my favorite horror movie director of all time might! might! be david cronenberg who sadly doesn't exactly make horror movies anymore too much exactly. note to david and viggo mortensen: totally great! keep up the partnership! yay! so the people who are able to take cronen-horror into the new century are totally here and they totally rock. billy o'brien's film isolation and carter smith's short film bugcrush (which i totally watched on youtube) are both really unnerving and each goes in a different direction. isolation is about cows and takes place on an isolated farm in ireland being messed with by biogeneticists. this has the chilly isolationism and the "hey! what is that? i rather would not know but here it is!" factor as well as the clinical literalism crucial to cronen-horror. if it goes a little alien at the end, its all good. bugcrush by carter smith disturbed me in a decapitating-shovel-wrapped-in-a-hot-towel kind of way. its got the uncomfortable intimacy, the "if it feels good, do it" sexual nihilism, and just the plain wrongness that i love and crave. a visionary movie made with not much. i am super-psyched for his adaptation of scott smith's the ruins a book i dearly love so you know i have faith in this dude. optimism is cool and stuff. cronen-horror lives!!!