Collective Nightmares

Laura found Weapons to be entertaining but vapid; bizarrely agnostic in terms of messaging or subtext. Marshall found Weapons to be entertaining but also infuriating for invoking the horrors of mass school shootings only to say nothing about that topic whatsoever. Another entry in the vibes horror subgenre that has gained prominence of late. These films are more a series of vaguely scary or upsett...

An entertaining and well made watch. Some great body horror. But in the end they pull back instead of leaning in and that keeps this film from being a real standout horror film.

Marshall Smith, PhD, and Laura Patterson, PhD, offer a sociological discussion of the horror film Alien Romulus. We've had an uneven history with Fede Alvarez's film here at Collective Nightmares. While Alien Romulus isn't groundbreaking, it is a solid film. And it continues some of the best messaging of the franchise: anti-corporate, pro-worker, and good diversity of representation especially wit...

Marshall Smith, PhD, and Laura Patterson, PhD, offer a sociological discussion of the horror film 28 Years Later. Well, 23 years later, not 28, but that’s okay. 28 Days Later was a groundbreaking film that introduced pop culture to fast, angry zombies. It established Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris as stars. This film, does not do those things. While there was some very impressive visuals, the wo...

Sinners (Coogler 2025) Marshall Smith, PhD, and Laura Patterson, PhD, offer a sociological discussion of the 2025 film Sinners, written, produced, and directed by R. Coogler. Sinners is an original film from Ryan Coogler who returns to working with Michael B. Jordan as the acting lead. Sinners is an original film that is a much appreciated entry into the horror genre generally and more specificall...

Marshall Smith, PhD, and Laura Patterson, PhD, offer a sociological discussion of the 2025 Norwegian film The Ugly Stepsister, written and directed by E. Blichfeldt. This film is fantastic! A dark inversion of a Cinderella story, The Ugly Stepsister creates a twisted fantasy world where the aesthetics are grotesque but we learn all the right lessons.

It’s What’s Inside (Jardin 2024) Marshall Smith, PhD, and Laura Patterson, PhD, offer a sociological discussion of the 2024 film It’s What’s Inside , written and directed by G. Jardin. This film is closer to the edge of horror than we usually venture, but the premise of the film was interesting enough that we gave it a chance. We hoped the film would explore the component of the sociol...

The Brood (Cronenberg 1979) Marshall Smith, PhD, and Laura Patterson, PhD, offer a sociological discussion of the classic 1979 David Cronenberg film The Brood . While this is a Canadian film, we wanted to include this in our mini-series on pregnancy and women’s bodies because it came out in 1979. Reagan would be elected in 1980 after having married the racist Southern Strategy of Atwater with the...

Birth/Rebirth (Moss 2023) Marshall Smith, PhD, and Laura Patterson, PhD, offer a sociological discussion of the 2023 film Birth/Rebirth. This is a vaguely Frankensteinian film, that addresses control of women’s bodies from a unique perspective.  We very much appreciate a novel take especially given the current political climate. Laura was really impressed with the dominant read of the film a...

Sociologists discuss the horror film Immaculate especially as it compares to The First Omen.

Red Rooms (Plante 2023) Marshall Smith, PhD, and Laura Patterson, PhD, offer a sociological discussion of the 2023 film Red Rooms . Ostensibly this is a film about the dark web phenomemon of the titular red rooms. Oddly, the film did not actually offer any insight into red rooms. This film is different, and we definitely appreciate that. We just wish it offered something, anything!, interesting in...

Nosferatu (Eggers 2024) The film is gorgeous. It is well acted. Unfortunately, Eggers seems to be moving toward the strain of modern horror directors who are style without substance. And or sytle without ethical substance. Eggers appears to be willing to stray from Stoker’s book as well as from the 1922 classic version by Murnau . However, the changes he makes are at best socially stagnant. He arg...

Cruising (Friedkin 1980) This episode is dedicated in loving memory of our dear friend Matt Brown, PhD. You lived unabashedly out and gay. You loved cruising and the scene. And you always had a unique perspective. We would have loved to hear your thoughts on this film especially. We miss you! Cruising was made during the brief few years post Stonewall and before significant awareness of AIDS that...

Heretic (Beck and Woods 2024) Heretic – Does the film present an intellectual and philosophical discussion of belief, faith, and religion in order to encourage that amongst viewers? Or does it present all that as distraction because ultimately regardless of your thoughts and feelings, Mormon Jesus is going to save you if you believe and pray thereby making the film basically one long propaga...

Woman of the Hour (Kendrick 2023) We have great appreciation of Anna Kendrick as a talent. And this film does have a very rare original take on the serial killer genre, unfortunately for us it did not coalesce into a meaningful film watching experience. The film is exactly the sum of its parts and it landed on us accordingly. Our guess is that in trying to avoid making problematic choices, which w...

Strange Darling (Mollner 2023) What a breath of fresh air! A film that is presented non-linearly for a reason! And a reason that doesn’t completely sabotage any horror that the film might have otherwise accomplished (looking at you 2019 Pet Sematary (Kolsch and Widmyer) remake). This all around just an excellent film. We don’t want to spoil anything for anyone, suffice it to say, if yo...

The Substance (Fargeat 2024) The Substance is the second film from Fargeat that we have discussed on our podcast. With both this film and Revenge (2017) we were overall very impressed, with The Substance being a big step up especially in terms of style and production design. We are very excited to continue to follow her career. The film addresses topics of gender, aging, and the Hollywood expectat...

A Quiet Place Day One (Sarnoski 2024) A Quiet Place Day One is an odd film. Laura very much enjoyed the primary plot and characters, and so for her this film worked well. And while Marshall did also, for him that felt summarily disconnected from the Day One universe and therefore did not work at all. Of possible interest at a larger scale is this is another big name horror franchise doing a sequel...

Longlegs (Perkins 2024) While we think Osgood Perkins seems to be a genuinely wonderful human, sadly this film is not wonderful. This is not so much a movie as it is a series of trope vignettes with similar production desgin. Longlegs is all vibes with no substance; no character development, no timeline, no rationales, and no real reasons for anything. In many ways it’s a perfect film for the TikT...

Alien (Scott 1979) and Aliens (Cameron 1986) In anticipation of Alien Romulus (Alvarez 2024), this episode we revisit the epic films Alien (Scott 1979) and Aliens (Cameron 1986). We discuss how the films hold up after approximately 40 years. This is a rare episode for us as it is both a sci-fi horror film and a creature film. We have very few episodes of films in these sub-genres. Marshall first s...

Abigail (Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett 2024) Directed by Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett, who have made very solid Scream requels and the really excellent Ready or Not , we had high hopes for Abigail . With lots of promise and overall good audience reactions we were unfortunately very disappointed. Abigail is bad. Real bad. No character development, no movitations, no sense of geography, and any even...

Late Night with the Devil (Cairnes and Cairnes 2023) Late Night with the Devil became somewhat of an immediate indie cult classic. According to Wikipedia “The film grossed $16 million and was met with widespread critical acclaim.” While Laura found the film to be quite an entertaining watch, Marshall was not a fan. And then when we delved into the messaging and subtext of the film things really we...

Poor Things (Lanthimos 2023) Poor Things cause quite a stir on the film scene when it was released. While not exactly horror it is definitely bizarre and has some macabre and fantastic elements, so here we are to discuss it. We had mixed feelings about this film but if nothing else, we appreciate the big swings it took in terms of stylization, acting, and narrative. There is lots more of our podca...

Better Watch Out (Peckover 2016) Following up on our discussion of The Babysitter is a film that is sort of similar in terms of vibe, and very different in terms of execution. At least this is true for the first segment of the film. Luckily for all of us, this film is not The Babysitter . While it has some originality and there is evidence of effort to break out of problematic messaging, it ultima...

The Babysitter (McG 2017) While entertaining and with solid acting performances especially from Samara Weaving, McG’s Babysitter is a bizarrely lecherous film where the camera is wielded like the fantasies of a man’s imagination of a pre-adolescent boy. A film that, in our opinion has aged like milk, yet spawned a sequel after apparently a slow burn cult following established on streaming. If you...