iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Like to think this dude does call the police, asks for the Sheriff, and repeats verbatim, “I shot him. He’s still on the loose.”

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In retrospect, there’s something taxonomical here—both of all the ways to play “psycho” and of all the ways to do horror comedy.

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from class and gender satire; sharp, dissonant contrasts; mad farce; and, routinely, wielding shocking images and events for comic effect.

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2) The most entertaining new horror comedy I’ve seen this year, it doesn’t lean on a single comedic recipe, but draws its laughs in many distinct ways:

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On Victorian Psycho from this week's letter: *Taxonomy* Victorian Psycho stands out in two ways: (1) Maika Monroe’s wild performance—her face an endlessly refreshing projection screen for bizarre, unnerving faces. I can’t recall anyone selling “psycho” quite like this. #filmsky #horrorsky

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Mike Flanagan should make a 10-part, prestige adaptation of The Lawnmower Man (story or unrecognizably adapted cyber-horror film).

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 08/10/2026

“What we see and what we seem are but a dream, a dream within a dream.” Picnic at Hanging Rock opens with this loose Poe quotation, and lives up to its promise.

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Reposted by Matt Simon

Look at this amazing graphic. When left to their own devices, data centre developers bring gas, rather than renewables. This is the inverse of the capacity ratio for the broader US pipeline of planned projects - data centre developers **LOVE FOSSIL FUELS** more than most github.com/Better-Data-...

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there should be a Nobel Prize for movie enjoying

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Reposted by Matt Simon

On Aliens, dir. James Cameron, 1986; Victorian Psycho, dir. Zachary Wigon, 2026; and Body Snatchers, dir. Abel Ferrara, 1993.

this week: - technology in horror via Aliens - a horror comedy taxonomy in Victorian Psycho - a recommendation of Abel Ferrara's goopy, smart Body Snatchers www.deadofnightletter.com/all-the-pret... #filmsky #horrorsky

deadofnightletter.com

All The Pretty Aliens

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Travis Newton @travisnewton.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Nothing serves uncanny mood and strange forces quite like Lindsey Vickers's The Appointment.

beautiful and scary shadowed dogs outside a suburban home at night

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Reposted by Matt Simon

It's rare that a movie really gets my pulse pounding on @genrevision.com, but the scene in BODY SNATCHERS where Meg Tilly gets her unforgettable monologue is like a hypodermic needle of adrenaline right through the sternum. It got all my internal klaxons screaming, lights flashing. Incredible.

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I of course did not know yesterday when I titled this week's piece "All The Pretty Aliens" that there would be a NYT piece today highlighting sucky things about Cormac McCarthy.

On Aliens, dir. James Cameron, 1986; Victorian Psycho, dir. Zachary Wigon, 2026; and Body Snatchers, dir. Abel Ferrara, 1993.

deadofnightletter.com

All The Pretty Aliens

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concept art for Near Dark by Kathryn Bigelow (at the Academy Museum) #filmsky #horrorsky

a shadow (with cowboy hat) on a landscape

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always so scary in the Kubrick how the vast, interior spaces seem to invite the very worst from (the already malevolent) Jack

“We can imagine the director of The Terminator making a different, more squarely horror sequel to Alien, but he chose not to, and it seems to have set the course of his career.” www.deadofnightletter.com/all-the-pret...

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Matt Simon @mattsimon.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The Blood Spattered Bride is a fantasy about fantasies, a dreamy conduit of dreams …

Alexandra Bastedo in The Blood Spattered Bride

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was just writing about Body Snatchers—so good

Matt Simon @mattsimon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Drifting to sleep can mean ego diffusion, an experience channeled in Gakuryū Ishii’s Angel Dust, a mind-bender and also a movie obsessed with collective experience—with crowds and the anonymity of public spaces.

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Matt Simon @mattsimon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Enys Men conjures dreams of stone—primordial, everlasting, but also liquid, shifting in the light.

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Matt Simon @mattsimon.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Yeah for real. And it is a difficult watch (or at least it was for me).

Matt Simon @mattsimon.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Was thinking the same thing about New Wave horror (or its absence) in the context of Juliet in Paris a couple months ago. The movie it kind of reminds me of is Martin. www.deadofnightletter.com/creatures-co...

deadofnightletter.com

Creatures & Computers

Alien, dir. Ridley Scott, 1979; Her Private Hell, dir. Nicolas Winding Refn, 2026; and Juliet in Paris, dir. Claude Miller, 1967.

Matt Simon @mattsimon.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders inhabits a world more dream than reality, its facts provisional, always subject to revision.

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Matt Simon @mattsimon.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Jacob's Ladder circles death, the real and the unreal never quite sorting themselves.

A misty, nighttime New York in Jacob's Ladder.

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It’s as if he’s asking for ghosts.

Most of us experience this at the margins of our living spaces—attics, storage rooms, and crawl spaces. John has chosen a home which is almost entirely this kind of space.

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There’s something obscene about all these empty rooms, but there’s also something hair-raising. Unoccupied private space holds its own unnatural mood.

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Matt Simon @mattsimon.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

On The Changeling's giant house: It cannot be overstated how large this house is for a solo widower—as visitors tell John more than once. #filmsky #horrorsky

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I’ll begin with the perfect mindfuck—Roeg’s time blurring, labyrinthine Don’t Look Now.

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Matt Simon @mattsimon.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The theme this October is Hypnagogic Halloween. Every day I’ll post a horror movie that evokes a mind entering sleep—fogs, dreaminess, hazy horrors. #filmsky #horrorsky

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Matt Simon @mattsimon.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Capital punishment is immoral full stop and, as implemented, racist.

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Reposted by Matt Simon

James “Vamp” Fleet @horrorfilms101.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Kids today don’t understand— simply couldn’t understand— the heartbreaking experience of being in a street dance squad, and getting “served.”

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Matt Simon @mattsimon.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This piece makes an interesting and pretty persuasive case for speaking and conversation as important for thinking and learning AND ALSO needlessly and unconvincingly denigrates and underestimates writing for the same. Ugh. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/o...

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Justine Peres Smith @redroomrantings.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Eight books to become a better film critic (according to me) afilmdiary.substack.com/p/eight-book...

afilmdiary.substack.com

Eight Books to Become a Better Film Critic

It’s just like my opinion, man

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Matt Simon @mattsimon.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Long been obsessed with that Bresson book (since first encountering it in a film (production(!)) class). And Suite for Barbara Loden's been on my bookshelf unread for too long.

Thomas Ha @thomasha.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Reposted by Matt Simon

i should clarify, when i write people doing bad things, it's because i am bad. they are me. more importantly, when you read about those bad things, they also become you. that's how story works. in fact, you are going to think about murder before this skeet ends. how's that feel, sicko.

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Verity Vagary @verityvagary.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Training my replacement AI to watch one minute videos while making sad posts

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Matt Simon @mattsimon.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Gonna reverse it on them by changing my own handle to “Gold Standard Film Festival” or whatever.