Ethan Vestby

[NYAFF Review] Countdown

Horror’s popularity amongst academics has to do with what’s often seen as signifiers of the juvenile -- ghosts, zombies and vampires standing in for our everyda...

Live Fast, Die Young, Bad Girls Do it Well: ‘The Bling Ring’ and ‘Spring Breakers’

The comparisons between Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers and Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring have been completely inevitable; as both are the new offerings from Gen X auteurs dealing with “bad girls” and their pursuit of a dream based on materialism and ergo celebrity culture. Though in putting each side-by-side brings up specificities as to why exactly each director chose their subject; that of the successive generation....

Trouble In Belief: The Films of M. Night Shyamalan

What foremost seems to unite M. Night Shyamalan’s films are belief, and furthermore faith. Due to them often dealing with the supernatural, that seems a given, being that it’s a natural part of the narrative to have the protagonist overcome initial skepticism; both as an arc and means of grounding a silly concept in somewhat of a reality. Yet Shyamalan’s films dig deeper than just that; it being an essentiality as it extends to a conflict between emotions and rationality....

[TIFF Review] The Lords of Salem

Rob Zombie’s films always strike up controversy; not the kind that’s associated with politics like polemical documentaries, or what the genre he operates in, ho...

Ethan Vestby