The horror genre occupies the current Hollywood spotlight, and we have YouTube to thank for a bevy of high-grossing indie films directed by popular YouTubers. The runaway success of these box office darlings has industry insiders questioning if this crew represents a new filmmaking era or if it’s a passing phase.

Pipeline from YouTube-to-horror filmmaker
The recently released “Backrooms” is “part of a growing wave of breakout films from fledgling directors” who “honed their instincts on YouTube” rather than “inside the Hollywood ecosystem,” said The New York Times. Kane Parsons (pictured above, third from left), a 20-year-old first-time director, signed a deal with distributor A24 to make the film when he was 17. 

The “YouTuber-to-filmmaker boomlet” began in January when YouTube creator Mark Fischbach, known as Markiplier by his fans, self-distributed his horror movie “Iron Lung,” said The New York Times. Though it only cost $3 million to make, it “took in $50 million” in the end. 

The run of successful YouTube horror directors continued with “Obsession,” a $750,000-budget horror movie directed by Curry Barker. Both Barker’s film and “Backrooms” have surpassed $200 million in earnings each. The YouTube generation has “finally come of age,” said James Wan, a horror filmmaker and “Backrooms” co-producer, to Variety. 

Wins with a grain of salt
All three movies are horror films, the genre that has “long been the most forgiving for first-time filmmakers, in part because horror is relatively cheap to produce,” said the Times. The real shift will come when horror “isn’t the only proof of concept.”

With so much emphasis being put on the “YouTube-to-horror movie trend” as the “next frontier of finding talented new voices,” a “difficult, uncomfortable conversation is more necessary than ever,” said Slash Film. Unless you exist as a “cisgender, heterosexual, white man,” the pipeline “doesn’t actually exist.” 

The best lesson executives could take from the success of Parsons and Barker is “not to throw a zillion dollars at more movies that look just like these two,” said movie critic Alissa Wilkinson at The New York Times. It would be to “find more creators like these two” and give them “creative freedom to explore what feels right to them.” 

Some “wellness practitioners” are peddling a new kind of detox: dabbing the poisonous secretions of an Amazonian tree frog onto your skin, with potentially life-threatening results. Last month, Kristian Trend, a 40-year-old wellness coach from the U.K., died after reportedly using kambo, the frog poison that has long been a traditional medicine among some Indigenous people. And at least six deaths worldwide have been associated with the substance.

‘Incredible but brutal’
Kambo is harvested from the defensive skin secretions of the giant monkey tree frog. In traditional Amazonian rituals, it’s “applied to superficial burns” made on the legs or arms to produce an “intense purging effect,” said Martin Williams of Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology, at The Conversation. Self-styled kambo practitioners tout a range of supposed benefits, including reduced anxiety, increased energy and relief from chronic pain.

Many users “anecdotally report positive physical, emotional and spiritual aftereffects,” said Williams. Kambo left Orlando Bloom with a “feeling of being clearer and wide open,” said the actor to GQ, describing the purge as “incredible.” But it was “pretty brutal in terms of what it does to the body in the moment.” It was “coming out both ends.”

‘Danger to health’
Using kambo can have severe health consequences. It can lead to hyperthermia and dangerously low sodium levels, inducing psychiatric effects that are “often misinterpreted by participants as ‘astral travel,’ instead of being recognized as potentially fatal conditions,” said a paper published in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science. It’s concerning that kambo is so widely available on the internet, as this could contribute to an “uncontrolled increase in fatalities,” said the study authors.

In Brazil, it’s illegal to sell or market kambo. And in Australia, where there have been two deaths after kambo rituals, it’s categorized as a “substance of such danger to health as to warrant prohibition of sale, supply and use,” said the paper. 

Indigenous healers have used these substances for hundreds of years and have been trained to do so safely for “certain specific situations,” said Roger Byard, a forensic pathologist at Australia’s Adelaide University, to The Guardian. To think we can “take one of their time-honored, cultural practices” for our own use is “absolute Western arrogance.” 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (left) and Chinese President Xi Jinping review honor guards during a welcome ceremony for the Chinese leader at the Kim Il-sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea. During the rare summit, Jinping called for deepening “strategic coordination and cooperation” between the nations.
KCNA / EPA / Shutterstock

Some dads like receiving practical gifts for Father’s Day, while others want to be surprised with a present they have never heard of or wouldn’t buy for themselves. Whatever your pop, grandfather, father-in-law or father figure prefers, there’s a gift for him on this list of fun and functional presents.

Bite Society Snack Magic
Sweet, salty, savory — each taste is represented in Bite Society’s Snack Magic gift basket. This robust kit includes deliciously crunchy Kennebec potato chips, a furikake snack mix, Bob’s Nuts Dilly peanuts and jalapeño peanuts, and a selection of cookies, chocolates and candies. Bonus: The whimsical tins and packaging feature original tattoo-themed artwork. ($155, Bite Society)

Camp Snap 2 screen-free digital camera
A screen-free digital camera is perfect for the dad who wants to cut down on their phone use “without sacrificing on capturing memories,” said CNN. The Camp Snap 2 offers a traditional point-and-shoot experience and can take 500 shots on one charge. It also comes with six built-in filters and can easily transfer images to smartphones and computers. ($70, Camp Snap)

Tinkr mini car vacuum
Messy and immaculate fathers alike will “appreciate how easy it is to clean up” with this rechargeable hand-held vacuum, said Good Housekeeping. The vacuum and its attachments — a brush nozzle and a narrow hose nozzle — come in a case compact enough to keep in the glove compartment. It’s a small device but “big on suction” and can get “crumbs, dust and other debris” from under seats, vents and cup holders. ($60, Amazon)