We Don't Go Back #82: Wake Wood (2009)

(The penultimate going-to-be-in-the-book post today. And I have to admit, I procrastinated for a long time on this film, because for all that this is an important film for the development of folk horror, I really didn't like it, and part of the reason I didn't like it is because I have a hard aversion to films where terrible things happen to children. So, there's a content warning today for child death and bereavement, and quite a severe one.)

We Don't Go Back #81: Wake in Fright (1971)

This is a weird feeling. I'm in the home stretch with We Don't Go Back the book, and this is the third from last of the essays that will be in the book, this the amazing 1971 Australian folk horror Wake in Fright (AKA Outback). After that, any new essays will not be in the We Don't Go Back book, and that is a weird feeling. As ever, expect the plot to be comprehensively spoiled, and if animal cruelty upsets you, look away now. 

We Don't Go Back #80: The X-Files – Home (1996)

This is the first of four posts this week, to mark the completion of a new stage of development with the We Don't Go Back book. Basically it's in the first round of proofreading now. Not long to go.

Spoiler warnings are for wimps, but here's one anyway.

The Question in Bodies #12: The Spiral Obsession

Junji Ito, Uzumaki (manga, 1998-2000); Uzumaki (film, 2000)

I've always had a horror of the dentist. Ever since I was a kid, the sense of discomfort inspired by even the most basic dental checkup, the body horror inspired by the thought of drills and mechanical polishing machines has been crippling; the agony of a week of dry socket following the ordeal of a wisdom tooth removal, the taste of corruption flooding my mouth when an abscess burst; the chair, the shining steel of the instruments, threatening intrusion, violation. I'm deadly serious. It's a genuine phobia. I'm getting anxiety just writing this.

Anyway. The point is that when, researching this piece, I read that Junji Ito was a dental technician before he drew comics full time, my immediate reaction was, well, the sadistic bastard would be, wouldn't he?

If you're reading this and you work in the field of dentistry, I'm sorry. It's not you, dentists, it's me.