Andrew Pope
@andrewpope.bsky.social
4.4K followers 2.5K following 2.9K posts
I just like movies. Especially horror movies. - whitlockandpope.com - boxd.it/eSY9 Member: Horror Critics Group | Film Critics Association
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andrewpope.bsky.social
Two decades apart, kids click the wrong link and summon something unexpected. In 2004 it’s a slapstick ghost and plenty of hijinks; in 2021 it’s a predatory male and gender dysphoria. I explore the unexpected links between two films.
I Downloaded a Gender
Exploring the uncanny rhymes between I Downloaded a Ghost (2004) and Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021), where digital hauntings mirror adolescent identity.
whitlockandpope.com
andrewpope.bsky.social
*And, post-70s, Raging Bull at #25. The closest thing to a New Hollywood canon-disrupter in 1992!
andrewpope.bsky.social
For example, here’s the Sight and Sound Greatest of All Time critics list from 1992. Only three 1970s Hollywood films in the top 100: Nashville (at 54), The Godfather Part II (at 58), & Apocalypse Now (at 66). That’s it.
boxd.it/fawKm
Sight & Sound 1992 Critics List
Sight & Sound Lists Through Time: 1952 Critics | 1962 Critics | 1972 Critics | 1982 Critics | 1992 Critics | 1992 Directors | 2002 Critics | 2002 Directors | 2012 Critics | 2012 Directors | 2022 Criti...
boxd.it
andrewpope.bsky.social
As i said, “even after new Hollywood” eg those 70s directors didn’t truly disrupt the upper echelons of the canon until the 90s. People did not rate Scorsese as up there with the greatest of the greats until then. They were even sniffy about Goodfellas - good filmmaking but not a great film.
andrewpope.bsky.social
Tokyo Story has long been considered one of the greatest of all time… but even though he’s long been considered one of the best, his star has risen. I think that’s to do with the availability of his wider body of work.
andrewpope.bsky.social
I’m an unc. The answer is that even after New Hollywood the big three were still seen as Kurosawa Bergman and Fellini. The there was a two-stage canonical revolution: one caused by the brats of the early 90s, mainly Tarantino telling people about eg Ringo Lam. Then the social media/streaming/LB one.
coreyatad.com
throwing this prompt from Twitter in here. what examples you got?
tweet by @Caol_MacCormaic that reads, uncs of film twitter: what are some movies that are canonical now but were basically unknown when we were coming up? like Come and See or Possession. inversely: what are some movies or filmmakers that seem to have fallen off? (Takashi Miike comes to mind)
andrewpope.bsky.social
I seem to remember the big three that permeated mainstream consciousness in (eg) the 1980s or early 1990s as being Kurosawa, Bergman & maybe Fellini. If you had a cinephile character in a comedy sketch he’d be gabbing on about one of them. I think Bergman & Fellini dropped off a bit in that regard.
andrewpope.bsky.social
Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons rejoin forces in BUGONIA, playing tonight in London at the LFF. This darkly goofy, paranoid, sci-fi mystery comedy is a rare example of a western remake that surpasses a Korean original (Save The Green Planet). Recommended!

My ★★★★ review from Venice:
Bugonia – Venice review
Yorgos Lanthimos remakes 2003’s Korean genre gem Save the Green Planet! for an age of managed decline, and produces a darkly comedic fable about the end of the world… or is it? ★★★★ Two young men (…
whitlockandpope.com
andrewpope.bsky.social
Sorry, sorry, I’m trying to delete it.
andrewpope.bsky.social
Mind The Gaaaaaaap 🧟‍♂️
miskatonicihs.bsky.social
Pleased to announce that next Tuesday's London Miskatonic has Sold Out!!
Still tickets for our Online session on Hypnosis in Horror Cinema - billetto.co.uk/e/sunken-pla...
andrewpope.bsky.social
💀 The living heart of cult horror beats on, in London!

The @sohohorrorfest.bsky.social 2025 lineup is a delirious mix of drag, gore, ghosts & pure underground gold - from Queens of the Dead to Dracula: A Love Tale. Runs 21-23 Nov in Brixton & 27-30 online. #SuccumbToSohoHorror

🕯️Our full preview:
Soho Horror Film Festival 2025: The Living Heart of Cult Horror Beats On
Soho Horror Film Festival roars back this November with its fiercest lineup yet — a defiantly independent celebration of cult, camp, and cutting-edge horror across two weekends in Brixton and onlin…
whitlockandpope.com
andrewpope.bsky.social
The LFF Surprise movie was Tuner.

Very Sundance. Even though it premiered at Telluride… very Sundance.

★★★
Tuner – LFF review
Turner may have premiered at Telluride, but it feels like pure Sundance (derogatory).
whitlockandpope.com
andrewpope.bsky.social
Very tempted by this mug, because listen, sometimes a movie WILL just have you asking: For Whomst?! FOR WHOMST.
andrewpope.bsky.social
Julia Ducournau’s ALPHA is feverish, flawed, and unforgettable. Bodies turn to stone, families splinter, and shame spreads like contagion. Even with an unruly script, Ducournau still hits hard. 💉💔
★★★★
#LFF #Alpha #JuliaDucournau
Alpha – LFF review
Julia Ducournau’s Alpha finds beauty in contagion and chaos. Set in Le Havre during a mysterious viral outbreak in 1990, it’s a feverish, uneven but deeply felt study of disease, guilt, and loss &#…
whitlockandpope.com
andrewpope.bsky.social
Fire and Brimstone Brolin!
andrewpope.bsky.social
Rian Johnson goes gothic with WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY. Faith, guilt & an Easter murder at a NY church. Josh O’Connor brings great energy, Daniel Craig is more subdued than before, & the tone is confessional and reflective. Good stuff!
Opens #LFF tonight; cinemas 26 Nov; Netflix 12 Dec
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery – LFF review
Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery trades the bright satire of Glass Onion for something darker and more introspective. Set in a small religious community, it follows Josh O’Conn…
whitlockandpope.com
andrewpope.bsky.social
Why did this convoluted, painfully arch wordplay on a niche subject get such little traction? 🧐 Who’s to say.
andrewpope.bsky.social
I’m giving >50% odds of the bubble bursting in 2026; the only question is hire much of the economy will it pull down with it in the short term?
Reposted by Andrew Pope
andrewpope.bsky.social
GDT’s disappointing FRANKENSTEIN played @ BeyondFest; A sumptuous production that can’t allow its Creature to be anything less than a perfect little angel, a GDT trope that’s ossified within his work to the point it limits his vision & hobbles his movies. Not every monster needs to be unimpeachable!
Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein – Venice Review
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is a sumptuous gothic spectacle, thick with atmosphere and design, yet weakened by unsubtle storytelling, heavy-handed voiceover, and pacing that tests patience. ★…
whitlockandpope.com
andrewpope.bsky.social
The reason he’s taken his shoes off there is because he walked 500 miles, and then walked 500 more.
andrewpope.bsky.social
We touched on this in my @miskatonicihs.bsky.social talk on Shoegaze Horror! A hauntological flypaper trap. An endlessly looping present built from a vortex of regurgitated pasts, with no future to escape to, where every doorway leads back to where you already are. Kojima’s PT on a cultural level.
bildoperationen.bsky.social
So-called #genAI means the abolition of the future through the proliferation of endless streams of stochastically rendered generic pasts. Having turned large parts of the cultural archive into training data, it now traps us in a foreverized pastness, a 24/7 nostalgia for a past that never existed
quoproquid.bsky.social
have just come across a YouTube account that has been using Sora to upload reels of fake, AI-generated “90s sitcoms” every few hours
andrewpope.bsky.social
GDT is doing one of the most disappointing things a horror creative can do: he’s getting crushingly predictable. His work has become schematic and rote. Still: beautiful gowns.
andrewpope.bsky.social
GDT reading Frankenstein & shrieking NO NO & ripping out pages any time the Creature gets any innocent blood on his hands whatsoever. Not my perfect boy! Is the human the real monster in this one? Was that implicit in the text? Better make it explicit. Better have people repeatedly say it out loud.
andrewpope.bsky.social
GDT’s disappointing FRANKENSTEIN played @ BeyondFest; A sumptuous production that can’t allow its Creature to be anything less than a perfect little angel, a GDT trope that’s ossified within his work to the point it limits his vision & hobbles his movies. Not every monster needs to be unimpeachable!
Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein – Venice Review
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is a sumptuous gothic spectacle, thick with atmosphere and design, yet weakened by unsubtle storytelling, heavy-handed voiceover, and pacing that tests patience. ★…
whitlockandpope.com