Janelle Monáe Closes Out ‘Spooky Season’ in the Criterion Closet

“I’m Janelle Monáe. And we are in spooky season. And to be in this iconic closet is a nightmare come true. Or is it a scream come true? Hmm.”

So begins Monáe’s enterprise into the Criterion Closet. Shot and launched forward of Halloween, the actress and singer stayed on theme, carrying principally black and conserving her alternatives to the frightful, dystopian, and surreal. First on her checklist was the 1958 model of “The Blob” starring a younger Steve McQueen as he tries to guard his hometown from a gelatinous alien life-form that sucks up every part in its path.

“So this deals with, like, a whole town of teens that are trying to warn the community, like, ‘this alien-like blob is taking over, and it’s basically gonna consume all of us, so beware.’ So it’s super campy,” Monáe stated in describing the movie. “All the actors and everybody involved, they were imagining this. Like, it was them that sold it. Because the blob itself wasn’t that scary, but it was how they reacted to the blob that made it scary.”

Deciding on a distinct form of scary film, Monáe went on to debate David Lynch’s debut function, “Eraserhead,” and the way the confusion round the movie provides to its mystique.

“I remember watching this and getting to the end and being like, ‘I have no idea what the fuck this film is about, but I love it.’ It’s so bold,” stated Monáe. “It’s surreal, it’s fantasy, it’s…You’re in a dream state. It feels like you’re probably on five different drugs at the same time. Like, I don’t know what David Lynch was thinking about when he wrote it. I heard an interview with him that he doesn’t even remember writing it. If you’re a lover of horror and you’re looking for a new language, this is going to give you your new language.”

After choosing up Michael Radford’s adaptation of George Orwell’s “1984” and discussing it alongside different futuristic sci-fi like Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis,” Monáe additionally in contrast the movie with Terry Gilliam’s equally dystopian “Brazil.”

“I think they use a different tone to talk about it. Like, humor is used in this,” Monáe stated of how “Brazil” and “1984” examine. “How it’s shot, the zoom-in shots, the color palette, everything about ‘Brazil’, to me, just represents creativity at its finest. And it has something to say. And you’re rooting for the protagonist the whole time.”

Monáe’s ultimate seize was George A. Romero’s 1968 spooky traditional, the authentic “Night of the Living Dead.” In describing it, she known as it “one of the most iconic horror films of its time and even now” and went on to state that it wouldn’t be Halloween with out a viewing of the movie.

Watch Monáe’s full Criterion Closet video beneath.