring the story to life in his/ her mind. The author’s use of irony is devolved through Janet’s changed perception of the storm.

In the film an atmosphere of suspense is created using various film techniques such as lighting, music and through the plot itself. The film also takes on a Gothic tone using different characteristics and techniques such as the settings, symbolism, emotions such as fear and the different atmospheres in the film. The director explores the theme of good vs evil through different elements and characters in the film generally following normal good vs evil stereotypes with some exceptions.

Contrastingly, the modern, technologically driven world of Blade Runner conveys man’s usurption of nature caused through his arrogance and desire for dominance. In this contrastingly industrialized, scientifically grounded world, nature has been relentlessly exploited and commodified, as man has attempted to ‘penetrate into the recesses’. The allusion to the Promethean myth through the symbolic use of fire is seen in the opening scenes of shooting fire, intercut with close up shots of an eye, symbolically representing fire as having the potential to both nurture and destroy life. The ignorance and metaphorical blindness of man, is highlighted through the self-imposed destruction of humanity, as nature is obliterated in favour of ‘commerce (being our) goal”, symbolically representing the destruction of our natural

Every text is a product of its time. In Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, she uses the gothic horror genre to explore some of the concerns of her time relating to the use of science and technology and its impact on humanity. Similar concerns are also present in Ridley Scott’s “Bladerunner”, a futuristic text which combines science fiction and film noir to present a bleak view of a future world overrun by technology and consumerism, but devoid of human emotion. Both these texts offer insights into the human experience namely between man and science and man and nature.

For years authors have used style to provide readers with dystopian literature in order to bestow them with a radical view of a potential future based on fatalistic qualities of their present societies. Authors have played upon our fears for decades. For example, Ray Bradbury with his frightening opinion of the future Fahrenheit 451 and George Orwell pulling his audience into an alternate universe in which he thought to be the world’s ominous future. Movies bring the viewers into new territories using cinematography and costumes to introduce people to a frightening possible future. Films allow the dystopian areas to be built. For instance, The Giver creates an entire “community”

Humans are constantly reminded that the world is changing in many ways. But always seem to forget that situations can occur where life as we know it can change in an instant. Many popular science fiction movies and books tap into our deepest fears. For example, the movie Frankenstein (1931) where a fatal accident causes the creation of a monster who is capable of destroying a whole town and the Bradbury story, “Usher II” where a man goes against society on the topic of banning books and censorship. The two stories show the common fear of losing the world as we know it.

David Garland’s Annihilation (2018) displays various forms of abjection through the film’s representation of biological mutations that take over the physical and psychological components of the human body. The film’s representation of a pathogenic alien species and its ability to mutate cells is not unlike John Carpenter’s The Thing, as both films form allegories for the spread of a disease throughout society. In Annihilation this disease takes the form of a malignant, dome-shaped region called the “Shimmer,” which acts like a cancerous tumor on Earth, threatening to mutate the biological structures and components that form humanity. In my essay, I will utilize Julia Kristeva’s excerpt, “Approaching Abjection,” and Edward Guerrero’s AIDS as Monster in Science Fiction and Horror Cinema, as the frameworks in which to explore Annihilation and discuss how the film represents the relevant and eminent threat of cancer within today’s society. In addressing the forms of abjection throughout the film, I will argue for the inability to separate the film’s allegory for cancer as an

Most human beings hope for something, whether it be a brighter future or equal rights for all. Hope is the idea that keeps people sane during the darkest moments. Through Frank Kafka’s, “Metamorphosis,” the story of a young man who is turned into a grotesque bug, David Lynch’s film , Eraserhead, and Karl Marx’s “Estranged Labor,” the theme of whether or not hope is reasonable in times of darkness is one of the most prominent amongst all of the three. In “Metamorphosis” and “Estranged Labor,” the reader is able to witness deteriorating hope in times of despair in the form of Gregor Samsa and his family in Kafka’s piece and the alienated worker in Marx’s. On the other hand, Eraserhead conveys hope throughout the duration of the film, despite

The narrative became so popular that it has reached into video games and novelized interpretations. The series does depart from the comic’s origin narrative in some forms. Introducing new characters, such as the Dixon brothers, is one example. Yet, in many ways, the series transforms the tale more through the appreciation of the apocalypse and compelling a visual story about how human face disaster. The series’ popularity raises the ethnographic question of, why people are drawn to this particular tale and fandom community.

As mentioned above, the people of the film are not known to a world without disaster. One thousand years have passed since the Seven Days of Fire, an apocalyptic war that ended human civilization and up raised the Sea of Decay, a wilderness of poisonous plants, insects, and creatures. The

Action-packed and highly-rated, Mad Max: Fury Road is a critically-acclaimed film about a journey of survival through a post-apocalyptic wasteland. There is no doubt that post-apocalyptic films are becoming increasingly popular among audiences as seen with movies such as the Hunger Games. However, Leggatt (2012) describes another variation in the post-apocalyptic genre, one that has been dubbed post-9/11 after a string of patterns prevalent in some post-apocalyptic films. Leggatt’s definition of post-9/11 apocalyptic films are ones that have a pessimistic tone towards the future of a society. As the world evolves and progresses, many new issues overlap and outgrow previous issues that have plagued the world before - though this transgression, the film industry follows suit in order to invent stories and media that is thought-provoking and relevant to changing society. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) is a film that encapsulates many elements of Leggatt’s post 9/11 apocalypse film genre through the apocalyptic setting, derailment of redemption, and societal obsession with apocalypse over utopia.

The good thing about films is that we not only have the opportunity to choose from a wide selection of different genres, but also compare them and understand their purpose in the world. The Horror genre has used the basic principles throughout time, and as a result, films of this type have not proven to be as timeless as another genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy. At first, these two genres might at times seem similar as they have at several occasions been blended together, but their basic, common theme serves different meanings about humans. I shall compare and contrast these two genres and focus on both classic films and modern films. From the Horror genre perspective I shall discuss Psycho (1960) and The Mist (2007), while in the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre I will examine 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), and Serenity (2005). Although the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre and the Horror Genre share some similarities, the differences lie in their focus on human progress.

Most of the science fiction works contain a crucial message that the writer wishes to convey to the viewers. There are two categories of film message, one is positive and the other is negative. A positive message is one that is expected to have favourable outcome to the audience, and continuously aiming to promote better societal changes. In contrast, a negative message is one that could deliver threats or unpleasant information to the audience, which could have significant impact on the normal order of the society. This essay will argue that if the message contains positive elements, then it is not a bad sign to embed science fiction works with a message. First, this essay will suggest that the well-integrated message within a particular

Following this darker look on nature, Williams begins to question the reader on whether it is too late. These repetitive questions reaffirm the previous guilt and inevitably to recover the already impacted environment. This aggressive accusation makes readers feel as if they were the cause of the doom and persuades them to find a ray of hope. In turn, these questions also allow William to directly give suggestions on how to act in the

In contemporary society, we have seen a drastic surge in popularity of dystopic and apocalyptic narratives in the last two decades. One of the more recent trends in apocalyptic film, although not a new idea at all, is zombie apocalypse narrative. With countless zombie movies and shows being released in the recent past, it is hard to believe that at one point zombie films would go straight-to-video, as they were on the fringes cinematic normality (Canavan 431). Our contemporary society is now completely obsessed with zombie and apocalyptic films in general. Although it may be hard to believe, some scholars argue that many post-modern cinematic narratives contain post-apocalyptic, apocalyptic, and dystopian scenarios that very closely mimic and reflect our actual living society (Christopher 56). There have been countless films released that involve the theme of zombie apocalypses, to name a few: Dawn of the Dead (1978), Shawn of the Dead (2004), Dead Alive (1992), The Return of the Living Dead (1985), Land of the Dead (2005), Zombieland (2009), The Dead (2009), Warm Bodies (2013) and zombie TV series like The Walking Dead (2010) and iZombie (2015). It is clear that on-screen zombies have been a source of entertainment for quite awhile, with one of the first zombie movies being accredited to the film White Zombie, which came out in 1932. This essay will focus on the contemporary TV series, The Walking Dead. The Walking Dead, and zombie narratives in general, use the