Ghosts, Apparitions and Haunted Cities

A new weekly instalment of DECODER, the Il Foglio column edited by Gianluca De Angelis and dedicated to pop culture: a veritable atlas to help you find your way around this vast world through all its latest developments, whilst also inviting you to delve into the classics by immersing yourself in comics, films, series and games. In short, it’s always finding new entry points that might spark a passion or, why not, introduce you for the first time to a world you may have heard of but never explored in depth. So, once again this week, here are three recommendations, three entry points, three reference points to help point the way through this multiverse of different forms of expression.

In the world of comics, a new instalment in SaldaPress’s series devoted entirely to Universal’s cinema monsters, with this latest volume dedicated to “Il fantasma dell’opera”.  Tyler Boss’s writing and Martin Simmonds’s artwork therefore focus here on one of the great figures of the modern Gothic imagination, though they treat the Phantom not simply as ‘the monster behind the theatre’, but by showing how the true horror lies in the relationship between desire, possession and identity. Another work that reimagines well-known characters and brings them back into the spotlight through new media, further amplifying their impact and the world they inhabit.

In the world of film and television, the new Marvel series “VisionQuest” is coming to Disney+, following its premiere at the Rome Film Festival. Here we encounter a “new Vision” who, following the events of the series “WandaVision”, finds himself with no memories and in the throes of an inner conflict, his mind overrun by all the Artificial Intelligences that have ever graced the Marvel universe… including the fearsome Ultron. It is a journey of self-discovery that raises profound questions about the ‘self’, what it means to be human, and the weight of existence – and which promises to bring one of the Marvel universe’s most beloved characters back into the spotlight.

Finally, from the world of video games, this episode discusses “Silent Hill: Townfall”, the latest instalment in one of the most famous horror video game series of all time. In this iteration, the setting has shifted to Scotland, the protagonist has been replaced, and even the gameplay has evolved: it marks the first time a chapter in the series is played from a first-person perspective. Yet the game’s immersive quality and exploratory essence remain intact, offering a narrative that promises fresh thrills and profound mysteries. Well worth playing.