Eve Tushnet
(…sort of.) I’m at First Things:
Last year, Oscar-winner Parasite and box-office smash Knives Out gave audiences class warfare in a delicious genre coating. Before we could find out if any new horror flicks or mysteries would offer comparable political pleasures, COVID-19 shuttered theaters and left film fans scouring the streaming services. That’s how I found Hard Labor, a 2011 Brazilian horror film from writers/directors Marco Dutra and Juliana Rojas, which you can watch for free if your local library system subscribes to Kanopy. Hard Labor is as incisive as Parasite in its portrayal of misery, complicity, and the scramble up the lower rungs of the economic ladder; it’s funny and scary, it hints that Catholicism offers one alternative to economic Darwinism, and the most horrifying thing about it is how little its monster matters.
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