Ghosts of Gotham

10.10.24

I first went to Manhattan in the late 70s.  It gave big SERPICO vibes.  It wasn’t scary, exactly, but it had its intimidating side.

Was it a setting for horror?  I mean, shouldn’t it have been?  Is there a city with more shadows, anywhere?

And yet there’s not a ton of horror films that dwell on the Big Apple.  The best is probably ROSEMARY’S BABY, but maybe that movie is actually focused on turning NYC into the unnerving Eastern European cities from Roman Polanski’s past. 

What about JACOB’S LADDER?  CLOVERFIELD?  Hey, they’re effective, but they also feel like they could happen anywhere.

But the real gift that NYC has given to the movies is noir.  You can tell because the setting becomes the title character again and again.  NIGHT AND THE CITY.  SCARLET STREET.  PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET.  WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS.  THE NAKED CITY.  THE ASPHALT JUNGLE. 

My belief is that noir emerges as a response to WWII PTSD.  Millions of folks went overseas and saw (and sometimes did) things that haunted them to their core.  Then they came home and those shadows followed them everywhere. 

AGENT STOKER has always worn its affection for noir on its sleeve.  But we haven’t done much with the idea of literal mean streets down which a man must walk.  Season One started in rural Iowa, flew to the woods of Oregon, and then moved across the southern US till ending up at Cape Canaveral. Season Two touched base on all seven continents of the world.

All that changes next week. Season 3 irises down in serious fashion  It opens in Staten Island and then spirals into dark corners of every borough in the city. Some of them are famous locations, others are places that longtime NYC residents may never have visited.

If you’ve listened to the Season 3 trailer, you already know what some of those locations are. And if you haven’t, what are you waiting for? The countdown to the apocalypse is speeding up, and it might all end somewhere in the greatest city in the world!

See you next week – Brian