The Cutprice Guignol

The Ninth Year: The Haunting of Swill House

Sharp Objects S1E1: Vanish

Bit of an old trigger warning for self-harm right here, if that kind of thing bothers you.

I don’t think it’s a particularly bold statement to say that we look for ourselves in the fiction we enjoy. There’s something about seeing yourself reflected in a story that feels grounding – someone experienced something similar to something you experienced, and they found it profound and important enough to build a story around. A lot of the reason I consume so much media, and certainly the reason that I write (hello you can read about my upcoming debut novel Rape Jokes here thank you bye), is because I’m looking for bits of myself reflected in the stories other people tell and want to do that for other people when I put expose little chunks of myself to the world at large. We define ourselves with stories, the ones we tell and the ones we consume, and that’s become all the more potent in the last few years as the stories that reach mainstream media become more diverse, the topics wider than ever before.

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Does This Need Tits?: A Beginner’s Guide

We’ve all been there. You’re a TV writer/director and you need to turn in a script, but there’s a little something missing. Action? No, you’ve got that. Drama? That’s ticked off too. Dragons? I mean, yeah, probably that as well. Aha! You’ve got it. This is a TV show with women in it, and that means you need to cram in some topless scenes and jiggle some titties in the face of your audience.

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2018 So Far: A Mid-Year Review

My best, worst, and weirdest movies of the year so far!

thethreepennyguignol's avatarNo But Listen

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Zoo is the Only Thing Holding my Life Together

“Wait, there’s a serial killer in Zoo?” My significant other, raising his hand to stop me mid-flow as I talked about the show I’m working my way through at the moment, furrowed his brow. “I thought it was about animals.”

“Well, it is,” I rolled my eyes impatiently. “But the serial killer was the reason the wolves burned down that prison-“

And that’s when I realized I had a problem.

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TV Characters I Would Not Fight

First off, my apologies for the lack of posting the last few weeks: work has been batshit busy, I’ve been travelling a lot, and it’s summer and hot and lovely so I want to be outside sipping on iced soy vanilla lattes and not glaring at Stephen King’s debut novel lately. But this month things are much chiller, and I’m hoping to finish up both the Carrie recaps and the Best Episodes Ever series, so stay tuned for that!

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The Oceans 8: Ranked

Aggressively stanning for Sarah Paulson on a whole other blog

thethreepennyguignol's avatarNo But Listen

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Batman Cinematic Universe Retrospective: Batman (1943)

Join us for our new retrospective: every single Batman cinematic release! We’re kicking off with the 1943 serial, or Racism: Gotham Edition.

thethreepennyguignol's avatarNo But Listen

Throughout my series of articles on the movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe a little voice in the back of my mind kept whispering “find a reason to write about Batman”. Batman has been my go-to superhero since I was four or five years old when I began watching the still brilliant Batman: The Animated Series – the only cartoon show of the 90s that is as good as The Simpsons – with my equally-obsessed brother. The Tim Burton movies followed quickly after, solidifying my love of the character and making it impossible for any other superhero to match up.

Which means that these articles will have a more personal touch than the MCU ones, as none of those films contributed to my pop culture education in my formative years, as I analyze the many celluloid versions of The Caped Crusader and how these movies contributed to the Batman legacy…

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Carrie Recaps: Part Nineteen

Sorry for the break between chapters (a refrain so well-repeated you must know it by heart by now). I’ve been travelling a lot, and work has been piling up, and sometimes I just want to sit and play old LucasArts games from the late nineties instead of grinding away at another chapter of this book, you know? Anyway. Of interest: I read the new Stephen King book, The Outsider, and it was yet another example of his recent work that starts really strongly before fading to meh by the end of the third act. That said, it did feature a really strong female character (lifted from a totally seperate trilogy, mind you, which annoyed me in it’s own right) who was never referred to by her titties, so…progress?

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The Stages of the England Fan

Well, it’s the World Cup – and I know many of you are probably seething with infuriation at having to even think about it for a split second, but I love football and I love the World Cup. What I don’t love about the World Cup? The fucking England squad.

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