Sight & Sound: the November 2020 issue

Out now, our November issue looks at 2020 through the apt prism of horror cinema. Our cover star Rose Glass talks about religion, terminal illness and self-harm in her breakthrough Saint Maud; Kim Newman weighs the year in horror and peers ahead at the impact of 2020 on horror; Ben Wheatley brings us back to Manderley in his new adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca; 1960s horror icon Barbara Steele talks about death, dark fairytales and why she turned down Hammer; David Thomson considers the meaning and timing of Natalie Erika James’s terrifying debut feature Relic; and from our archives, Linda Ruth Williams explores the seminal impact on theatrical horror of Hitchcock’s classic shocker Psycho – released 60 years ago.

Plus: Garrett Bradley’s Time, Josephine Decker’s Shirley, Bassam Tariq’s Mogul Mowgli, found-footage horror, Venice in a time of plague, and cinemas’ own ongoing fright times…

Saint Maud is a powerful psychological horror story tackling themes of religion, terminal illness and self-harm with a remarkably deft touch. Mike Williams meets its rising star writer-director Rose Glass to discuss the film’s ambitions and its significance in the world today.

Actor Morfydd Clark on creating Saint Maud’s title character.

Co-founder of feminist horror collective The Final Girls Anna Bogutskaya picks ten recent films that point to a new wave of female directors who have bent rules, blurred lines and broadened our understanding of the scope of horror cinema.

The past year has seen a series of real-life terrors of the kind ordinarily associated with horror cinema – from environmental disasters to the pandemic. But what has been the impact on horror itself? And if the genre is a mirror to the fears of its time, what can we expect from it in the post-Covid world? Kim Newman lifts the casket lid to investigate.

Remi Weekes on his debut His House.

Anton Bitel on Shudder and the online subscription revolution.

Rob Savage invites you to his Zoom horror Host.

The enduring influence of 1970s horror.

Three international horror hotspots from the last decade.

Natalie Erika James’s terrifying debut feature Relic sees three generations of women brought together following the disappearance of the grandmother, who has dementia. But what happens, asks David Thomson, when the genre metaphors of ‘Horror’ become diversions from real-life horrors?

Relic director Natalie Erika James on her love of gothic and Asian horror.

With his new film, director Ben Wheatley – who made his name crafting uniquely twisted takes on Englishness offers an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s classic gothic romance Rebecca. He tells Christina Newland about his love of the author’s work, the necessity of side-stepping the Hitchcock film, and about going to Manderley again.

On its first release 60 years ago, Psycho shocked and terrorised audiences. But as Linda Ruth Williams’s fascinating piece from our December 1994 issue argues, Hitchcock’s classic also unleashed the thrilling, willing submission to sensations of fear and release that came to define the theatrical experience of horror cinema.

A look at Psycho’s accompanying promotional film The Care and Handling of Psycho.

Barbara Steele, an icon of 1960s horror cinema who went on to work with the likes of Federico Fellini and Louis Malle, talks to David Cairns and Daniel Riccuito about death, dark fairytales and why she turned down Hammer.

The fright stuff

Garrett Bradley discusses her topical new documentary Time addressing the US prison epidemic and why her portrait focuses on those serving time on the outside.

Director Bassam Tariq picks five films that inspired his fiction debut Mogul Mowgli, from Robert Bresson to Anna Rose Holmer. By Naomi Obeng.

Musician Tamar-kali talks about exploring the outer limits of the human voice in her score for Josephine Decker’s Shirley.

Cate Shortland, the Australian director of Marvel’s Black Widow, now delayed until next year, reflects on her film education in cinemas.

Mighty from The Avengers to Game of Thrones, Diana Rigg was devoted to the art of acting, and herself inspired cult devotion. By Josephine Botting.

The first non-virtual major international film gathering since lockdown was the best of times amid the worst of times. By Jessica Kiang.

By Jonathan Romney.

White Riot’s Rubika Shah

As autumn arrives and cinemas are still struggling, hopes have been pinned on blockbusters to save the day. Enter a surprise outlier… By Charles Gant.

As more and more of our day-to-day activity is recorded, the possibilities of the fake-real horror movie are proliferating. By Kim Newman.

The pandemic may have put paid to silent film in the cinema, but fans are making sure that live screenings can still happen. By Bryony Dixon.

Chemically and digitally transforming found footage, the Canadian filmmaker creates looping, hypnotic new works. By Ben Nicholson.

A feat of socially distanced production-as-story, Rob Savage’s haunted housebound horror is the film for our logged-on moment – but its feelings are screen-deep.

Elizabeth Moss captures the singularity of writer Shirley Jackson. Couples collide and imagination and reality blur in the manner of Jackson’s fiction in Josephine Decker’s intense psychodrama.

• About Endlessness
• Body of Water
• The Forty-Year-Old Version
• His House
• I Am Greta
• Kajillionaire
• Little Girl
• Mogul Mowgli
• The Other Lamb
• Relic
• Rialto
• Summer of ’85
• Tenet
• Tesla
• Time

The Haunting of Bly Manor

• Away
• Little Birds
• Ramy: Season 2
• Ratched

Memorable plays, dazzling careers, bruising controversies – has any UK drama series had as much impact as Play for Today? Reviewed by Robert Hanks.

Two monochrome classics of the high-60s transnational art film make ideal showcases for Jeanne Moreau’s electrifying presence. Reviewed by Kate Stables.

Shashi Kapoor and Hayley Mills make for an endearingly charming couple in Guy Green’s Singaporeset 1960s Noël Coward adaptation. By Phuong Le.

• After the Fox
• Circus of Horrors
• CzechMate: In Search of Jirí Menzel
• The Guinea Pig
• L’important c’est d’aimer
• Ragtime
• Toto the Hero

Paul Thomas Anderson: Masterworks by Adam Nayman (Abrams & Chronicle Books) reviewed by Tom Charity

Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock by Christina Lane (Chicago Review Press) reviewed by Pamela Hutchinson

• Tenet, Memento and Christopher Nolan’s lost lessons in clarity
• Myths of Charles Lindbergh
• Linda Manz’s forgotten turn in Joseph’s Daughter (Mir reicht’s ich steig aus)
• Unmentioned oddities on Eureka’s latest Buster Keaton Blu-ray box set
• Diversity in British-set European horrors of the 1960s

However clumsy the horror classic’s coda might appear today, it’s hard to believe Alfred Hitchcock didn’t have his tongue in his cheek all along. By Anne Billson.