Brexit, stage right.

On the morning of June 23rd 2016 my mother was admitted to a London hospital for surgery. In another time zone, I lay awake and worried, my stomach twisting into helpless knots. All over the UK, citizens made their way to the polling stations and held their collective breath. The world waited. I made bargains with a God I don’t believe in. For my family, the outcome was the best we could have hoped for. For my country, tragedy struck. My housemates and I, all British expats, sat glued to the internet in mute horror as the results came in, desperately refreshing pages in the hope of better news. But it was not to be.

On the phone, Mum sang the praises of the NHS staff who cared for her around the clock. “They’re so wonderful. But they work such long shifts.” On the TV, Nigel Farage was also discussing the NHS. £350 million a week? Oh, that promise was “a mistake.” ‘Leave’ voters began to wonder what they had got themselves into. The Prime Minister resigned. The global economy trembled. On my Facebook feed, my friends – university educated, under 35, city-dwellers – poured out their rage and shame. Together we mourned. Mum’s surgeons – one the child of Indian immigrants, the other a German national – are pleased with her progress. A team of nurses check on her stiches every hour. Britain meanwhile, cannot begin the healing process. There seems no way to bring the two sides together. We can only fling insults. How did we get here?

For decades, economic policy across the developed world has been geared to favour those with money. Trickle-down economics – the idea that allowing the rich to accumulate enormous wealth will stimulate the economy as a whole – has failed the majority of the UK population. Cameron and Osborne’s austerity budgets have deepened this inequality, hacking away at public services so the banks can be bailed out and the wealthy can continue to pay less tax. Working class families are left with no stability and no prospects. That makes people scared. It makes people angry. And rightly so. Frightened, angry people are vulnerable to chancers peddling easy solutions. If those in power – or in the case of UKIP, those who seek it – do not want the rage of the population to be directed at them, they need to channel it elsewhere. They need a scapegoat.

The EU was an easy target. An admittedly flawed bureaucratic institution which most people know little about. An area of politics most Britons have never bothered to engage with at all – who can honestly say they know anything about their MEP? And the open borders of the EU are inextricably linked with immigrants, foreigners, all those unspoken tribal fears about outsiders coming along and stealing what is ours. As the adorable puppets sang, ‘everyone’s a little bit racist sometimes’; no matter how hard we try, there are underlying prejudices woven into our culture. They come to the surface when we feel under threat. If you have the resources to flood the media with images of Syrian refugees supposedly marching towards Britain like an occupying army, it is easy to use those fears to your advantage.

As of last year, half the population of the UK was over 40. Referendum data showed that older people overwhelmingly voted to leave the EU, while the younger voters wanted to stay. Many of my peers feel that their futures have been betrayed by a selfish older generation. It is hard to put yourself in the place of an older person and to taste their nostalgia for days gone by. We’re all prone to viewing our own past through rose-coloured glasses – or sepia Instagram filters. But the old farts aren’t out to get us; they have the same trouble seeing through our eyes. They were educated in the last days of the Empire; we were raised on multiculturalism. Do you talk to your parents and grandparents about politics? I know I skirt around the issues, often not wanting to share my thoughts because I know we will disagree and I don’t want to start an argument. Then I am angry at them for not considering my hopes for the future. My Mum seemed quite surprised after the 2015 UK election when I ‘came out as a socialist.’ I had failed to share my world view with the woman who gave birth to me. Many older people feel out of place in the modern world; left behind by a changing society. If we want them to work with us towards the future, we must do more to include them. For this year’s London Mayoral elections, I went with my grandmother to vote. We discussed the candidates; she thinks Sadiq Khan is “quite a nice looking boy.”

Another awkward truth is that an aging population is one of the greatest problems facing the UK and most post-industrial nations. Working-age people cannot support a growing retired population, who as they age place an increasing strain on health and social care services. Ironically, this inbalance can only be eased by taking in working-age people from other countries. Older people are not to blame for the country’s problems; population trends are nobody’s fault. But the reality is that our systems of taxation and welfare need to adapt to provide for these changes. Older voters resist this, feeling that they have already paid their dues to society. It is easier to point the finger at immigration, EU regulation, cultural disintegration…anything rather than accept being part of the problem. We reach an impasse.

Young, liberal ‘Remain’ voters don’t want to accept being part of the problem either. Instead of making an effort to see other perspectives, to feel the pain underlying the prejudice, we heckle those we disagree with. We throw blame onto those we brand ‘racist’ and ‘uneducated’. We make little effort to bridge the gap. The likes of Farage and Johnson work hard to convince their voters that lefty intellectuals don’t care about them. They’re wrong, but our snobbery stops us from showing it. Instead of communicating a clear vision for change, we tell ourselves that the issues are just too complex for the general public to grasp. That leaves a void to be filled by the simple narratives of Nigel and his mates, based on lies but appealing to our human instincts. Other people are the problem, they tell us – keeping them out is the solution.

The other issue for my generation is our tendency to talk (to each other) more than we actually vote. We care a great deal, but we can be slow to mobilize, reluctant to protest beyond sharing on social media. There are some obstacles in our way. A referendum in the middle of A-level exams and out of university term time makes it harder for 18-22 year olds to get out and vote. Young people move around a lot, searching for work and housing we can afford. We’re less likely to be registered at our correct address by the deadline; more likely to miss the poll because we got stuck at work. But more important than all these factors is a lack of hope. Many of us have resigned ourselves to being screwed over by the world. We graduated into a recession, we watch our cost of living continue to rise and our wages stagnate and we feel helpless. We begin to believe that nothing we do makes a difference. The EU result has only deepened this feeling. But we cannot give up.

We have a voice. We want many of the same things as those who voted ‘Leave’ – better jobs, better public services, a brighter future. As those things fail to materialise in the coming months and years, we will need to give the disillusioned Brexiters our compassion, not our hatred. ‘I told you so’ achieves nothing. Britain has taken a leap into the dark. We must work together to find our way out again.

Four Hundred Years: A sonnet

Today marks four hundred years since the death of William Shakespeare. Legendary playwright, accomplished poet, Eskimo Brother of Chris Martin…What better way to honour the immortal bard than with a sonnet?

Four Hundred Years

He drew the crowds from London’s filthy pits

Of bears and dogs and men all stained with blood,

To stand and watch wise fools parade their wits

And fallen kings, betrayed, die in the mud.

His words bewitched our tongues and grew his fame.

Our land and language spread and learned to swagger.

This brave new world still echoed with his name

And proved the pen as mighty as the dagger.

Enduring might may prove more foul than fair.

Still nations bleed, although their wealth abounds.

We seek an exit (pursued by a bear).

Markets are freedom; flesh sold by the pound.

Four hundred years his bones have lain unmoved:

Their home not so much changed, much less improved.

Sophie Sharp, 2016. 

The Canny Valley

Warning: Contains mild spoilers for Happy Valley Seasons 1 & 2.

Much is made of the lack of diversity on our film screens, from #OscarsSoWhite to the sexist casting notes that would be hilarious if they weren’t so depressing. In Hollywood, women over 35 can play either the Queen or somebody’s mum. Meanwhile, craggy middle-aged dudes seduce stunning rom-com 20-somethings, or limp their way through another action franchise. So it’s heartening to see that, over in TV land, writers and directors are starting to offer female actors more of the complex, meaty roles that their male counterparts have long enjoyed.

Viola Davis, Kerry Washington, Robin Wright; on the US networks, these ladies are bringing us compelling characters who kick serious butt in 6-inch stilettos. But the heroine who really speaks to me is more likely to be found in a woolly hat and a hi-vis jacket. Sarah Lancashire has long been one of British TV’s gems, from her Coronation Street days to her award-winning performance in Last Tango in Halifax. But to my mind, Happy Valley is her finest hour.

Lancashire plays Sergeant Catherine Cawood, a West Yorkshire police officer who won’t let the ghosts of her past stop her from serving her community. When the man who raped her daughter is released from prison and returns to his old stomping grounds, she must face her own demons while unravelling complex cases and holding her family together.

Catherine is a tough cookie with a mind is as sharp as her tongue. Yet we also get to see her flaws, her vulnerability, and the struggle she faces taking the lead both at home and in the workplace. The second season of Happy Valley, which just landed on Netflix, sees Catherine both investigating and suspected of a series of murders. The wonderful Charlie Murphy also makes a triumphant return, her character transformed from helpless victim to rookie police officer with her sights on CID.

TV detectives are so often talented loners, piecing together clues with their massive brains, but incapable of solving the riddle of other human beings. The beauty of Catherine Cawood is that she is a not a detective; she’s a police officer. From the opening scene of the first episode, where she talks down a drug addict determined to set himself on fire, she relies on people skills to solve problems. She cares, she listens, and it makes her brilliant at what she does. The message that order can be maintained not only through force, but through compassion, is a powerful one. Sometimes a simple conversation can be all that it takes. Other times, however, you just have to Taser someone in the crotch.

Luckily, she’s got that covered.

Strong As Hell: Are you ready for Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Season 2?

Tomorrow is the big day: Season 2 of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt arrives on Netflix! In celebration, I thought I’d share all the ways in which this show has changed my life.

1. Any time the Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson classic ‘Unbreakable’ comes up in conversation – which happens frequently, as you can imagine – I am contractually obligated to shout ‘They alive, dammit! It’s a miracle!’ at the top of my lungs.

2. Pinot Noir is so much more than a delicious bottle of wine.

3. I’ve realized that I can totally pull off the light up trainers my Mum refused to buy me when I was 10. It is never too late to make your dreams happen.

4. I no longer purchase underwear from that travelling bra salesman in the white van. Even if his fitting skills are legendary. #lessonlearned

5. I’ve learned that you actually can endure anything for ten seconds at a time. Even on days where my life seems about as exciting as endlessly turning a crank, but with none of the accompanying mystery.

If none of that made any sense to you, I’m guessing you haven’t emerged from your own bunker into the brightly coloured world of Kimmy Schmidt yet. If you hate laughing, give it a miss. Otherwise, you still have a whole evening to catch up on Season 1. Grab a bag of candy, and dig in.

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Murder, Moustaches and Mansplaining: The Abominable Bride

I LOVE Sherlock. I love everything about it; the cast, the writing, the fab background shots of London. As someone who has read all of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories several times over, I love catching the references and feeling all smug and well-read and superior. So when I heard that there would be a special episode released on New Years Day, I immediately booked a flight home to London to ensure the optimum viewing experience. Oh, and see my family, I guess.

The bulk of Jan 1^st was spent vanquishing my hangover in time for the main event, and by 9pm I had a pot of tea made and a tin of biscuits at the ready. The moment had arrived. And for the first few minutes I was…underwhelmed. I’m so familiar with the modern-day incarnations of John and Sherlock, that the 19^th century Holmes and Watson seemed odd, jarring, like an old friend had suddenly acquired a foreign accent. Given the ingenuity with which Mark Gatiss and Stephen Moffat brought these well-loved characters into the 21^st century, a slip back in time seemed a wasted opportunity. Oh, me of little faith.

Once I let go of my inflated expectations and just watched the damn thing, I began to see the little clues that all was not as it seemed. And of course it bloody wasn’t. This is Sherlock, after all. In an early scene the mysterious lady in the parlour of 221B Baker Street, concealed beneath the eerie black veil of a Victorian in mourning, turns out to be none other than Mrs. Watson. The episode is full of veils, disguises and duplicity, with the identity of even the familiar characters thrown into question as we veer between centuries.

Much has been made of the heavy-handed feminist-or-is-it? message woven into the plot, which sees a series of murders attributed to an underground cult of hooded suffragettes. The internet was quick to accuse Sherlock of ‘mansplaining’ as he stands before the assembly of feminists and speaks of the ‘invisible army hovering at our elbow, tending to our homes, raising our children, ignored, patronized, disregarded, not allowed so much as a vote. But an army nonetheless, ready to rise up in the best of causes, to put right an injustice as old as humanity itself.’ But let’s take a moment to recall what’s actually happening here. Firstly, Sherlock isn’t explaining feminism to the collected feminists; he’s doing what he does every episode. He’s explaining the situation to John Watson, the 19^th century everyman to Holmes’ forward-thinking genius. The ending of the episode hammers the point home; Sherlock Holmes was a man ahead of his time, a thinker not willing to be confined by the narrow social and cultural expectations of the society he lives in. To Sherlock (and indeed, Mycroft), female equality is a given, a logical conclusion to an intellectual argument. To his peers in the 1890’s, this still required explaining. They could not know that in a couple of decades, this army would indeed ‘rise up in the best of causes’, manning the nurses’ stations and munitions factories of the First World War. And that this work, alongside their many other efforts, helped render them visible enough to win the vote.

In some ways I see this as the writers wrestling with the constraints of their source material. As written by Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes is a man in a man’s world – if they stick to the original, there are few primary female characters. Irene Adler is an exception, a mind to rival Holmes’, but she must work within the constraints of her gender, using her sexuality alongside her intellect to achieve her aims. The modern retelling certainly develops female characters further where possible; Mary Watson is far from the footnote of the books, killed off when it became clear she might cut into John’s crime fighting time. An updated setting allows the women in Sherlock’s world far greater freedoms than their 19^th century counterparts could have dreamed of. This episode nods to this in Mary’s complaints about being abandoned by her husband, Mrs. Hudson’s observations on her lack of lines, and of course Molly Hooper having to don a fake moustache in order to be a scientist in the 1890’s. Yet despite these constraints, they are active participants – albeit in a slightly creepy/evil way.

The second point we ought to consider, is that at this point in the episode we are actually inside Sherlock’s mind palace. When he’s explaining the solution to John, he’s really explaining it to himself. That was the purpose of this whole crazy ride in the first place. But why does Sherlock suddenly need to think about women? About a large but overlooked section of society, hiding in plain sight, exercising power though many believe them to have none? We know who all this is for, who is at the heart of this story Sherlock tells himself; Moriarty. Like the Abominable Bride, he is dead but not dead. When Emilia Ricoletti was shot in the head, she ceased to exist; but she lived on through the other members of her group, who were able to assume her identity whenever required. Before Moriarty revealed himself to Sherlock, he too existed only through his followers: what Victorian Holmes would call the ‘criminal classes’, numerous but with no social standing, overlooked by most and thus nearly undetectable. The ability to hide in plain sight is an obsession of Holmes’ in the original books, as well as these episodes; he makes use of his ‘Baker Street Irregulars’ to bring him information, beggars and the homeless who everyone overlooks. When he wants to hide Sherlock disguises himself; as a beggar, as a waiter, as somebody nobody thinks to look at, Think all the way back to ‘A Study in Pink’, and what Sherlock says about the murderous cab driver: ‘Who do we trust, even though we don’t know them? Who passes unnoticed wherever they go? Who hunts in the middle of a crowd?’ Are Moriarty’s followers not another ‘invisible army hovering at our elbow’? The difference is that the hooded ladies in this episode look sinister, they in fact seek the justice denied to them, whereas Sherlock’s enemies look to subvert justice through any means available to them.

Thus Sherlock solves the puzzle he has set himself; how can Moriarty still be committing crimes from beyond the grave? Even without its figurehead, Moriarty’s organization lives on, which goes some way to explaining the events of Series 3. Though seemingly unrelated, the crimes target those closest to Sherlock and John; even the seemingly generic threat to the Houses of Parliament in ‘The Empty Hearse’ links back to Mycroft, who at times ‘is the British Government.’ And in doing so, he also solves his existential struggle, for as this episode states, there can be no Sherlock Holmes without Moriarty. There is a reason that Conan Doyle sent them tumbling over the Reichenbach Falls together: what use is the great detective without the master criminal? The Abominable Bride argues that, though Moriarty is physically dead, as long as there are criminals willing to work for his cause, his spirit lives on. And these criminals are everyday people, people nobody even looks at; they hide in plain sight, blending in to the crowd. Only the keenest of observers, with an understanding of disguise will be able to single them out. There will always be work for Sherlock Holmes…so, roll on Season 4!

Saying Goodbye to Bowie

I can’t remember which of my parents I stole it from. It was a double CD, The Best of Bowie. I’m going to guess my Dad; I have a vague memory of an argument in the back of a car about the best version of The Man Who Sold The World. We had some great musical arguments back in the day, Dad and I – like the time he insisted that Hanson were really girls. I think that argument lasted longer than Hanson.

The cover was a composite of David Bowie’s face, each feature from a different era. A man with many faces, white and orange on a dark blue background. I closed my door and popped Disc 1 into my metallic purple boom box and listened as the opening bars of Space Oddity filled my teenage turquoise bedroom, with its unnecessary fairy lights and smell of nail polish. I was transported. I lay on the carpet and let the music take me to the stars. Hours passed. Disc 2 whirred to a halt, and I removed it, carefully placed it back into the case, and put Disc 1 back in. I pressed play.

And so it continued, for months. I danced to Suffragette City as I applied frosty eyeshadow for the school disco. I hummed Let’s Spend the Night Together while I doodled in my diary, wondering about that boy on the bus that always smiled at me. When the girls at school referred to Heroes as ‘that song from Moulin Rouge’, I shook my head knowingly. I didn’t enjoy being fourteen – does anyone? I was spotty and shy and awkward in my new woman-body, the sadness that has plagued me ever since just starting to make its presence felt. But when I listened to Bowie, I felt that fizz of energy, like the world was full of possibilities, and the strangeness of it all was exciting rather than terrifying. I could picture myself as a ‘70s rebel, putting the needle to my vinyl in a city that still knew how to swing. Bowie was from South London, like me, yet he seemed immune to the mundanity of it all. Listening to his music was like a vaccination against the expected and the everyday – a shot in the arm of pure glamour.

And now he’s gone. The world is a less colourful place, and we mourn a cultural hero. An artist who never stopped making music, pushing the boundaries of style and genre, searching for some new way to move and astonish us. He meant something different to every fan; glam rock icon, star of Labyrinth, hilarious sending up Ricky Gervais in Extras. And that legacy will endure for generations to come. Simon Pegg said it well:

“If you’re sad today, just remember the world is over 4 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie.”

It was a pleasure sharing a planet with you. RIP.

Spoiler Alert – Making A Murderer

Full confession: I haven’t actually finished watching Making a Murderer yet. But thanks to the internet (and a healthy pessimism about the universe) I know how it ends. I went home to the UK for a couple of weeks over Christmas, and nestled under the warm blanket of nostalgic films and familiar TV specials. The BBC obliged me with, not only a fantastic three-part Agatha Christie adaptation, but the heart-stopping excitement of Benedict Cumberbatch in a tartan suit a one-off Sherlock episode.* Confident that I had won the gold medal for festive TV viewing, I returned home to Canada to find that the whole continent had spent their turkey-coma days bingeing on Making a Murderer. I had some catching up to do.

The first episode of MaM has enough material for a series by itself. You’re pulled in to the familiar arc of one man’s wrongful conviction, fight for justice, and eventual exoneration. What happens next seems to beggar belief; you find yourself checking the internet to ensure this is not an incredibly well produced docudrama. The amount of material available, from recorded telephone calls to courtroom footage, allows us to watch the case unfold in incredible detail. It’s like Season One of Serial, except…crazier. And with pictures.

Some of my favorite scenes are conversations between Avery’s defense team, Dean Strang and Jerry Buting. Perched on the couch in dad jeans and bare feet, chewing over the details of the case and their upcoming strategy, they are the opposite of the usual glamorous TV lawyers. Get them in front of a jury or a gaggle of reporters, however, and they pull no punches. This combination of down-to-earth relatability and skillful court performances have earned the duo legions of admirers. Strang in particular is on his way to becoming both an internet heartthrob and a fashion icon, after his ‘normcore’ style inspired its own Tumblr.

As with any case that gains this high a profile, the controversy has begun. Critics point to crucial information left out of the documentary, and the breadth of conspiracy required to manufacture all of the evidence against Avery. Some accuse the show of misleading viewers in order to make Avery’s case. But the aim of a documentarian, or indeed a trial lawyer, is not to search for ‘truth’. It is to present a compelling story that resonates with their audience. Any ‘truth’ to be found in a court of law comes from the clash of two competing narratives. The two sides choose which parts of the messy accumulation of information they wish to emphasize – or obscure – to make their case. The only hope for justice is that this process operates according to the rules. That one story is not given a higher billing or wider distribution. That the illustrating facts are honestly collected, fully disclosed and thoroughly interrogated by the opposition.

Watching MaM or listening to Serial, we are reminded of the power law enforcement and the judiciary possess to shape the narrative that reaches a jury’s ears. We see how the system’s checks and balances – such as the presumption of innocence – can fail in the face of corruption. For Steven Avery or Adnan Syed, their story was unfairly overshadowed when it mattered most, and their lives forever altered as a result. By revisiting their cases, we are at last allowed to hear an alternative narrative, and to redress a balance lost during their days in court. Whether the verdict was correct is something only they can truly know. What matters to us as a society is how it was achieved. As ever, Dean Strang says it better than I can:

 
That’s why he’s a heartthrob, and I’m just a blogger.

*More on this later.

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I’m not going to go into details about Kung Fury. I honestly don’t want to spoil it for you. It’s the kind of thing you dream of stumbling across at 2 AM when you can’t sleep and you’re surfing those random channels you get free with cable package. Afterwards, you’re not sure if everything you just experienced was a dream. You try and describe it to your friends, but it’s impossible to sum it up. Just watch it, you urge them. Trust me. Finally, they relent; after a crazy night on the town*, you all pile on the couch for a viewing. They’re amazed. It’s a night you’ll laugh about for years to come; you’ll quote lines at each other and giggle like idiots, much to the annoyance of everyone around you. Your status as an expert on all things cultural and hilarious is cemented forever.

If you live in a state where recreational marijuana is legal, you might find that a responsible amount complements the experience nicely. If prohibition is still in force where you are, don’t worry; it’s only a matter of time. In the meantime, why not try a nice pinot noir, or pop a straw in a two-litre bottle of cider? Either way, you might also want to have some cheesy puffs handy.

If you’re still not sold, you might like to know that the makers of Kung Fury funded the entire project through a Kickstarter campaign. So if you get nothing else out of these thirty minutes of entertainment, at least you spent half an hour of your week supporting independent filmmaking. Good for you, buddy.

Kung Fury is streaming on Netflix now. Just watch it. Trust me.

*Or, if you are in your thirties, a particularly raucous wine and cheese night.

13 scary reads for the Day of the Dead

Okay, I lied about the 13 part – there’s actually only 5. Because on a night like tonight, nothing is as it seems….*cue creepy music*. Anyway, what this post lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality, because this is a carefully curated collection of the best scary stories to get you in the mood for fright night. Best read after dark, in the middle of a thunderstorm, in an old house with creaky floorboards and unpredictable wiring. Spooky satisfaction guaranteed.

1. Ghost Stories of an Antiquary – M. R. James.
You can’t talk about ghost stories without talking about M.R. James. The classic Victorian spooky tale is defined here, with the sense that the past is never quite done with, and could return at any moment with murderous intent. Plus these collected short stories are much more accessible than weightier classics like Dracula or Frankenstein. O whistle and I’ll come to you, my lad is a great starting point. And if you like The Tractate Middoth, you might want to dig out the rather good BBC adaptation that came out last Christmas. Make yourself a nice cup of tea, light up your pipe* and dive in.

2. The Woman in Black – Susan Hill.
I’ve seen the stage version in the West End no less than three times, and I still get shivers down my spine. They use a minimal set and plentiful sound effects, and let your mind fill in the details of the barren marsh, a crumbling gothic edifice, and a shadowy figure lurking just on the edge of your vision. Except, wait – I’m not sure I imagined her…The Daniel Radcliffe outing for the big screen is also worth a watch, although let down by a ‘blah’ finale. For best results, go back to the source text, and be prepared for a few sleepless nights.

3. House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski.
Okay, so Marky Z. has made a name for himself as a dahling of the more pretentious literature lover, and you might be a little tired of his need to reinvent the wheel. But there’s a reason this book made such a splash, and it goes beyond experimental forms and wacky typesetting. The narrative threads can be hard to hang on to at times, but they’ll pull you into their oppressive labyrinth until you feel your sense of reality start to warp around the edges. It’s the only book that can make you afraid to look in your closet in case there’s nothing there.

4. The Historian – Elizabeth Kostova.
Alright, you’re over vampires. Everyone’s over vampires – the minute Stephanie Whatsherface and Robert ‘Two Expressions’ Pattison got their fangs into the genre, there was no bringing it back to life. But before vampires were sparkly, back when they were still scary but kind of sexy, this smart book took us on a desperate mission into the dark heart of Eastern Europe to defeat an ancient evil. And there wasn’t a werewolf in sight.

5. The Little Stranger – Sarah Waters.
Disclaimer: this book features no girl-on-girl action whatsoever. Not even a little bit. Because Sarah Waters is so much more than just a ‘writer of lesbian fiction’ or even a ‘lesbian fiction writer’. Her skill was evident in her earlier work, but for me, this book proved without doubt that her talent transcends lazy publishing industry labels. The Little Stranger has the trappings of the conventional ghost story: a big house with a tragic past and a family bound together by unhappiness and secrets, watching their way of life fade into history. But though the supernatural elements will send a shiver down your spine, it’s the human frailties at the heart of it all that are truly disturbing. And the final lines deliver a devastating blow.

*For tobacco, like a proper Victorian gentleman. Obviously. Behave, you lot.

Slowly, but surely: It Follows

It’s that time of the year again. Leaves are in crunchy piles at the side of the road. There’s a chill in the air, which makes my nose run every time I leave the house. And we’re gearing up for one of my favourite holidays; All Hallows’ Eve. Halloween to you and me.

I’m a horror movie obsessive; I’ll watch them all, no matter how potentially awful the trailers make them look. 90% will be disappointing on multiple levels: too ambitious on too little budget, too formulaic, too mindlessly gory. To generate that genuine tingle of fear, that vague unease that makes you look over your shoulder when you pause the movie and get up to go to the bathroom…well, it’s tougher than it looks. You can’t just throw a bucket of blood at the set and hope for the best.

There’s a whole sub-genre devoted to the ‘so bad it’s good’ kind of horror, and I’m not one to frown on a B-movie. I laughed my ass off at Sharknado just like everyone else, and I’ve seen Piranha: 3DD twice. Watching Paris Hilton get skewered with a metal pipe in House of Wax* was pretty much the highlight of that decade for me. But still, I get excited when something comes along that promises a few genuine scares. Something that will stick with you for the next few days, rearing up from the depths of your subconscious when you find yourself alone in the dark.

That’s why I think you should watch It Follows this Halloween. If you’re not going out dressed only in your underwear and a pair of cat ears to get wasted and make out with a zombie, then order yourself some delicious takeout and load this up on Netflix. If you did decide to be sociable, then pop this on November 1st while you curl up and nurse your hangover.

You’ll find many of the familiar tropes; a bunch of high school kids, white picket fence neighbourhood of New England cul-de-sacs, parents that don’t seem to be home all that much. But there’s something of a Virgin Suicides vibe, right down to the vintage-y fashions and the washed out colour palette. A girl is found horribly mutilated on a grey, windswept beach, and there are echoes of Hannibal**. Though the technology is up to date, it’s hard to place which decade is in the background; this is timeless suburbia, where nothing ever changes.

Our likeable blonde every-girl has a new love interest, but he’s acting strangely. Probably nothing a little car nookie can’t fix, right? So far so Terror at Make Out Point, but things are about to take a sudden and infinitely more interesting turn. I won’t spoil it, but as in every tragedy since man first put stylus to tablet; sex can get you into trouble.

Many horror films start to fall apart once you see the ‘monster’. The suspense skilfully built over the opening scenes crumbles when the source of all your fears is far less frightening than your imaginings. It’s why shaky-camera classics like Blair Witch and Cloverfield work so well: you never get a good look. The threat of It Follows steps right into the open — it’s more solid than most — but it can still never truly be known. It has the unnerving presence of the shapeshifter and the slow, focused movement of the revenant. It takes a leaf from the Japanese tradition of the vengeful demon, and a haunting that can be passed on like a virus.

All this adds up to something that feels fresh and understated, but nonetheless chilling. And the ending is the perfect dramatic question mark, an ode to the classic ‘Happy Ever After…or is it?’ For a horror fan, it’s thrilling to find a film that so thoroughly understands the framework of the genre, but can elevate it to something more challenging. There’s an ethical dilemma at the heart of the movie that creates just as much tension as the looming menace of a curse. If you’re looking for a slightly smarter kind of scare, then this is for you. Just be careful. You might not be able to shake it off.

*Um…spoiler alert? In case that’s not the only thing you know about this movie.

**The TV version, that is. And if you haven’t seen this, and you love all things Gothic, add it to your list.