Peering into the Past (2024)

Movie studios have long considered the first weekend of the new year a fruitful dumping ground for abysmal horror movies hoping to carve out a profitable niche by imitating their betters. But director Thordur Palsson may well break that cycle with his new film The Damned—a slice of Victorian Era folk horror set in a remote Icelandic fishing village. Starring Australian actress Odessa Young (Assassination Nation, Mothering Sunday, Shirley), the film follows Eva, the young widowed wife of the village’s leader, who faces the choice of rescuing a group of interlopers from a shipwreck or losing more of her own men in the waters that took her husband’s life. In the aftermath of this Hobson’s choice, an unrepentant evil begins to wreak havoc on her close-knit community.

Though The Damned owes a debt to body horror classics like John Carpenter’s The Thing as well as haunted landscape movies like The Others and Picnic on Hanging Rock, Palsson infuses the film with the folklore that kept him up at night during his childhood in Iceland. What results is not only a singular horror film that could rival any A24 or Neon release, but also an impressive study of collective guilt and the cost of leadership. 

Palsson and Young sat down with The Pamphleteer to talk about recreating history, the perils of shooting in extreme environments, and crafting stories that speak to international audiences. 

✹ THE PAMPHLETEER'S YEAR IN REVIEW 2024

2024 was a big year for us at The Pamphleteer. We sent out 243 of these newsletters, exhaustively covered developments in and around the city, and did our best to deliver something compelling to you every time you opened this email. With the year behind us, let's peer a year into the past. Thanks for reading.

🚍 More Buses for Nashville The transit king himself, Mayor Freddie O’Connell, made monumental strides toward his vision of a more walkable, bikeable, and busable Nashville this year. In April, he unveiled his $6.9 billion Choose How You Move transit plan which was overwhelmingly approved by voters this November. O’Connell’s proposal includes a dedicated funding source generated by a new sales tax. He gained support from local coalitions, nonprofits, and a newly formed political action committee. 

The 15-30+ year plan also attracted some opposition along the way. Veteran anti-tax crusader, Ben Cunningham, coined the term “Freddie Two-Tax” on the hunch that O’Connell’s sales tax increase to fund his "old-fashioned” investment in buses will inevitably be followed up by a property tax hike. In August, The Committee to Stop an UnFair Tax was also formed and spearheaded by former Metro Councilmember Emily Evans.

Following the successful adoption of the transit referendum in November, the group filed a lawsuit claiming that the Mayor’s pro-transit campaign was misleading and violated the state’s IMPROVE ACT. The case is still pending, but during a hearing on December 20th, Tennessee Chancellor Anne Martin stated that their complaint has “a very limited scope.” For now, O’Connell is ready to hit the ground running in pursuit of Federally matched grants once the new sales tax kicks in this coming February.

📜 The Manifesto The frenzy over the release of Audrey Hale’s “manifesto” peaked this year after the Tennessee Star published a number of leaked documents revealing the Covenant shooter’s writings. But a lesser-known controversy was brought to light during a Tennessee Senate Health and Welfare Committee meeting this January. Andrew Thibault, co-founder of the former nonprofit Parents Against Pharmaceutical Abuse, raised questions about the efficacy of Audrey Hale’s toxicology report released by the Davidson County Medical Examiner. 

When compared to toxicology reports conducted in other, similar circumstances, Thibault claimed Hale’s sample tests were suspiciously insufficient. “I would argue that the ELISA test (ordered by Davidson County Medical Examiner Dr. Feng Li)... is the answer to a question that nobody is asking,” he told the committee. “It amounts to an employment screening.” According to Thibault, the test only detects levels for drugs of abuse and would not account for prescription pharmaceuticals, including hormone treatments and other prescribed medications. Adding to the controversy, Hale’s lab samples were set to be destroyed in April 2024, preventing any further testing.

🚔 Approach to Public Safety Divides The city of Nashville remains divided on how to approach public safety concerns and with O’Connell’s transit plan in the rearview mirror, we expect these concerns to take center stage in 2025. The Metro Council made its attitude clear last month when it voted down a contract extension with Fusus, a law enforcement surveillance technology company, citing concerns over how the technology could be weaponized by an encroaching state or federal government. Up early on the council docket in the New Year is the installation of license plate readers. Given the Fusus vote, the council may once again place its activist prerogatives above the interests of public safety. Meanwhile, MNPD remains understaffed, defunded, and ill-equipped to deal with a city whose safety demands are only increasing.

TOP STORIES

1. 🧙‍♀️ We reported on a coven of witches in Cookeville and their efforts to wrest control of the city's annual Christmas parade from a group of local churches and businesses with the help of local pariah and proprietor of the cursed Tennessee Holler, Justin Kanew. In part due to our coverage, the parade was quietly canceled. (Part 1, Part 2)
2. 🎨 To kick off the year, we released a story on then Executive Director of Metro Arts Daniel Singh and his efforts to hijack the organization for "redistributive" ends, defining an equitable organization as one that "returns land, money and narrative resources to Indigenous, African and Asian peoples within the 'cultural community.'" It's not surprising that an overt form of DEI has taken root in Metro Arts, but the brazenness of the language is still shocking. Singh resigned in May. (Read)
3. 🚌 In the months before Mayor Freddie O'Connell's magnum opus transit referendum, we published a series of interviews with two community leaders, Emily Evans and Ben Cunningham, who were critical of the plan. Nashville media was oddly disinterested in airing out concerns with the mayor's initiative and resembled Pravda more than it did the free and open press in this regard. (Part 1, Part 2)
4. 🥞 Cracker Barrel once again found itself at the center of concerns over the wokifying of great American brands after its CEO Julie Felss Masino announced sweeping changes to the Southern staple. Our in-depth look at the incentives motivating the Barrel's transformation brought to reader's attention the Human Rights Campaign's use of the Corporate Equality Index to push their gender dysphoria agenda. (Read)
5. 🪙 H.D Miller went to the Bitcoin Conference and tried to learn something about the world's oldest cryptocurrency and left with gnawing regret that he hadn't bought the world's best-performing asset and been escorted into the event on a gilded sedan chair, borne aloft by six undrafted SEC down linemen. (Read)

THINGS TO DO

View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.

📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.

🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.

👨🏻‍🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide and yearly festival guide.

TONIGHT

🪕 Green River Revue @ Station Inn, 7p, $20, Info

🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info

🎸 Kelly’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info

🎸 Open Mic @ Fox & Locke, 6:30p, Free, Info
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