Thanksgiving Horror 2024: Black Friday Edition

 

In recent years (see here and here) I've made a tradition of watching Thanksgiving horror movies around US Thanksgiving. As with other holiday horror, this is a fun way to process my complex thoughts and feelings about this horrific, delicious holiday. And this year I discovered a film about that most uniquely American of holidays, Black Friday, in which we trample each other to buy stuff we don't need immediately after a holiday about giving thanks for what we already have.

I'll start and end with the movies I watched for the first time with a nice leftover sandwich of movies I've watched in the past. And for some reason, lighting in the films seems to be on my mind lately. Go figure.

I should acknowledge that today is also Native American Heritage Day, which in a peak American contrast, is always also the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Random Thoughts, Part 25: Mysticism, Paranormal Politics, Grief, Technology, Driving Too Fast, Plato, Non-Ironic Mullets, and Iron Maiden

Dear reader, the last month has been ... a lot. I lost two friends in October, and then there was the US election (I wrote about the election and Plato beforehand, and post-election thoughts may be coming soon). I admit I've had trouble finding the energy and time to do much with the blog lately (although I keep reminding myself that my tenth blog-aversary is coming next month!). Part of my blog-based reticence has been dealing with the aforementioned events. Some of it is that I've just been busy: there was Halloween, the election, and then in the last week, my Horror and Philosophy students had their film festival showcasing their short philosophical horror films (which were great!), and then the next day I went with a friend to Charlotte, NC to see Iron Maiden in concert for the first time since 2010 (see below for more on that experience!). One might say that I've been living a random life. Which of course calls for more random thoughts! And memes!