Chapter x Chapter Review of FILMS OF THE NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY Chapter 10: Bon Voyage

Welcome back to another installment of the Chapter x Chapter series, a column where I take a deep dive into horror reading with a new review for each chapter of the book.  The first book of this series is Films of the New French Extremity:  Visceral Horror and National Identity by Alexandra West.  If you're looking to start from the beginning, I recommend you check out my introduction. 

France, it seems, is not unlike the United States in that it has pockets of the country that people avoid unless it's a layover on their way to their real destination.  Americans sometimes use the phrase "flyover states" for the places like this, but Alexandra West explores similar locations in France as a metaphor for the "journey between expectation and reality." 

Chapter x Chapter Review of FILMS OF THE NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY Chapter 9: I Won't Let Anyone Come Between Us

Welcome back to another installment of the Chapter x Chapter series, a column where I take a deep dive into horror reading with a new review for each chapter of the book.  The first book of this series is Films of the New French Extremity:  Visceral Horror and National Identity by Alexandra West.  If you're looking to start from the beginning, I recommend you check out my introduction. 

Well, dear reader, we've made it.  After journeying over halfway through the book, in Chapter 9 we've landed on a movie that 1. I've seen and 2. I enjoy (sorry not sorry, Vincent Gallo).  Of course, because I'm pretty lame it's also one of the movies from the New French Extremity that pretty much everyone has seen:  Alexander Aja's 2003 Haute Tension (High Tension).

Chapter x Chapter Review of FILMS OF THE NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY Chapter 8: Without Borders

Welcome back to another installment of the Chapter x Chapter series, a column where I take a deep dive into horror reading with a new review for each chapter of the book.  The first book of this series is Films of the New French Extremity:  Visceral Horror and National Identity by Alexandra West.  If you're looking to start from the beginning, I recommend you check out my introduction. 

In our last installment, Alexandra West took us on a romantic tour of some of the horrible things that people can do to one another within the bounds of an intimate relationship.  This time around, West delves into how our desire within those relationships can clash with the outside world.

Chapter x Chapter Review of FILMS OF THE NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY Chapter 7: Lovers in a Dangerous Time

Welcome back to another installment of the Chapter x Chapter series, a column where I take a deep dive into horror reading with a new review for each chapter of the book.  The first book of this series is Films of the New French Extremity:  Visceral Horror and National Identity by Alexandra West.  If you're looking to start from the beginning, I recommend you check out my introduction. 

Following a pretty significant hiatus to allow for a vacation (and then some time to catch up with my pesky day job after said vacation) I return to Films of the New French Extremity ready for romance.  After all, France is, as Alexandra West points out, the land that's "perceived to have a monopoly on love."  It evokes the classic romantic imagery like the Eiffel Tower, candlelit dinners, and soft music in idyllic country landscapes.

One-Shot Review: Carrie by Stephen King

 
I'm getting ready for a brief hiatus from the Chapter x Chapter Review until the second half of March (yay vacation!). But before I go I figured I'd leave you with a quick one-shot review...which, I suppose anyone else would just call a review.

Chapter x Chapter Review of FILMS OF THE NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY Chapter 6: Fine Young Cannibals

Welcome back to another installment of the Chapter x Chapter series, a column where I take a deep dive into horror reading with a new review for each chapter of the book.  The first book of this series is Films of the New French Extremity:  Visceral Horror and National Identity by Alexandra West.  If you're looking to start from the beginning, I recommend you check out my introduction. 

As you may have noticed if you've been following along at home, one of the prominent themes present in Films of the New French Extremity is that I have not seen a single one of the movies covered thus far by Alexandra West.  You may be happy to find out, then, that this week presents the first of the NFE films that I've actually seen.

Chapter x Chapter Review of FILMS OF THE NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY Chapter 5: In Wolf's Clothing

Welcome back to another installment of the Chapter x Chapter series, a column where I take a deep dive into horror reading with a new review for each chapter of the book.  The first book of this series is Films of the New French Extremity:  Visceral Horror and National Identity by Alexandra West.  If you're looking to start from the beginning, I recommend you check out my introduction.

In chapter 4 of Films of the New French Extremity, Alexandra West examined movies that explore the relationships have with women, people of color, and/or those seen as being in lower classes, particularly in terms of sexuality.  Not surprisingly, such exploration finds these relationships to be fundamentally flawed as they are measured by their value to straight, white, men.