Editorials
This Season of “The Handmaid’s Tale” Has Been Home to Some of the Best Horror of 2018
2018 has been strong for horror, but some of the year’s most disturbing moments have been found in this dystopian Hulu series, not the cinema.
“Few times I’ve been around that track; So it’s not just gonna happen like that…”
2018 has found a certain comfort in mining terror from a very personal, familial place. Films such as A Quiet Place, Hereditary, The Strangers: Prey by Night, and even more have decided that one of the scariest ideas possible is when an innocent family finds itself in trouble. While there have been many examples of this idea getting explored to success in various horror films from this year, truth be told, the strongest example of this is from the second season of Hulu’s dystopian drama, The Handmaid’s Tale. The season’s final few episodes, in particular, manage to be far more disturbing and terrifying than any other piece of horror that’s out there this year. Those that have been on the fence about checking out this series and are searching for a new way to stab your soul full of holes, look no further than the overbearing second season of The Handmaid’s Tale.
For starters, the beginning of the season includes a wealth of trauma like terrorist bombings, assassination attempts, genital mutilation, and psychological and physical torture, but the final episodes are a true exercise in what humanity can endure. The second season of The Handmaid’s Tale has thirteen episodes as opposed to the ten that comprise the first season and it’s sure to make each of these three episodes count in a significant way. Things get worse and worse in each passing entry, almost intentionally so, in order to show the audience just how far society can plummet.
During these final few episodes of the season, I felt significant dread and even nausea at times when working through them. It’s a visceral experience that I haven’t felt from something other than Martyr(s) or A Serbian Film, which is saying something. Some might argue that it’s not worth watching something that becomes so depressing or is such an emotional gauntlet, but these episodes make the audience feel nearly as overwhelmed as June and company are within the series. It’s an overwhelming experience that’s not easy to pull off and while the second season of The Handmaid’s Tale has become so brutal that it’s led to many fans jumping ship, those that have stuck around have found themselves part of quite the personal, aggressive series.
The final episodes of the season really go for broke, as if they’re trying to push the audience over the edge and see when they’ll break. All of the material from these final installments touches on various degrees of jaw-dropping horror. It’s hard to decide what’s worst here. There are two fifteen-year-olds who are drowned to death because they’ve found “forbidden” love together. Another character gets her finger cut off because she suggests Bible scriptures and more lenient policies for life. In spite of her having the support of the bulk of the women in Gilead and being the wife of a Commander on top of that, she’s still not immune from amputation. Her wedding ring sits coldly on a bureau drawer now because its finger is gone.
The miracle of birth is also transformed into a twisted ceremony in various ways. At one point June gets aggressively raped (while another woman holds her down, no less) as a flimsy excuse to induce birth. Later on, the terrors of giving birth alone and unprepared are explored, with the episode really playing into the pain and struggles of something like this. And if that wasn’t enough there’s also a tacked on threat that involves a preying wolf and a very pregnant woman that obviously doesn’t turn graphic, but the threat is very much teased and a nice touch of some more visceral horror. While men are not immune to danger and humiliation in Gilead, it’s interesting to note that the majority of these horrors do happen to center around the female gender.
Furthermore, so many characters just snap this season, both those that are at the bottom of society and those that are in control of it, as if to point out that this twisted system is finally causing a crack in what humanity can handle. Even the “pros” are calling for mercy and the fracture lines are starting to show in what was supposed to be a paradise.
On that note, we’re at a point where a fourth Purge film has just come out and a television series based on the morally corrupt “holiday” is on the way, but The Handmaid’s Tale presents an even more terrifying dystopian alternative to the Purge’s universe because there is no end to what it proposes. The Purge may be more unrestrained, but Gilead is definitely more vindictive and traumatizing. The Strangers: Prey at Night and the upcoming Halloween see ordinary people victimizing ordinary people for no other reason than being there, but in Gilead the victimizers are living with the victims and making the rules. They don’t have to wear masks because all of this is sanctioned. This has been present since the start of the series, but the show’s second season, particularly the final stretch of episodes, turn up the psychological mindfuckery and deliver some of the most grueling emotional “torture porn” I’ve seen in years.
Both Hereditary and A Quiet Place looked to families as a source of its horror, which is also certainly a common theme shared within The Handmaid’s Tale. As effective as these two films are, The Handmaid’s Tale doesn’t have to resort to supernatural forces or aliens to generate its terror. They are both incredible horror films, but something that’s even more frightening than an unknown monster is a human being that is convinced that their evil beliefs are gospel. The reveal of Serena’s missing finger or Eden’s execution are arguably more frightening than anything in A Quiet Place and while Hereditary may ultimately be scarier in content, but the message present in The Handmaid’s Tale is a much more disturbing, bleak alternative.
It’s also important to give credit where it’s due to not only Elisabeth Moss, who gives such a raw, ugly performance, but also Yvonne Strahovski whose character especially goes through the wringer this season and in many ways is an even bigger victim than June. She loses a child just as much as June does, so to speak. Additionally, Jeremy Podeswa directs the ninth and tenth installments towards the end of the season and he has credits on True Detective, Walking Dead, American Horror Story, and Dexter, but the directors at work on The Handmaid’s Tale are not traditionally horror directors. Perhaps this is why they’re able to cut to the core so effectively and make this material have such impact. They’re not operating with typical horror sensibilities and because of that, the series moves with a stark, unpredictable terror that can strike at any second. Friends turn into enemies within seconds on this show and every character is only as good as they are in that current moment.
While all of the pain that’s present during the end of this season may seem a little over the top, it’s debatably necessary in order to push June to the places where she needs to go for the greater good. She could have had her happily ever after and yet she chooses to stay in this haunted house. She prolongs her exposure to this horror in Gilead, but after these characters have been to hell and back, it feels like next season will have to get easier. The great thing about horror is that it has a tendency to make its surviving characters feel invincible and like anything is possible. The end of The Handmaid’s Tale’s second season might be the best horror from 2018, but hopefully, season three of the show acts as one of the big inspirational dramas of 2019.
June and company are well overdue for a break.
Horror was thriving so well in the 1980s that movies like Pen Densham’s The Kiss (1988) would understandably get lost in the shuffle, only to then gain their fans later on in life. Even still, this one Canadian-American curio has had a more challenging time than others, as far as contemporary reevaluations go, which is very likely due to the movie’s limited availability—at least as of this write-up.
However, the scarceness of The Kiss, while a bit annoying, makes it like catnip for ‘80s horror completists everywhere. Hopefully, a lot of them will walk away satisfied after watching this hidden gem.
Even though The Kiss was intended as the first of several horror collaborations between Astral Pictures and TriStar, as well as the first feature produced by Densham, Richard B. Lewis and John Watson’s Trilogy Entertainment Group, it ended up being the only one produced from that former union. Once the movie was released, TriStar’s distribution jitters—they opted for a regional rollout—did the $6-million flick no favors. TriStar’s cold feet toward horror releases have been well noted, but The Kiss still did a tad better than Night of the Creeps (1986), another genre outing that flopped due to its regional opening.
Shot in Montreal, but set in Albany, New York, The Kiss—which was still called The Host just a few months before its October premiere—concerns an average middle-class family and their forthcoming situation. The uncanny problem in store for them was, in fact, set in motion some years earlier. As that hot and dusty flashback to the Belgian Congo shows, a familial curse was set upon the two Dunbar sisters well before Meredith Salenger’s teenage character was born.
Meredith Salenger, Nicholas Kilbertus and Mimi Kuzyk in The Kiss
The Kiss, which was based on a story by co-writer Stephen Volk (Ghostwatch) and penned by both Volk and Tom Ropelewski, has the outward appearance of The Stepfather (1987). This movie, though, is anything but a gender-flipped retread of that classic domestic disturber. For starters, The Kiss is far less grounded in reality—that much is clear from its unsettling opening scene. There, a trusting girl (Priscilla Mouzakiotis) is the victim of her own deceptive aunt (Céline Lomez); the movie’s titular act, and the story’s first shock, becomes the means of transferring an ancient evil from one host to another.
In the present day, Salenger’s role of Amy Halloran, a religious schoolgirl, is dealt a harsh blow in life once her mother, Hilary Halloran née Dunbar (Pamela Collyer), suddenly dies in a freak accident. But rather than a complete stranger sweeping the Halloran widower (Nicholas Kilbertus) off his feet some months later, Joanna Pacula’s character is that chosen temptress. Here, Pacula plays the grown-up version of the afflicted girl last seen in the movie’s opener. Since Amy’s mother is insistent about there being no reunion between estranged sisters, and she even contemplates buying a gun shortly before her tragic demise, it’s presumable that Aunt Felice poses a threat to her family.
The Kiss isn’t a movie ever too concerned about its own predictability. The audience is indeed often one step ahead of the story here, but also keep in mind how every one of those steps is loud. Take, for instance, the death of Amy’s mother; the Halloran matriarch goes out in garish, gruesome fashion, as a supernaturally commandeered truck sends Collyer’s character through a store window first, then leaves her one leg short. The directorial enthusiasm truly comes out in horrific moments such as these.
The Kiss is always sure to revel in its characters’ ills and misfortunes. So if the plot doesn’t impress, then its lurid parts should. Amy’s mother’s exit scene was proof of an eager, first-time horror director proving his worth. Then, bestie Heather (Sabrina Boudot) survives to tell the tale of a bizarre escalator mishap that, despite showing relatively less gore, spikes viewers’ empathy meter. The wilder bits of this movie, however, commence with that inevitable hookup between Felice and Amy’s bewitched father; their kitchen coitus is paralleled by Amy’s feverish classroom terror. The outcome there is a disquieting cross-cut of sex magic and a young woman’s menstrual onset plus hallucinations.
Sabrina Boudot in The Kiss
From foam appliances to bladders, that parade of special effects in The Kiss casts its own spell on the audience. Felice’s familiar, a visibly malevolent cat, was realized here with several models, some more articulate than others. Admittedly, the demon cat’s not as convincing as most of the effects here, but accepting that artifice, as opposed to fighting it, will make the whole experience way more enjoyable. As for the makeup used to manifest Felice’s inner villainy, it is more minimal and subtle than one might like; yet the work done to turn Pacula into an antithesis of herself is nonetheless compelling.
The otherworldly perils and dreadful goings-on wouldn’t work half as well as they do in The Kiss without the story’s contrast effect. Finding frights in picturesque, extremely ordinary settings was something that took off in the ‘80s, thanks to that sweeping shift to locales like the suburbs. And Amy’s home, a replica of a real Montreal suburban house, is the ideal battleground for any proper good-versus-evil story. It’s also prime real estate for this movie’s satanic panic-inspired horrors.
Because of their ostensibly similar plots, The Kiss has been compared to The Exorcist (1973). Except in Densham’s movie, the sinister, non-Christian entity targeting a teen girl lies within something less apparent and, perhaps, more devastating upon its exposure. To an outsider, Pacula’s Aunt Felice is too beautiful and unobjectionable to ever suspect of being a monster. More suspicious is how quickly she rips into the fabric of the Halloran home. Felice’s mere presence upsets the “texture of family life,” according to the director.
The demon cat in The Kiss
Taking out Amy’s mother and best friend, and distracting her father, would suggest The Kiss is playing by a different set of rules. It is initially leaving its adolescent target unsupported in a rather grim scenario. In contrast, though, this story offers up a surrogate parent who does her best to fill in the holes of Amy’s eroding home life. Mimi Kuzyk does good work as that family friend and doctor, Brenda, who guides the lost child without also steering her in any one direction; she is naturally skeptical of Amy’s accusations until it’s almost too late to do anything about them. So although The Kiss does an admirable job of undoing the main character’s support system, it never leaves her without a lifeline. This dark movie, in spite of everything that’s transpired, doesn’t deprive itself of light and hope.
The Kiss is a potent mélange of familiar ideas. If not for the director’s surprise flair for horror, though, the movie would have been less effective. What a shame that Pen Densham didn’t continue with the genre. As for Joanna Pacula, she is, too, owed credit as the wicked vixen opposite Meredith Salenger’s pitiable Amy; she never fails to be unsettling in her role. Pacula makes Aunt Felice a sexy yet intimidating character.
For horror that steadily doles out madness and menace, while also delivering a flashy and ghastly conclusion, The Kiss is certain to please. Yes, it’s cheesy all the way, but most favorably, everyone involved plays everything straight. That kind of commitment goes a long way with this movie.
The Kiss
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