“No Need to Panic: Satanic Killers In Movies Just Aren’t That Bright”

I sorely wish I had a little more wiggle room in this piece, which originally was conceived last September but which I also fucked up on*, to talk about Maeve Higgins. Without a second thought, I’ll say Higgins is my favorite panelist on Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!**, and I’m not sure how much of what she does as a panelist is an act versus the truth. I’m about 95% sure it’s an act. If I’m right, it’s an act she’s mastered, and she brings that to her performance in Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman’s Extra Ordinary.

This movie fits nicely into my thoughts on contemporary Satanic cult horror cinema, in the sense that as billionaires and the upper class increasingly play the part of antagonist in society***, and as that class grows dumber and dumber with each passing day, so do the heavies in this particular genre niche. Satanists in horror tend to be rich. This is an old blueprint. But now they’ve gotten stupider, which, I dunno, call me crazy, that feels like a subconscious reflection of present circumstances, whether in Ready or Not or Satanic Panic or Extra Ordinary.

You can read the piece over at Fangoria. You can also get a temporary free subscription to Fangoria in deference to our collective need for at-home entertainment, so I suggest you do that and also maybe give them a little cash while you’re at it.


*The short story is that I put off writing this and missed the deadline. Mea culpa.
**I love this show and that may possibly be the most white liberal American thing about me.
***Capitalism is a death cult! Never forget it.

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