13 May 2024
We often connect satanic panic to the 1980s through to the early 1990s, but Australian brothers and screenwriting team Cameron and Colin Cairnes weave a tight narrative with a setting that feels authentic to its late 1970s setting, which teetered between occult curiosity and a fear of anything unseeable and unknowable. There is a sufficient commitment to the amount of brown in the costuming and set design, but the extent of their commitment to the bit is evident in the flairs of detail in both the exposition and side characters. There are the mundane references to sweeps week and more apropos callbacks (or should that be callouts…) to Anton LaVey and Ed and Lorraine Warren. If you want to know more about the deep-cut references, you can check out this article by Warped Perspective.
31 July 2023
Last Sunday evening, my wife and I had the pleasure of attending the world premiere of Ms. Information at the Auckland International Film Festival. OK, that sounds a little more grandiose than it was - we purchased tickets like most other people in the audience.
21 March 2022
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, propaganda raises its head. Propaganda has always been a tool of war (and peace) but we're seeing escalation to new levels.
1 November 2019
A quick word to let you all know that our project to promote herd immunity through vaccination is still in the fund-raising stage. We have been working behind the scenes to secure funding from a large donor, but still need your help.
1 November 2017
As a parent, I know what it's like to worry about whether you are doing the right thing for your child. When my daughter was born, I couldn't quite believe that after just a few days in hospital we'd be going home in sole charge of a small infant. Didn't they realise we were unqualified?!
1 May 2008
The Intelligent Design (ID) movie Expelled (Editorial, NZ Skeptic 86) has scored a spectacular public relations own-goal at a screening in Minneapolis (New York Times, 21 March). University of Minnesota developmental biologist PZ Myers, best known for his blog Pharyngula, was one of many who took up the offer to register on-line for the pre-release public screening.
1 August 2005
A spiritualist group has been given $2500 to teach people to communicate with the dead, the Herald On Sunday reports (15 May). The Foundation of Spiritualist Mediums received the Auckland ratepayer money after an application to an Auckland City Council committee. Foundation president Natalie Huggard said it was an essential service to Auckland and was in high demand.
1 November 1995
Post-mortem on the autopsy or autopsy on the post-mortem?
1 May 1992
Sacred Sex is a seat-squirmer of a film — one of the most irritating films I have ever seen. I went along with my wife hoping for entertainment, maybe a bit a spice, and came out so cross I couldn't get to sleep for all the wrong reasons.