Misc
INTERVIEW: Autopsy of a Brucker
I recently had the pleasure of chatting with our very own Brucker Nourse, the host of Autopsy of a Horror Movie. We obviously talked horror movies, but Brucker also gave me insight into how he got into podcasting, and his spooky family history.
Horror Press: How did you start working with Horror Press?
Brucker: I found them on Twitter; it was a goal of mine when I started the show to partner with a website like HP. I just reached out to James-Michael directly – because I liked the site and what he was doing with it – and I asked him if he was interested in partnering with a podcast. We just chatted on the phone for an hour and hit it off. We were super on the same page for many things and about what we were interested in doing. I liked his vision for HP, and we’ve become friends.
Bash: How long have you been doing Autopsy?
Brucker: I’ve been doing Autopsy for about a year and a half-ish now, I started in February 2021. Autopsy is my second round of Podcasting. Before that, I hosted a show called Film on the Rocks back in 2019. I did it for a little over a year, with a good friend of mine from college. We had a good run, but he had to quit because he was “adulting too hard”. After that, I decided to pursue my own passion project, which became Autopsy!
HP: What made you decide to do horror?
BN: I learned many lessons from Film on the Rocks. I’ve always really liked studying movies, and in my free time, I was always watching horror movies. I didn’t really notice until we started giving recommendations. I was like, “Man, I’m always recommending something from Shudder or a horror movie”. I was like, “wow, this is a really rich genre… and I would love to use that as my outlet, as my passion project. The next thing I want to do, I want it to be horror-centric.”
HP: Why do you think horror is important?
BN: This is something I always try to explain to people that aren’t familiar with horror or look down on it. I think it’s a very important genre because it’s very old. Scary stories, and campfire stories, and stories warning you not to do something have always been around. People enjoy being scared. Horror has always been used as a vehicle for some sort of message. Whether it’s reflecting on something societal or even political, or just reflecting on how things are. It’s always been a way to convey or code a story that might be taboo in any other genre. But for horror, people accept it, and sometimes they don’t even realize it. I really like to talk about James Whale, and the universal monster movies he made. He was an openly gay director in the 1930s. And those movies if you go back and look at them, they were pretty queer coded. And of course, that was pretty taboo, and sadly taboo for some people today. You don’t really think about it because it’s coded in this horror text, and those monsters, and people aren’t trying to dive deep into why Victor Frankenstein can’t have his wedding night with his wife. He has to spend it with his lab friend. Or how his monster is finding kinship with other male characters, and he wants nothing to do with his supposed wife in the movie. I think stuff like that is very interesting if you look at it through that lens.
HP: Can you tell me the story of how you got into horror movies?
BN: I grew up a scaredy cat. I was scared of everything as a kid, but I was always interested in scary things. I had a morbid curiosity, but I never wanted to go and investigate it. I grew up loving Scooby Doo, and mysteries, and unsolved stuff. I eventually got into Agatha Christie books, and really enjoyed those, and wanted to keep chasing that. When I was in college, I watched Scream for the first time. And I was just like, “oh my god, this is amazing. I love this” because it had everything I loved that grew up with. It had the mystery element. It was very much Scooby Doo-ish: It’s a man in a mask. It’s kind of like an encyclopedia of Slashers before it. It educated me on all these tropes I didn’t know about because I wasn’t watching these movies. And it got me really interested in understanding these references, and the rules that it’s built on. I like things that make sense, and things that make sense have rules, so I wanted to check out these other movies that it’s referencing. So, Scream was the actual horror movie reference point that got me hooked.
HP: Is there a specific horror trope that you think is interesting?
BN: I hate to say final girl because that’s the obvious one. I really think that all the tropes that surround slashers such as: “don’t separate from the group, don’t investigate noises, don’t say you’ll be right back, don’t have sex or do drugs.” All those tropes that build a slasher I find interesting because, if you want to get philosophical about it, it reflects a very selfish society. Because it’s all about “don’t separate from the pack, one of us, you can’t be different from us”. Or the whole thing of – you hear a sound – it might be your friend in trouble, you’re not supposed to investigate that. It’s instilling: Don’t help other people who are separated from the group; let them fend for themselves. And then the movie ends with the final girl solving problems, and it’s like: somebody will solve these problems eventually, but it’s not us.
HP: You have a pretty interesting ancestor. What can you tell me about your family’s connection to Rebecca Nurse?
BN: She was one of the “witches” murdered during the Salem witch trials. This all happened in the 16/1700s. She was 72 years old, and had lots of children. It was all political of course. I think we found out later that they were all tripping on the algae in the water or something like that. But it was all political, and some of the motivation to accuse her of being a witch was her old age, and people really liked the land that she owned. People wanted her property, so she was hung. The story that I was told from my grandpa was that the bodies during that execution were not given to the families, and they were actually, I believe, tossed over some cliff into some body of water. At least that’s the story that was passed down. It was that night that two of her sons went and salvaged her body and gave her a proper burial. There’s actually a whole monument that you can go to in Salem… One of her sons went on to establish a farm that’s still operating in Massachusetts to this day. So you can go to Nurse Farms and get jams and stuff there. It’s one of the oldest family-owned businesses that’s still running… So Rebecca Nurse, that’s on my dad’s side, but on my mom’s side, my mother’s grandmother. Her ancestors are from Sleepy Hollow actually… The interesting thing that hit me when I was rewatching that movie is: All of the characters in it are “Van Something”. All of them have that surname van. And her name was Van Sherrid, and that to me just solidified, “Oh wow, I just have spooky blood from both sides.” I think that’s also why I like horror so much!
HP: You’ve got some really interesting family stories!
BN: My grandpa on my mom’s side was very much into the spookiness. I don’t know if I would necessarily say he was a horror fan, but he loved telling ghost stories, he loved trying to scare the grandkids. He even had a ouija board he’d bring out to try to scare us. And one of the movies that’s so sentimental to me in horror is The Blair Witch Project, because of him. I didn’t watch that movie until I was in college, but I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s. As a kid, you’re a sponge… I was over at my grandparent’s house one day, and my grandpa had a VHS copy of The Blair Witch Project. It still blows my mind today that he would go out of his way in the 90s and purchase a home copy of The Blair Witch Project. But I remember I was at his house, and I was 6 or 7 years old. And I found that VHS, and the cover really sparked my curiosity. The picture of Heather on that is so doom and gloom. And I brought that to him… and he got all serious as if I had just found something truly cursed. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, and he looked at me and said, “If you watch that movie you won’t sleep for a week.” I took that as a challenge, but I didn’t watch it until I was in college. I grew up fantasizing about how scary that movie was and always thinking about him, and how he would tell witch stories. So now when I watch that movie, I feel like I’m watching it with him, and feel closer to him. It has a lot of sentimental value to me for those reasons.
I think Brucker really tapped into something a lot of us horror fans feel: we all have our own personal connection to the genre and our own reasons for loving it.
You can listen to his show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast streaming app!
Check out Autopsy of a Horror Movie on our website for more info!
Misc
HORROR 101: What is The New French Extremity Movement?
What is New French Extremity? The term New French Extremity originated in film journalist James Quandt’s article “Flesh & Blood: Sex and Violence in Recent French Cinema”. The bulk of the article addresses a rash of more violent films that were coming out of French cinema in the late 90s and early 2000s; the article sites Bruno Dumont’s 2003 art film Twentynine Palms as inciting the criticism, seeing it as the latest in a long line of, to him, unimpressive French films at the turning point of a century.
Welcome back to Horror 101, a series of articles where we explain horror movie legends and their lore. For beginners, the confused, or just those who need a refresher, these articles are for you.
It is certainly ironic to be close-minded as a horror fan. What do you mean you’ll watch fifteen terribly made movies in a week but then turn your nose up at something 20 minutes longer than your usual runtime? (That one was aimed at me, so if you caught a stray, apologia).
But, I’ve always been particularly averse to one grouping of films: New French Extremity, a genre whose name came from an article deriding the very notion of it. In more recent years, I’ve grown some appreciation for its offerings, though, as I’ve come to understand the commentary it has to share. It’s a genre pockmarked by bleak cinematic landscapes, painted with the pains of human suffering and grotesqueries to reflect the horrors of the real world. A genre that often delves into the surreal, wading knee-high through depravity to get there.
…Assuming you can call it a genre.
Like German Expressionism, or Dadaism, it’s a style with some major tenets, but no concrete trappings; debated and shaped by its watchers, and now brought to you here. It’s sometimes hard to grasp, but today’s article will try its hardest to answer the question…
WHAT IS NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY?
The term New French Extremity originated in film journalist James Quandt’s article “Flesh & Blood: Sex and Violence in Recent French Cinema”. The bulk of the article addresses a rash of more violent films that were coming out of French cinema in the late 90s and early 2000s; the article sites Bruno Dumont’s 2003 art film Twentynine Palms as inciting the criticism, seeing it as the latest in a long line of, to him, unimpressive French films at the turning point of a century.
Quandt generally writes them off, indicating that they utilize their debauchery as a blunt tool in a clumsy attempt to evoke some sort of philosophical or political message about the human condition, as opposed to the artistic movements of centuries prior like the French Decadent Movement and Dadaism that inspired it. Ironically, the term New French Extremity erupted from this article as the main takeaway for film scholars and critics, because Quandt caps off the article by saying that the grouping of films are too varied in their vision to be considered a proper genre:
The New French Extremity sometimes looks like a latter-day version of the hussards, those Céline-loving, right-wing anarchists of the ’50s determined to rock the pieties of bourgeois culture; but for all their connections (shared actors, screenwriters, etc.), the recent provocateurs are too disparate in purpose and vision to be classified as a movement. […] it appears to be the last gasp of Gallic libertinism.
And so, New French Extremity was minted as a piece of the cinematic lexicon. Jargon meant to describe not only grotesque thriller and horror films coming out of France from the 90s onward, but films whose whole cinematography (both by visuals and by narrative) is rooted in being transgressive. No matter how horrible you think a concept is, New French Extreme will depict it, and no matter how sacred you think something is, expect it to be trampled on with some extremely profane filmmaking. It’s about being so grotesque that they evoke raw and pure disgust, often to reflect the film’s themes or philosophical ideas.
Then, you might ask…
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY AND SPLATTER FILMS?
Surely, films like Saw, Hostel, and Human Centipede have political messages underpinned by their violence. And yes, the Saw franchise in particular can at turns be very meanspirited and violent while being bluntly political; it is what I’d call the most politically American horror film series of all time, and its traps and the major bodily dysfunction they cause are a big part of that.
But in the end, it’s not being an American film that separates it from the genre, as even if it were a French film it wouldn’t fit either. Part of the horror of New French Extreme films is how the violence is presented; it is served as real, raw, and uncut as possible. It is unflinchingly (and unhappily) violent, and grounded in a level of uncomfortable reality. So, there goes another tenet of the movement: it has to crank up the meanspirited energy in its violence, and it can’t really be “fun” in how it displays its extremity.
WHO ARE THE DIRECTORS OF THE NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY MOVEMENT?
As critical as Quandt was of the idea, he did provide a very handy list of names to focus on as the most prominent voices of the movement:
“François Ozon, Gaspar Noé, Catherine Breillat, Philippe Grandrieux—and now, alas, [Bruno] Dumont”.
Names missing from that list, but which crop up later in the article and in the scene in general include Alexandre Aja (director of High Tension), Virginie Despentes (the mind behind the very controversial Baise-moi), Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury (the duo behind Inside and this years The Soul Eater), and Pascal Laugier (of Martyrs and Incident in a Ghostland fame). And though Xavier Gens was a bit late to the party with his 2007 film Frontier(s), he is an important director in terms of where the movement went and where it’s going with its politics. This isn’t a comprehensive list, but a good starting point for you if you’re interested in the genre.
WHO IS THE MOST INFLUENTIAL NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY DIRECTOR?
The short answer? Michael Haneke. The long answer? Technically, Haneke popularized the use of transgressive elements to shock and disquiet the audience among his contemporaries. Still, Gaspar Noé is the genre codifier and the most dominant voice in the space creatively.
Despite the extreme nature of films like Funny Games and The Seventh Continent (both brutal and genuinely terrifying), I personally find myself in the camp that his movies are not New French Extreme. We can debate the limits of how messed up something has to be before it’s considered extreme until the cows come home. But the fact is, if you put Haneke’s work alongside all of the films I’ve listed above in the previous segment, he would be the odd man out. He is, simply put, considerably more restrained in terms of showing gore and sexual violence, and the majority of his films’ horror and anxiety come from psychological aspects rather than physical consequences.
The material world is the battleground of the New French Extreme, and the nauseating nature of the films is the tool that Quandt named as the hallmark of the movement. With that in mind, I believe that Gaspar Noé, instead, should be considered the godfather of the genre. Given his films are the most well-known and commercially successful of the New French Extreme “movement”, he is more than worthy of the title; not to mention, he’s the most extreme in all regards. I would consider Irreversible’s directing and presentation to be the peak of the New French Extreme, since its nausea-inducing and sickening content comes with plenty of disorienting directing and editing; and for people with better sound setups than mine, you’ll find the little sound design trick that Noé placed in the film to make it as disturbing as possible.
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY?
A question that is much less definitional, and much more philosophical. Why the bleak landscapes? Why the hopeless endings? Why so much violence against women, especially THAT kind of violence? And there is no clear answer, as every filmmaker has a different motivation. However, there is an undeniably political slant running through most of these movies that can all generally be applied to the rise of the right-wing and alt-right in French politics from the 1990s onward.
Film scholars like Alice Haylett Bryan and Marc Olivier have pointed to films like Inside, Sheitan, and Frontiers as coinciding with and commentating on the rise of politicians like Nicolas Sarkozy, politicians running on strong anti-immigration platforms and blaming the immigrant populations of France for its ills like the 2005 riots. Though it is less easy to see on the surface level, the Mademoiselle of Martyrs and her secret society are a group of wealthy, white French aristocrats who find purpose through the suffering of others, depicted as the impoverished and WOC; they even describe the process of torturing their martyrs as something they do “systematically”, akin to the policies of a government.
Like the trend of the nuclear monster reflecting our Cold War anxieties in the 50s and 60s, and the spike of home invasion films that took place in the 70s, New French Extreme directors have political engines built into their movies. The shocking parts of New French Extremity punctuate what many of these films are supposed to be: countercultural art meant to attack and depict the dangerous political ideologies that spends the lifeblood and livelihood of underserviced people as currency; ideologies that could very well pose a threat to the existence of a democratic France itself.
New French Extremity’s horrifying sights are not only made effective through the verisimilitude of their directing and production; they are made to remind you of the world’s much more realistic terrors, here right now and possibly yet to come.
DO YOU HAVE NEW FRENCH EXTREMITY RECOMMENDATIONS?
So, now for your required reading from this lecture.
Needless to say, all of the films mentioned in this article bear a massive and profoundly long list of trigger warnings (seriously), primarily for their intense violence, depictions of sexual violence, and depictions of pretty much every terrible thing you can imagine. Please make sure to do your research before watching any of these, and don’t skimp on the self care.
Martyrs (2008) has some of my favorite reveals in any horror movie, and an unforgettable ending you won’t want spoiled, so watch this one first. High Tension is a favorite of many Horror Press readers and writers for a reason. It’s an unrelenting, pulse-pounding film that earns its controversial reputation, and you don’t really feel safe until it’s over (if that). Trouble Every Day gets a lot of flak from Quandt in his original article (what doesn’t?), but I went in blind and was completely caught off guard by what the movie turns into, so avoid any spoilers if you want to see something interesting. Sheitan is a head trip of a film, with recurring face-of-the-genre Vincent Cassel cranking up the madness dial on his performance to an 11. Calvaire, likewise, has a very demented villain on par with the main antagonist of Inside, so they would make for a very interesting double feature if you can stomach two at a time. And while I said Haneke is not New French Extreme, if you want something a little quieter but with an ending that will shake you to your core, I suggest watching The Seventh Continent.
That brings me to the one very big question I had writing this:
Should I even recommend Irreversible? It may be the one film that embodies New French Extremity the most, given how far it pushes the envelope. But do I like it?
No.
It personally is just too much for me. It’s bleak, horrific, it will disturb you entirely and might very well ruin your week, and I can’t stand to watch it. Which is the whole point, but there’s a limit to what I can tolerate. I find Noe is unflinching in his determination to make you run from the theatre and abandon the film altogether, especially in its most infamous and cruel sequence.
From a film history perspective, it is undeniably a piece that has carved itself into French cinema indelibly (for better and for worse), and if you want to plumb the depths of human horror, you’ll be hard-pressed to find as difficult of a watch. So, when you ask me, “Should I watch Irreversible?”, I can only meet you with one honest response: you can certainly try to.
Good luck with that, horror fan.
***
And that will be it for today’s Horror 101 lesson. See you in the next class and stay tuned to Horror Press’s social media feeds for more content on horror movies, television, and everything in between.
I’ve talked about Frogman from writer/director Anthony Cousins ad nauseam. It even made my Favorite 3 Horror Movies of 2023 list. Hearing that Frogman was getting a physical release from Terror Vision was music to my ears. And, honestly, how crazy was it that it was also getting shelf space at Walmart?! Very rarely can you find a film that killed on the festival circuit and then was readily available on physical media at both a boutique distribution online store as well as a big box retailer.
August 10th, 2024, would be a day that changed my life; Terror Vision was releasing a deluxe edition Blu-ray bundle with a limit of 100 copies. Typically, boutique labels will do limited edition slipcases for films, limiting them between 1,000 and 2,500 copies. The Frogman Deluxe Edition bundle was different. For $68 bucks, you could get one of the most unique and visually stunning releases of my lifetime. So I purchased it. After preordering this majestic bundle, I waited patiently for two and a half months…and then it arrived.
The purpose of this piece isn’t to rub my one (hundred) of a kind purchase in anyone’s face, instead, it’s to highlight the care and beauty behind this release. Simply put, if you love a movie and find it being released by Terror Vision, you should pick it up. Here is the physical side of what came with this bundle:
- A black MILF (Man I Love Frogman) shirt
- A double-sided foldout poster
- A Frogman-themed brochure of Loveland, Ohio/Frogman Point (With a 15% off coupon for Sticky Tongue Gifts & Collectibles)
- A Loveland, Ohio postcard
- A sticker set
- The Fortune Teller Miracle Fish (not listed on the bundle’s itinerary, but a happy inclusion)
- A Frogman mug
- A bound film-supplement book
- A limited rigid box that perfectly fits over the embossed slipcase
- AND A CD full of frog sounds!
In all honesty, I initially thought $68 was a steep price. As the minutes passed, I knew my chance of picking one up was dwindling. Once I opened the box, put on the shirt, read the book, and drank some lukewarm coffee out of my mug…
I realized it was beyond worth the price.
Terror Vision has set the bar for labels like Shout! Factory, Vinegar Syndrome, Arrow Video, and many more. I do not know who runs the program behind the scenes, but it’s clear they are some of the deepest fans of physical media out there. If I had to nitpick, there was one issue I have with the Blu-ray. The title screen. It’s a flat image with a play, subtitles, and special features option. These options are overlaid over a thick blue bar and it doesn’t feel very in theme. Even though the title screen felt a bit bland, the special features surely made up for it.
All of this is to say, if you’re a physical media nut like myself and you haven’t picked anything up from Terror Vision, then what are you doing?! They have excellent releases like WNUF Halloween Special, Malum, Door, and so much more. And thanks to Terror Vision for all they’ve done, we can’t wait to see what you release next.
12 Upcoming Horror Movies To Look Forward To In 2025
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[REVIEW] The Skiing Slasher ‘Iced’ (1988) Provides Chills, If Not Thrills
‘Black Christmas’ (2019): More Hollow Feminism From Hollywood
The Creep Tapes: “Brad” (S1E4)
[Review] The Thrills and Kills of ‘Ils’ (2006)
The Creep Tapes: “Jeremy” (S1E3)
Why ‘Martyrs’ (2015) Is the Worst Horror Remake of All Time and Never Had a Chance
[REVIEW] My First Ever New French Extremity Film Was ‘Inside’ (2007)
The Creep Tapes: “Mike” & “Elliot” (S1E1&2)
‘The People Under the Stairs’ Review: A Brilliantly Bizarre Undercover Horror Classic
Glen and Glenda: Don Mancini’s Reverence for Queerness in ‘Seed of Chucky’ (2004)
Slappy Was the Blueprint: How the Dummy from Goosebumps Became A Horror Icon
Is ‘Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker’ Too Problematic for 2022?
Was This Film the Blueprint for Malignant? No, It’s Even Better Than That: A SPOILER-FREE Review of ‘Cherry Falls’
‘Truth or Dare’: Who Did it Best?
This Is What Makes Sue Ann from ‘Ma’ a Terrifying Yet Loveable Horror Villain
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‘Midsommar’ (2019): Dani’s Divisive Development
