Doing my best to stay spooky this month, so I’ve watched 2 horror movies in the last two days! Well, one and a half horror movies.

Let’s start with Spirit Halloween. I couldn’t resist the premise, which is that complications ensue when some kids get locked in a Spirit Halloween overnight. And then I saw Christopher Lloyd and Marla Gibbs both being creepy as hell! This could be good!

And yet, it wasn’t. The movie focuses on the kids, who are…let’s just say not as interesting as the old folks. And the whole thing was pretty devoid of either scares or laughs, and you’ve gotta have one or the other in a movie like this.

Ultimately I turned it off halfway through because, unlike so many horror movies, this one felt like it was made with no love. One of the reasons I love horror movies so much is that the folks who make them so often have a deep love for the genre, and the love shines through even when budget constraints or lack of skill get in the way of a really good movie.

Here, though, it’s all really professional to the point of feeling cynical. We’ve got some kids on bikes for that Stranger Things vibe (the main kid here even bears a strong resemblance to the main Stranger Things kid), we’ve got a brand-name tie in, (Which prevents any interesting exploration of the cause of the abandoned storefronts where Spirit Halloween makes its home) and we’ve got some kind of scare-free supernatural happenings with an incoherent explanation. Ultimately a waste of Christopher Lloyd, Marla Gibbs, Rachel Leigh Cook, and 45 minutes of my time.

But surely you can’t go wrong with a Hammer Dracula movie starring Christopher Lee! O, would that it were so! Dracula Has Risen From the Grave does have Lee and a couple of really great images (why are Dracula’s blooshot eyes so creepy? I don’t know! Also him whipping the hell out of the horses is genuinely disturbing), but overall it spends wayyyy to much time with the anodyne young lovers. I realized that apart from the tempera paint blood and the cleavage (only the barmaid gets to show any in this movie so it’s clearly before Hammer fully figured out their brand), what a Hammer Dracula movie needs to succeed is a worthy antagonist for Dracula. That’s where Peter Cushing comes in, except he doesn’t in this movie. So instead of Van Helsing’s steely obsessiveness, we’ve just got some horny young people, and a subplot about how fighting vampires can cure you of atheism.

I watched it all, but if you’re making your way through the Hammer Dracula movies, this one is VERY skippable. It’s on MAX along with Horror of Dracula and Dracula A.D. 1972, both of which are superior to this. (A.D. 1972 also features a great party scene where a San Francisco roots/psychedelic band is inexplicably playing at a posh party in England!)

#review #movie #horror

Watched two really good works of fantasy media within the last week. One was Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. This, as many others have said, was a fun, funny, rollicking adventure movie with a great “found family” theme and wonderful performances top to bottom. (Hugh Grant is an especially delicious craven villain) You do not have to know anything about D&D to have a fun time watching this movie, but if you do know something about D&D, it will only add to the fun. Unless you’re one of those killjoys who would point out that this two-hour movie would probably take months to run as a D&D campaign because of how incredibly much combat slows down the game. But I digress.

Fun adventure movies are few and far between. Pixar always wants you to cry, and Marvel somehow got a sense that they’re Important, and so the idea that you can have a good time at the movies watching a bunch of folks do something difficult and heroic seems to have gotten lost. I’m glad this movie found it.

On TV, I watched a really good fantasy show. Karen Pirie (on Britbox) doesn’t have magic or wizards or Owlbears, but it does feature a familiar fantasy trope: the incredibly competent cop who will stop at nothing to solve a case, even if it means taking on the entire power structure of the city.

If you can suspend your disbelief and remind yourself that this is only a fantasy, you’ll have a very good time with this well-acted, cleverly-plotted show. Lauren Lyle is especially winning in the title role, but there really isn’t a weak link in the cast. Of course it’s easier to turn in a good performance when you’re working from a good script, and Emer Kenny’s adaptation of Val McDermid’s novel (I was impressed enough by her 1979 to want to watch this because it was based on her writing) is really strong.

Fantasy media is fun, but it’s important to remember that if you see a guy in a robe on the street, he’s not going to be able to do any actual magic, and, similarly, you shouldn’t expect the folks in your town cosplaying dedicated, hyper-competent, deeply moral characters like Karen Pirie to actually be like that.

[Tangent: I watch a fair amount of British fantasy police shows, and everybody is DS this and DI that, and I think there’s a lot of opportunity for a “DS Nuts” joke that nobody has thus far taken advantage of. I hope British TV will get on this ASAP.]

#review #tv #movie #fantasy

This is a weird book that I think only a big-name author like McDermid could get published these days. I picked it up because Scotland and also because of my ongoing project to read and watch more mysteries that don’t center police detectives.

(This is partly due to my political problems with police forces in general, but also the police detective has just been done to death, and I can’t stand the cliches of cop fiction anymore. Oh, he’s haunted by that one case? Oh, he drinks too much because he’s seen to much? Oh, he has a daughter and struggles to be a good dad despite the aformentioned drinking and caring too much about the job? Feh. Seen it. And then seen it again. And again.)

But back to 1979. It’s about a plucky young woman who gets stuck writing dumb “women’s page” stories and kind of lucks into becoming an investigative reporter. But here’s what’s weird about the book: the structure. The first two thirds of the book center on the nuts and bolts of putting two big investigative stories together. This is pretty compelling, but it’s neither mysterious nor particularly suspenseful. The last third concerns a murder that is ultimately solved offscreen by the police for which there are only really two suspects.

In short, this is a crime novel that features a lot of crime and almost no mystery or suspense. That’s why I think it’s weird. The protagonist is winning, but I’m not sure I’ll be on board for the next one. Then again, I’m not sure I won’t be. Like I said, It’s weird. I’m still making sense of it.

#review #books

Recently watched the Netflix offerings Dear Child and The Woman in the Window. Both featured excellent performances and both, weirdly, left me feeling a little unsatisfied at the end.

Dear Child is a German six-episode series about a young woman and a young girl who escape from domestic captivity and how the mystery of who they are and what happened to them unravels. It’s well-acted top to bottom, with Nalia Schuberth turning in a fantastically creepy performance as the child, Hannah. I hope Germany treats its child stars better than we do, or else that she takes the money and leaves the profession for ten years.

The Woman in The Window is a Netflix movie starring Amy Adams as an incredibly wealthy (that house! In Manhattan, yet!) agoraphobic in yet another riff on Rear Window. Here, as in Dear Child, the performances are fantastic, especially Amy Adams, who does a really fantastic job bringing a complicated character to life. Julianne Moore and Bryan Tyree Henry (you may remember him as the highlight of Bullet Train) are great in supporting roles, and Gary Oldman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Anthony Mackie are all wasted in small roles where they’re not asked to do very much. This is especially true of Oldman, who yells three times, and Leigh, who has, I think, 2 lines. Just a weird flex to put such talented actors in roles where you don’t give them anything to show what they can do.

Both the show and the movie, though, fail to stick the landing. The twists in The Woman in the Window are pretty good, but the final twist was just kind of meh to me. I guess the big reveal felt pretty mundane compared to what came before. Masquerade was a terrible movie and No Way Out was a pretty good movie, and both of them had big reveals that made you go, “WHOA!”. That’s not the case here. My reaction was, “hm. Interesting.”

Also, fun fact: did you know that almost getting murdered can cure your agoraphobia? Apparently that’s the case! Why would a movie lie about such a thing!

Dear Child has a lot of very satisfying twists, but literally every punch in the series is telegraphed, so that when it lands, it doesn’t really land. Here’s an example that will spoil very little. One character puts a hand on another character’s hand when they’re sitting next to each other. The second character moves the first character’s hand away. Two episodes later there’s a big reveal that these two had an illicit affair. And, like, duh!

It’s like that with every twist in the show, but the most egregious (and here be veiled spoilers, so proceed carfully) is that there’s a character whose face isn’t shown at all through 5 episodes. So naturally I’m thinking, “oh, he’s a character we know from somewhere else!” Nope! Just a guy!

Anyway, both were entertaining and had five star potential and three and a half star execution.

#review #netflix #tv #movies

Who doesn’t love some gothic goodness? Spooky old houses! Repressed sexuality! Dread!

I recently watched The Haunted Palace with Vincent Price. It’s about how Vincent Price inherits a gigantic castle in Massachusetts(!) and gets possessed by the evil spirit of his ancestor who originally owned the joint!

It’s a fun time, if not as colorful as Masque of the Red Death. Kind of like a Hammer movie with less cleavage. For a fun bonus, it features a couple of guys who were on every TV show in the 1970s! (If you watch the movie, you’ll know them immediately, and look them up on IMDB trying to figure out where you know them from, then realize it could be literally any network TV program from 1970-80!). There’s a pretty big plot hole, but the end is great and it delivers the spooky atmosphere. Disappointing that Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth are mentioned but never make an appearance in the film. Whaddya got against elder gods, Roger Corman?

The Last One Left is a gothic novel by Riley Sager about a home health aide who comes to care for an old woman who may or may not have killed her parents and sister years earlier. It’s a pretty engaging read, but…well, there are many pleasures to be had from reading, and, in the mystery genre, I realize that what I really like is spending time with a cool protagonist while they try to unravel the mystery. I’m less interested in the solution.

Well, this book is all about the solution. The protagonist isn’t much of a character—just kind of an information-gathering machine. The solution is unexpected and brilliantly constructed, but…there are like five big plot twists in the last quarter of the book. After the first one, I was like, “Oh, cool!” by the fifth one I was like, “Really? Another one?” Ultimately the whole rest of the book is setting up the cleverness of the last quarter. If you like a clever solution and multiple plot twists, this is a good pick for you. If you’re like me…well, it’s still a very entertaining book. But be forewarned you may be rolling your eyes at the end.

#Review #movies #books #gothic #mystery

I was sucked in by the setup—in 1968, a teenage boy searches for his missing sister. He knows she was kidnapped, but the cops think she’s just another hippie who dropped out, so he has to find her. For the most part, the novel delivers on the premise. What kept me from loving it was that the author seems to be interested in making this a coming-of-age novel in addition to a mystery, so the search for the missing sister unfolds at a pretty slow pace as the protagonist does some teenage boy coming of age stuff that was less interesting to me than the mystery.

REFLECTIONS THAT MAY SPOIL STUFF:

For a book that takes place in the 60’s underground and, for the most part, paints cops as ineffectual at best and malicious at worst, this takes what seems to me a pretty sharp right turn (politically speaking) at the end. Trotting out the right-wing myths of people on acid thinking they can fly (I mean, I guess it might have happened at some point?) and protestors greeting returning Vietnam vets with abuse (particularly weird in this book because how do the protestors know when the bus is coming with the returning soldiers on it?) both make an appearance, and, in the end, the problem can only be solved by men with guns.

Also, it has to be said that there is not a single well-developed female character in the book. We come closest with the mom, but even she is pretty one-note in the end.

So, overall, it was entertaining. Would have been better if it were a hundred pages shorter.

#review #books

I really enjoyed this show, the rare comedy/mystery that works really well as both. The first two episodes are really funny, and the remaining ones are intermittently funny as the focus shifts from comedy to mystery.

It’s about a small town in Tasmania that is rapidly gentrifying thanks to an influx of lesbians from the mainland, one of whom is long-suffering cop Dulcie. This is a great performance from Kate Box (Good God, imagine how hard middle school was for this woman), who essentially plays the straight man (comedically speaking) to most of the rest of the cast of quirky characters, led by Madeleine Semi as foul-mouthed, horny mainland detective Eddie. It’s kind of like if Northern Exposure was about a serial killer instead of some will-they-or-won’t-they bullshit.

One of the things I really love about crime fiction and television is that it allows for exploration of social issues without didacticism (usually). Deadloch does this really well, highlighting the aforementioned gentrification as well as the mistreatment of the indigenous people and the paternalistic cruelty of wealthy white people who do philanthropy for them. And, of course, how women are mistreated by men in their personal and professional lives. The only stumble, in my opinion, is this: Dulcie sees one of her indigenous neighbors has sprayed ACAB on their garbage cans and just kind of gives it an exasperated eyeroll. For a show that clearly sets out to skewer a lot of injustices, it’s a weird blind spot. Why even bring it up only to dismiss it?

My slight political objections aside, I still give this a full-throated recommendation. It’s one of the best crime shows I’ve watched in years. I’m really hoping for a season 2, though I suspect this is a lightning in a bottle situation that won’t be repeated. Catch it on Prime.

#TV #Review #Cops #Crime

I watched all 3 episodes of House of Hammer (Not to be confused with Hammer House of Horror, which is also great) this weekend. It’s a riveting, disturbing documentary.

Of course it’s about sexual abuse, so it features survivors telling their stories in graphic detail, so if that kind of thing is going to send you spiraling for a few days, please do not watch it.

I found it gross and awful and couldn’t stop watching. I very rarely watch TV by myself, and yet after starting this and getting about 15 minutes in, I found nearly 3 hours to continue it.

So: an excellent documentary with a huge content warning for sexual assault. That’s the review. Now the reflections.

I hope that as stories like this continue to emerge, we’ll start to change our perception of the ultra rich. The Hammer dynasty (Armand, Julian, Michael, Armie. Not MC, who is, as far as I know, a decent guy) is comprised of shockingly horrible people. And I don’t think they’re alone. For one thing, becoming ultra rich seems to require a lack of empathy for other humans that is almost certainly pathological. For another, with apologies to Master P, growing up with no limits seems to break something in the human brain. In short, the people who amass huge fortunes probably have serious personality disorders, and even if those aren’t passed down genetically, growing up ultra wealthy seems to lead to people becoming awful. So maybe we can stop lionizing these folks. They are the absolute scum of the earth, which is not the kind of term I throw around lightly.

It’s impossible to adequately praise the courage of the women who came forward to detail what Armie Hammer did to them without slipping into cliche. But to survive that kind of horrible trauma only to be targeted by horrible fans? To know that the person you’re exposing has enough money to both smear you and evade consequences for pretty much anything forever? That really is a profound bravery, and ultimately, self-sacrifice. Because they face the public vilification in hopes of saving other women from enduring what they endured.

This is in no way to diminish the aforementioned incredible courage, but something I noticed was that one of the Armie Hammer survivors was the CEO of an app company (so just regular rich, not ultra rich), and was able to just take off for multi-week vacations on a whim. I firmly believe in most organizations, the more money you make, the less important you are to the day to day functioning of the place. The boss never has to find anyone to cover their shift because it doesn’t matter if they show up or not.

Circling back to the toxic fans. I think it’s incredibly important for all of us to be able to admit when we’ve been conned. Armie Hammer successfully conned people into believing he was a certain kind of person (not a monster), and people who invested so much into admiring him would rather publicly attack a rape survivor than admit they were wrong. But here’s the thing. Cons, scams, cults, whatever—they don’t just work on stupid people. They work on all of us because they use the good parts of our personalities against us. So giving people the benefit of the doubt, showing forgiveness, believing in the necessity of working for a better world—these are all good things we don’t want to lose, and as long as we have them, people will con us. Armand Hammer didn’t amass a huge fortune by conning only dumb people. He conned everyone. I pride myself on my cynicism and was succesfully conned by two different employers, each one peddling idealism they didn’t believe. I’m susceptible to being conned again for the same reason.

Also, if you’re not a sociopath, they’re hard to spot. That’s why they can do so many crimes and become super wealthy! I, like most people, consider myself a good judge of character but was completely stunned to find that someone I used to work with was credibly accused of two violent crimes. Up until I read the details of their alleged crimes, I would have told you they were a warm, friendly, and very good-hearted person. But I appear to have been wrong about that. Or, anyway, those qualities somehow coexisted with violent rage. I would like to encourage us all to have some humility about our ability to judge people and not see our inability to immediately spot horrible people as our flaw. It’s not. It's the very qualities that make us not horrible that make us fall for these people. The problem isn’t us. It’s them.

#Review #EatTheRich

#TV

I was a theater nerd in high school, and while I do love movies and recorded music, there is simply nothing better than a live performance. So on Friday, I went to the Sons of Italy hall in Watertown, Massachusetts, to enjoy a Chaotic Wrestling show. While other forms of live performance have gotten prohibitively expensive, wrestling remains blissfully affordable. My friend Greg got us tickets and really splashed out for the expensive seats: 25 bucks.

Aside: I’m kind of obsessed with the fact that pro wrestling is heir to a long tradition of popular theater reaching back at least as far as the 16th century and the Commedia Dell’Arte. No, seriously. This does not mean that I crave respectability for pro wrestling. Horror movies are starting to get respectable, and the result is that we’re being deluged with overlong, artsy “horror” movies in which nothing happens for the first hour. But I do think we should recognize that this is one of the very few forms of professional theater that is affordable to regular people. If you want to see Fat Ham at the Huntington Theatre in Boston (and I do!), it’ll cost you 55 bucks for the cheapest tickets. Whereas if you want to go to the next Chaotic Wrestling show, 15 bucks will get you in the door.

And if you do go, you’ll get three hours of high quality entertainment. You’ll get the high-flying acrobatics of Aaron “Evil Gay” O’Rourke! You’ll get the gritty toughness of Mortar! The insufferable arrogance of Ricky Smokes! The preening of Paris Van Dale! And the awe-inspiring mullet of Love Doug! Great character work and great stage combat skills. There were several moments that made me go, “holy shit!” Yes, the outcome is scripted, but the athtletic talent on display is real and often breathtaking and even more impressive for the fact that they’re trying not to hurt their opponents while appearing to beat the bejesus out of them.

I laughed, I yelled, I came home hoarse, and I really enjoyed a couple of great plot twists. (Long-time heel Chase Del Monte somehow got relegated to waterboy status, but then he rebelled and threw in the towel for his boss, costing him the match!) And then there was this: Brian “The Mecca” Johnson came out and gave a long, rambling speech (I suspect it was stretched out because Shannon Levangie’s match seemed to have been canceled at the last minute, which was covered up by having someone hit her in the back of the head with a bouquet of roses with a metal pipe concealed inside.).

Anyway, so Mecca goes on and on about how he got off on the wrong foot by disrespecting everybody, and now he has this contract saying he can have a title shot at any moment, but he’s going to “be a man” and wait for the next event in two weeks.

Later, ring announcer Rich Palladino says he’s very proud of the inclusive nature of the company and calls out the fact that there are a couple of fans “dressed how they want to dress, and we think that’s great.” (I’ve seen these folks at previous shows—they are assigned male at birth people in full makeup and fabulous dresses.) He says every month is pride month at Chaotic wrestling.

At the time, I was like, “wow, it’s like maybe not cool that he called these fans out like that, even though he was telling everybody how welcome they are.” But then, after Brad Cashew defeated Ricky Smokes in a grueling championship match, he’s making the rounds, getting high fives from fans, and he goes over to the area where those folks were sitting, and a person in a dress and long wig punches him in the face! And then hops over the barricade! It’s Mecca! In a dress! He demands his title shot then and there, and, wearing a dress and full makeup, beats the shit out of the exhausted Cashew and claims the championship belt!

Folks, it was a beautiful moment. And the fact that the whole thing was set up with the fans who were mentioned from the ring made it even better.

Oh yeah, did I mention that the performers are friendly and accessible and will happily sell you their merch?

Though I know the speech about inclusivity was part of the Mecca storyline, it was also true. There were all kinds of people in the ring and in the crowd, and everybody was welcome. And the vibe never even approached the “maybe violence is brewing” vibe you get at a lot of alcohol-drenched sporting events. It was just a great night at the theater.

If you live in Greater Boston, I highly recommend you check out a Chaotic Wrestling show. And if you don’t live here, I recommend you check out your local wrestling promotion. These aren’t giant evil corporations—they’re small DIY enterprises running mainly on a love of the art form.

#Review #Wrestling

Terrifier 2

Fun to see a straightforward slasher after decades of meta slashers, and Art the Clown is actually horrifying and David Howard Thornton's performance is fantastic. On the other hand,

TWO HOURS AND EIGHTEEN MINUTES.

Allie's death brings the movie into torture porn territory. Why is Allie tortured so extremely when every other character is dispatched comparatively quickly? Art's glee in this scene is truly unnerving, so maybe that's the only justification you need. The fact that I'm still thinking so much about this movie a day later shows that it's an exceptional slasher movie. Still,

TWO HOURS AND EIGHTEEN MINUTES.

What the fuck, people. Halloween was 91 minutes long. I guess I would be more forgiving of the bloated runtime if everything seemed essential, but there's a lot here that doesn't advance the plot or reveal character or scare us. Brooke dosing Sienna's drink is a long bit that doesn't go anywhere, all the bullshit with Dad's drawings never resolves satisfactorily, and the final battle plays out like the longest pro wrestling match ever, with both slasher and final girl apparently unkillable and also there's some bullshit with a water tank and a possibly-magic sword. Cut 30 minutes from this movie and it's a much better movie. Cut 50 minutes and it's probably an all-time great. As it stands, though, more is less.

Consecration

With so many movies suffering from bloat these days, I appreciate a movie that gets its business done in 91 minutes. Some really stunning visuals, a fun, but not mind-blowing reveal, and the always amazing Danny Huston, one of my favorite nepo babies.

Ultimately kind of forgettable, and Jena Malone's performance is pretty one-note, but I was entertained enough to stay up late to finish it.

Dead & Buried

Very entertaining twist on the living dead genre. James Farentino is not quite actor enough to pull off the last third, but Dan O'Bannon delivers another stellar horror script. Not sure why this one is so obscure. It's better than most movies of its genre and era.

Opera

Definitely second-tier Argento. I like that this one, rather than being about color, is all about batshit camera work. There are several wonderfully memorable sequences, especially when the killer is identified. The needle thing is an iconic image, but he goes to the well too many times with that. The first time, it's shocking and horrifying. The third time, it's like, oh, yeah, there are the needles again.

So I would say good for Argento fans and/or fans of directors who like to go a little overboard with camera angles and movements, but for the general public, pretty missable.

Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein

Anything you read about Universal Pictures horror usually describes these movies as an embarrassment. But, as far as I can tell, horror comedy starts here. It's enlightening to watch this and see how influential it is, but, more than that, it's funny! The bad guys play it completely straight, which is key to a good horror comedy, and Lou Costello's terrified idiot is the blueprint for every terrified idiot at the heart of all the horror comedies that came after. A fun, cozy (to me and horror weirdos like me) watch.

Influencer

Fun thrill ride anchored by Cassandra Naud's chilling performance. I saw the big twist coming at least an hour before it happened, but I didn't particularly care—still a very suspenseful, engaging and fun ride.

Unwelcome

That's it. I have officially had it with “elevated” horror. You can tell it's not “just” a horror movie because the first half is boring as fuck! And if you're going to make an “elevated” horror movie, I would like to suggest that you put a little more into the effects because strapping a basketball to Maya's abdomen was a distractingly awful pregnancy effect.

In my ongoing efforts to overcome the sunk cost fallacy, I stopped watching after 45 minutes.

#Review #Horror #Movies