Riot Material

Art. Word. Thought.

Beyond Dark, Pity Is Comedy Gone Grim-Black

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Reviewed by Kristy Puchko

There’s dark comedy, and then there’s Efthimis Filippou. While the former flirts with death and depravity to score bubbling belly-laughs and cheeky chortles, the latter crafts a humor so macabre it makes audiences itch, their laughs coming out more like alarmed barks or gasps. Teamed with writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos, the Greek screenwriter wrung comedy out of the repressive, incestuous family in Dogtooth, the passionless matchmaking of The Lobster, and the repulsive revenge of The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Now, he’s teamed with lesser-known director, Babis Makridis, for their co-penned Sundance entry, Pity. And it’s just as twisted–yet uncomfortably funny–as you may have hoped. [Read more…]

Traumatizing, Tragic, Grimly Comedic: Yorgos Lanthimos Unnerves Fantastic Fest

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The Killing Of A Sacred Deer
Reviewed by Kristy Puchko

Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos has raised eyebrows and sunk hearts with his heralded drama Dogtooth and his Colin Farrell-fronted dark comedy The Lobster. Now he reteams with Farrell for The Killing of A Sacred Deer, an enigmatic bit of slow burn horror that boasts a streak of pitch-black humor. Not nearly as accessible or silly as The Lobster, it’s nonetheless breathlessly daring and unnerving. [Read more…]

David Lynch’s Dadaist Apocalypse Via Twin Peaks

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Episode 8
by Alci Rengifo

Madness grips the airwaves like a deafening transmission, and the overlords of the earth seem to speak in terrifyingly grim visions. Thank the gods that every age produces its own soothsayers. It is fitting, then, that just as a surreal state of affairs takes hold, David Lynch returned to us with Twin Peaks: The Return, a continuation of his landmark cult 1990s series that combined melodrama with the director’s brand of surrealist imaginings. But not only did Lynch return, he also shows himself to be fully in tune with these new dark ages. Episode 8 of the revival in particular goes beyond television or even cinema — it is one mad flow about our civilization’s communion with dark forces to unleash absolute destruction. [Read more…]