Maple Syrup Massacre is an editorial series where Joe Lipsett dissects the themes, conventions and contributions of new and classic Canadian horror films. Spoilers follow…
In the first two entries of this series – on Adam MacDonald’s Backcountry and Grant Harvey’s Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning – we spent a fair amount of time talking about the Canadian relationship to wilderness.
The outdoors – whether it be woods, open plains, mountain ranges, or desert valleys – has a mythic quality in Western and horror films. For Canadians, the wilderness is a massive part of our identity: the country has a relatively small population in a massive geographical region of 9M square kilometers.
For reference, that’s 3.9 people per square kilometer, compared to the US’s 35.3. So yeah, we’re a fairly small population in a giant geographical area.
In Australia, the vast majority of the population hugs the coast in order to...
In the first two entries of this series – on Adam MacDonald’s Backcountry and Grant Harvey’s Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning – we spent a fair amount of time talking about the Canadian relationship to wilderness.
The outdoors – whether it be woods, open plains, mountain ranges, or desert valleys – has a mythic quality in Western and horror films. For Canadians, the wilderness is a massive part of our identity: the country has a relatively small population in a massive geographical region of 9M square kilometers.
For reference, that’s 3.9 people per square kilometer, compared to the US’s 35.3. So yeah, we’re a fairly small population in a giant geographical area.
In Australia, the vast majority of the population hugs the coast in order to...
- 5/17/2023
- by Joe Lipsett
- bloody-disgusting.com
If you were being pursued by a wily killer in the woods, could you survive? Don’t look for me alive, that’s for certain; at the first sign of trouble I would be tangled up in a bush, or drown in five inches of water. Let’s not even start on the deadly wildlife, chopping wood, making a fire, or the inconvenience of being slain on holidays. That last point is a bit of a sticky one for the protagonists of Rituals (1977), a Canadian spin on Deliverance that would probably pair better with Jeff Lieberman’s Just Before Dawn (1981). And if you’ve seen that intense shocker, you’ll know you’re in good company.
Released in Canada in July, a full year before the States, Rituals received some good notices but performed poorly with audiences, and was quickly forgotten. But time has a path to redemption, especially for films that deserve that reappreciation.
Released in Canada in July, a full year before the States, Rituals received some good notices but performed poorly with audiences, and was quickly forgotten. But time has a path to redemption, especially for films that deserve that reappreciation.
- 7/31/2021
- by Scott Drebit
- DailyDead
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