Christopher Pike fans rejoice! This week, FANGORIA broke news that Pike’s signature YA novel, Remember Me, is getting a long-awaited cinematic translation with FINAL DESTINATION BLOODLINES star Brec Bassinger in the lead role. First released in 1989, the novel focuses on a ghost who is determined to solve her own murder before the specter of death can snatch her soul away. This was the novel that got me hooked on Pike back in the day, so I’m especially excited to see it when it hits Tubi sometime in the near future.

Body horror is having a major comeback. Post THE SUBSTANCE and THE UGLY STEPSISTER’s Oscar noms, it feels like every studio wants a rebellious body part to call their own. Add Searchlight to that list. DEADLINE reported this week that the 20th Century production hub picked up a new movie project from Scream Share favorite April Wolfe (screenwriter of BLACK CHRISTMAS 2019) and director Chloe Okuno (WATCHER) about a mild-mannered hit-and-run accident victim who discovers her right hand has gone rogue and is letting its fingers do the walking towards bloody vigilante justice. By a show of hands, who’s looking forward to more movies about hands?

The rich really are different. But not so different that they can’t be the focus of two recent back-to-back horror releases: READY OR NOT 2 and THEY WILL KILL YOU. Not to mention SEND HELP, THE HUNT, INFINITY POOL, THE INVISIBLE MAN, THE INVITATION, a different movie called THE INVITATION… Let’s face it, we might not be able to literally “eat the rich,” but there’s no doubt that we like to see it on the THE MENU.

The wealth gap is real, but it can also feel impossible to overcome — to the point that you find yourself evolving into that Simpsons meme of Grandpa in the newspaper with the headline: OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD. “Getting rid of the billionaires,” or even their outsized influence on our lives, as so many politicians have promised to do, feels about as far away from everyday reality as attaining a six-pack when your drink of choice is… well, a six-pack.

Enter horror as the great equalizer, allowing economic disparity to be transformed into a supernatural monster that gets impaled on a spear and completely disintegrates (THE INVITATION 2022) or a rich Nazi who is spectacularly decapitated in mid-air (SISU). It’s class warfare that suddenly becomes entertaining rather than just depressing.

This kind of fiscal David vs Goliath story is also indulgent. Sure, we’re the pawns in capitalism’s unfair game, but at the movies, the wealth that shields the 1% that “fucks around” from “finding out” disappears because the occult has rules that apply to everyone. Your inherited stockpile of cash isn’t gonna stop the supernatural or a masked maniac. All the culture and purchased privilege is stripped away, and the upper crust crumbles to reveal their truer nature, decaying underneath the facade.

The untouchable becomes extremely touchable as we, the audience, get the catharsis we’re yearning for in the form of Jigsaw showing an insurance company CEO the error of his ways (SAW VI); tech bros having their tech used against them for once (COMPANION); and the ultrarich exploding like overfilled blood balloons when they fail (READY OR NOT).

We get an emotional revolution without the real-world ramifications. And while giant economic forces are out of our individual control (I’m looking at you, Average Price of Gas $5.88/gallon), horror films allow us to experience these fears, reclaim some needed semblance of control, and feel less like everything is kind of rigged — even if just for 90 minutes. Maybe one day the guillotine will be rolled back out in real life, but at the Cineplex, it’s showing four times a day.

Just one meme that made us laugh this week…