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Nostalgia is not a new phenomenon in the horror world, and it's not going away anytime soon. Whether we're talking about the genre's ongoing love affair with '80s throwbacks or the increasing number offilms influenced by the '90s, it's easy to see why the appeal of going retro with scary stories has such a grip on us, and I'm not just talking about using the past to erase the plot inconvenience of cell phones. For the right audience, that little warm ache that comes with nostalgia calls to mind a time in our lives when we were perhaps more innocent, more vulnerable, even easier to scare. Put us in that frame of mind, then hit us with the horror, and you've got a recipe for midnight movies that are both spooky and warm and fuzzy.

But there's more to nostalgia in horror than just using the right needle drops and wardrobe choices to pull us back into another time and place. When it's properly wielded, it's not just a charming piece of the background or a way to riff on a classic plot. In the right hands, nostalgia becomes a powerful tool for examination, picking apart not just the horror storytelling of the era in which the story is set, but our own preconceptions about that era. A good nostalgic horror film reminds us of what came before and makes us question it, while also questioning where we are now, as horror fans and as moviegoers.

We're living in a golden age of good nostalgia horror at the moment, whether we're talking about the genre mash-ups of the Fear Street trilogy or the meta deep dive of The Final Girls, but if you're looking for films that scratch that nostalgia itch while also sending a particularly icy chill down your spine, I've got a new double feature for you. It begins in the 1980s with Censor, then leaps into the 1990s with The Last Matinee, both films arriving in front of American audiences this year, and both films that pack serious style, stakes, and narrative smarts into their respective brands of retro horror.

So, what makes them effective? For one thing, both films have their own very specific perspective on the horror viewing experience. Directed by Prano Bailey-Bond, Censor takes place in the United Kingdom amid the video nasty panic (when censors were cutting apart and banning gory horror films left and right) of the 1980s, and follows a particular effective film censor (played with icy fire by Niamh Algar) as she begins to unravel after an unsettling recent viewing experience rekindles past traumas. The Last Matinee, directed by Maxi Contenti, moves its action from censor screening rooms and dingy video stores to a fading movie palace in Uruguay in the early 1990s, and follows a small group of characters as they watch (or talk through, as the case may be) a horror film even as they're living out one of their own, thanks to a hooded killer in their midst.

It might seem a small thing, but the attention to detail pulsing through both Bailey-Bond and Contenti's films means that by setting their respective stories in settings directly tied to the act of watching a horror movie, they've invited us to interrogate our own past horror experiences. For me, Censor called to mind not just what it was like to comb my local video store as a teenager, searching for the most gruesome slasher film on the shelves, but what it was like to take that movie home and slide it past disapproving parents. The Last Matinee took me not just to the cool darkness of movie theaters, but to very specific theatrical experiences in rundown auditoriums where the audience was either glued to the screen or completely disinterested in the film itself. If you've ever watched a movie in a theater with only a half dozen other people and felt like you could sense the conflicting energies of every single one of them, then you know the kind of atmosphere this film evokes.

But of course, these are just the setups, the laying of the table for the meal to come, and in both Censor and The Last Matinee, the meal comes with style to spare. Like its title character, Censor spends much of its runtime in reserved, patient contemplation, slowly sliding pieces into place with the practiced, deft hands of a horror scholar building out a thesis not just on the rise of splatter films in '80s horror, but on the prudish response to it. It's a restraint so delicate that you know it can only hold on for so long before it unleashes, and when Censor finally lets it all go, it's devastating. The Last Matinee, on the other hand, goes full-tilt operatic almost right away. There's a reason you can see Dario Argento posters in background shots. This is an homage not just to the most stylish slashers of the 1980s, but to the most brutal giallo films of the 1970s. There are gore shots in this film, which I wouldn't dare spoil here, beautiful enough to make Argento himself weep.

There's a third key ingredient to each of these films, though, that pushes them out beyond stories that simply evoke an effective rush of nostalgia, and that's a thematic resonance that makes the retro appeal linger beyond the style and setting.

Censor is about the ways in which one woman begins to come undone after her job gets under her skin, yes, but it's also about our relationship to screen violence, both individually and in a broader, cultural sense. It's an exploration not just of the video nasty panic's skewed sense of morality and reason, but of our own existential fears about what effective art might do to us, that voice lurking in the back of our minds going "What if our parents were right and this really will mess us up?"

The Last Matinee's own thematic concerns are perhaps a bit more ambiguous, though that feels more like a product of deliberate filmmaking than a missed opportunity. It's hard to dig too deep into what that means without spoiling the whole film for you, but by its very nature making a horror movie about someone who murders people while they watch a horror movie opens up some very interesting doors in terms of our relationship to scary stories and the voyeuristic aspect of violence on a screen.

Censor and The Last Matinee are, in many ways, very different films, beholden to different kinds of nostalgic aesthetics and concerns, but in the end, they both had the same effect on me because they are both, in some form, about the transgressive nature of the horror genre. Each reminded me what it felt like to be a young horror fan, searching for the limits of my local video store, whispering to my friends about how far these films might take me into realms that the adults in my life might not want me to go. With a couple of decades of scary movies under my belt now, that's a hard feeling to recapture, but the part of me that still relishes the idea of existing in an outsider fandom still chases it, and these films gave it back to me, each in their own way.

Censor is now available on VOD. The Last Matinee arrives on VOD on Aug. 24.

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'The Last Matinee,' 'Censor,' and the power of retro horror done right - SYFY WIRE

Its an attack on the teaching of Black history, womens history, and history around being impoverished in this country anything that will challenge the current status quo.

Dr. Karsonya Wise Whitehead, associate professor of women and gender studies at Loyola University and president of the National Womens Studies Association

In late 2020, the Idaho Freedom Foundation released two reports condemning college administrators and faculty at the University of Idaho and Boise State for promoting social justice ideology in higher education.

Using red, yellow and green color-coding, the reports labeled academic departments as indoctrination majors, social justice in training majors, and the foundations preferred professional majors depending on how much they emphasized social justice. The list of indoctrination majors included womens, gender and sexuality studies (WGSS), Africana Studies and Latin American Studies.

Not long after, Idaho enacted a ban on teaching critical race theory (CRT) in public schools and universities in the state.

CRT is a legal framework developed in the 1970s and 1980s to examine the ongoing effects of slavery and how racism has shaped U.S. laws and institutions. But Idaho lawmakers used the phrase to refer to discussions of racism, sexism and social justice issues in the classroom. After the Idaho legislature passed the ban on CRT, the lieutenant governor created a task force to review university programs and faculty syllabi for banned content.

Its a pretty intimidating environment for teaching, said Leontina Hormel, a sociology professor and former director of the WGSS program at the University of Idaho. Theyve really created a hostile environment for open thinking.

The current WGSS co-director and English professor Alexandra Teague told Ms., Ive heard a lot of conversations among faculty who are concerned about whether there will be ramifications for their teaching or whether they need to rethink what classes are titled in order to reduce scrutiny on them.

The Idaho ban is part of a conservative wave of bans on discussing social justice issues in American schools and workplaces.

Shortly after condemning CRT on Twitter in September of 2020, Donald Trump signed an executive order prohibiting diversity and inclusion training for federal workers and contractors.

NAACP Legal Defense Fund challenged the equity gag order, describing it as having a chilling effect on free speech and the dissemination of truthful information about systemic and structural inequalities, which undermines workplace equality for people of color, women, and LGBTQ individuals.

On his first day in office, Biden revoked Trumps order, but U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) have introduced in Congress a billcalled the END CRT Actto reinstate the ban.

Meanwhile, conservative states are banning CRT in public schools and universities. In the first six months of 2021, 26 states have tried to limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism in their classrooms, according to an Education Week analysis. These bills often use the exact language of the Trump executive order.

Nine states so far have enacted these bans. Rhode Island, for example, banned teaching of divisive concepts that might make students feel uncomfortable based on their race or sex, and a new Ohio law bans teaching about unconscious bias. A North Carolina law prohibits public schools from teaching Nikole Hannah-Jones 1619 Project, a New York Times series about the ongoing impact of slavery and racism on American society.

At the federal level, Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has introduced the Saving American History Act to ban federally funded schools from teaching the 1619 Project. These anti-CRT laws restrict how educators can teach social justice issues.

According to Media Matters, Fox News mentioned the phrase critical race theory nearly 1,300 times between February and May of 2021. This coverage characterized CRT as an unpatriotic and divisive form of indoctrination that perpetuates racism against white people.

Smith College professor Loretta Ross argues that while conservative commentators and lawmakers bemoan cancel culture and the supposed liberal threats to free speech on campus, they are at the same time trying to shut down discussions about inequality and injustice in American society.

The Republicans falsely claim that the purpose of critical race theory is to teach people of color to hate white people. They believe that white people are the real victims of reverse racism, said Ross. The attack on critical race theory says we should only teach patriotic education. In other words, only white history should be taught.

Dr. Karsonya Wise Whitehead, associate professor of WGSS at Loyola University and president of the National Womens Studies Association, says CRT has become a catchphrase for any discussion of how race, class and gender function in society.

I think people confuse critical race theory with culturally responsive teaching. Both of them are CRTs, said Whitehead.

A lot of teachers are being penalizedlosing their jobs or experiencing other punitive action for these types of dialogues, said Jalaya Liles-Dunn, director of learning for justice at the Southern Poverty Law Center. The center has received multiple reports of teachers punished for teaching their students about racial injustice, says Liles-Dunn.

Even before the Florida State Board of Education banned critical race theory in public schools state officials were scrutinizing teachers who addressed race in their classrooms. In May, the Florida Department of Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran fired Duval County teacher Any Donofrio for discussing Black Lives Matter in her classes. In early June, the Sullivan County Board of Education in Florida voted to dismiss social studies teacher Matthew Hawn after he led a class discussion on white privilege.

This is censorship, said Liles-Dunn. Its no different than any other dictatorship that is trying to censor a population from knowing the truth so that they can maintain power.

While some anti-CRT laws apply only to K-12 schools, several apply to public universities as well, including in Idaho, Oklahoma and Iowa. In Oklahoma, after politicians passed a law in May banning teachers from making students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex, Oklahoma City Community College canceled Professor Melissa Smiths fully-enrolled course on race and ethnicity because of concerns the class ran afoul of the law.

Our history of the United States is uncomfortable and it should make us uncomfortable and we should grow from that, Smith told the Washington Post. And I tell my kids all the time, get comfortable being uncomfortable. And if I dont make you uncomfortable in class, then Im not doing my job.

Whitehead is concerned about the impact of anti-CRT laws on the ability of educators to teach students to think critically about the world.

This attack on critical race theory has gone beyond a black and white issue with the law. They brought gender into this, and now they are also bringing in poverty, said Whitehead. Its really an attack on the teaching of Black history, womens history, and history around being impoverished in this country. They dont want us to critically engage with anything that will challenge the current status quo.

Another impact of anti-CRT laws is they can further encourage harassment experienced by faculty who teach racial and gender justice courses.

I have two people who stalk my email, said Professor Katie Blevins, a WGSS co-director at the University of Idaho. I have never met these people. They send me deeply disturbing messages a couple of times a weekyou know, incredibly graphic emails. Its disconcerting as a junior female faculty member.

Whitehead worries that anti-CRT laws will negatively impact WGSS departments, where teaching about racial and gender justice is central to the curriculum.

It is a concern because we talk about the way in which women are abused in this countryphysically abused, emotionally and mentally abused, financially abused, said Whitehead. We talk about the wage gap and the subservient position of women.

Many WGSS programs teach the work of Kimberl Crenshaw, a founder of critical race theory who also coined the term intersectionality for analyzing how race and gender intersect in the lives of Black women. Laws banning CRT could put WGSS faculty and programs in the crosshairs of government officials seeking to enforce them, says Whitehead.

CRT-bans in K-12 schools have prompted teacher protests across the nation. The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association have pledged to resist the bans. They passed several measures that explicitly support the use of CRT in curricula, and allocated tens of thousands of dollars to those efforts.

Culture warriors are labeling any discussion of race, racism or discrimination as CRT to try to make it toxic. They are bullying teachers and trying to stop us from teaching students accurate history, said American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten. The backlash [to teaching about race] that you see in these radicalized circles is going to hurt kids.

The African American Policy Forum, BLM at Schools and Zinn Education Project has issued a national call to educators to hold eventsAugust 26-28th to pledge to teach the truth. They have developed a toolkit and are organizing to prepare educators in the impacted states for civil disobedience on October 14thGeorge Floyds Birthday.

University professors are also speaking out against laws limiting discussions of racism and sexism, arguing that these laws infringe academic freedom and open inquiry on university campuses. In June, over 135 scholarly associations issued a joint statement condemning state laws that seek to substitute political mandates for the considered judgment of professional educators, hindering students ability to learn and engage in critical thinking.

Despite efforts to shut down discussions of racism and sexism, Teague says students are more eager than ever to have these discussions.

The students Ive talked to are the most impassioned about the value of having very open discussions, about the value of critical thinking, about the value of the humanities, said Teague. At the end of the semester, her students told her how much it mattered to them to hear voices that were not like their own, how much they were learning about themselves and others, and how crucial that was in a world that so often gets reduced to sound-bite thinking and binaries.

Just at the point when confederate monuments are finally coming down, conservative politicians are trying to erect barriers to students learning accurate and inclusive history of the United States to the detriment of young people, says Liles-Dunn. Education should not be the battlefield for political issues and political agendas. We are using our most vulnerable and our most precious as bait in this fight and its not okay.

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Critical Race Theory Bans Target Feminist Professors: "This Is Censorship" - Ms. Magazine

YouTube is once again curbing free speech, this time censoring Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., for disagreeing with the government. Paul posted a video about masks that contradicted current CDC guidance, and as punishment, YouTube removed the video and banned Paul from uploading content for seven days.

Paul originally posted a video of a journalist interviewing him, which included a discussion about the science of masking.

Apparently, because I dared to contradict Dr. Fauci and the government, YouTube has removed my video, Paul said in a response video, which the Big Tech company also removed. YouTube might be a private entity, but theyre acting like an arm of the government censoring those who provide an alternative view to the science deniers in Washington people like Dr. Fauci, who have lied to the American people time and time again about masks.

The offensive content in the video was Pauls claim that N-95 masks are effective but cloth masks are not.

Most of the masks you get over the counter dont work, they dont prevent infection, Paul said. Saying cloth masks work when they dont actually risks lives, as someone may choose to care for a loved one with COVID while only wearing a cloth mask. This is not only bad advice but also potentially deadly information.

Paul said the health experts at the CDC have been ignoring key studies on the efficacy of surgical masks.

A Danish study of 6,000 participants found that wearing a surgical mask did not significantly reduce a persons risk of COVID-19 infection compared to the risks facing those who did not wear masks, Paul said. A Vietnamese study of 1,600 participants found that cloth masks allow for 97 percent penetration of particles the same size as the virus. This study also found that cloth mask wearers had a higher rate of infection than the control group who wore no masks.

Paul said hes always supported N-95 masks because they are more protective, which is why health care workers in contact with COVID-19 wear them instead of cloth coverings.

Dr. Fauci knew that too, which is why he originally lied to the public and said that the masks dont work. He feared not enough health workers would be able to buy N-95 masks if the public was buying them, Paul said. Ask any doctor or nurse what mask they wear when they go into a COVID patients room: only an N-95 mask, because the other masks dont work.

A YouTube spokesperson told The Federalist that Paul has been issued a first strike for his comments on masks.

We removed content from Senator Pauls channel for including claims that masks are ineffective in preventing the contraction or transmission of COVID-19, in accordance with our COVID-19 medical misinformation policies, the spokesperson said. This resulted in a first strike on the channel, which means it cant upload content for a week, per our longstanding three strikes policy. We apply our policies consistently across the platform, regardless of speaker or political views, and we make exceptions for videos that have additional context such as countervailing views from local health authorities.

Although Paul said private companies have a right to ban him, he thinks YouTubes censorship is dangerous.

As a libertarian-leaning senator, I think private companies have the right to ban me if they want to, but I think it is really anti-free speech, anti-progress of science, which involves skepticism and argumentation to arrive at the truth, Paul said. I will try to channel my anger, not in breaking these companies up but by publicly expressing my disagreement with them and publicly promoting other channels that offer free-speech alternatives.

Maggie Hroncich is an intern at The Federalist and a student at Hillsdale College.

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YouTube Censors If You Disagree With The CDC, Even If You're A Senator - The Federalist

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WASHINGTON, July 23, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- YouTube has restored a video interview conducted by Family Research Council President Tony Perkins that was removed by the Big Tech giant on Monday for "medical misinformation." The video was restored three days after YouTube rejected an appeal filed by FRC over the video's removal and one day after the press was notified of YouTube's actions.

In the video, Mary Holland, president and general counsel of Children's Health Defense, was interviewed about her organization's lawsuit against Washington, D.C. over the city's new law authorizing schools to administer vaccines to children eleven years of age and older without parental knowledge or consent. In the interview, Holland warned of the dangers of removing parental protections from medical decisions involving children. The interview was within the context of the COVID-19 vaccines but contained no medical information or medical advice.

The interview aired July 16 on Washington Watch with Tony Perkins, a program that broadcasts on nearly 800 Christian radio stations as well as Christian TV. On July 19, YouTube removed the interview from its platform. This was four days after the White House announced publicly that they would be flagging "disinformation" for Big Tech.FRC promptly appealed the YouTube decision the same day. The appeal was rejected by the Big Tech giant the next day, on July 20. It was restored after FRC issued a press statement on July 22, reporting on the video's removal.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released the following statement:

"We are glad to see our video restored on YouTube but recognize that there are many conservatives who are quietly being censored and do not have an adequate recourse to get the heavy hand of Big Tech giants like YouTube to budge. If it was not FRC with a nationwide platform on nearly 800 radio stations and tens of thousands of engaged Christians reading our daily communications would YouTube have admitted their error?It seems like Big Tech's default setting is to shut up conservatives, requiring them to jump through hoops and file appeals in order to speak on issues from a perspective different from that of the Left. This should not be. Conservatives should not have to get media attention in order to be heard. YouTube is failing to live up to its stated mission 'to give everyone a voice and show them the world.'

"We should also be greatly troubled by Big Government's effort to team up with Big Tech to 'flag problematic posts' that, in their eyes, 'spread disinformation.' We are witnessing an intensified attack on our First Amendment freedoms as Big Tech yields itself to the strings of Big Government, which wants to silence dissent.Big Tech should not become a puppet of Big Government doing the dirty work for them. We know that Big Tech has yielded to the demands of tyrannical governments elsewhere. Americans need to wake up and realize that the Biden administration, like totalitarian governments in China, Russia, and elsewhere, are using COVID to restrict the fundamental freedoms of the citizens, and it will not stop here," concluded Perkins.

To watch the now-restored Washington Watch interview with Mary Holland on YouTube, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4snr7LISh8.

To watch the interview on Rumble, visit: https://rumble.com/vk1qj9-mary-holland-warns-of-the-dangers-of-removing-parental-protections-from-chi.html.

To read the transcript of the interview, visit: https://frcblog.com/2021/07/mary-holland-dangers-removing-parental-protections-childrens-medical-decisions/.

To watch more interviews on Washington Watch, visit: tonyperkins.com.

SOURCE Family Research Council

http://www.frc.org

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YouTube Backtracks on Censorship of FRC Interview on Whether Schools Should Vaccinate Children Without Parental Knowledge or Consent - PRNewswire