We’ve already covered our 2023 in book reading, so now it’s time to examine our year in Movie Watching. Insert standard disclaimers concerning the arbitrary or rationally considered nature of dates and astronomical movements in the solar system and whatnot. As with book reading, movie watching in 2023 has basically settled into a plateau after a big spike during the pandemic.
I keep track of all my movie watching on Letterboxd, so if you’re reading this and are a member, we should be friends there. One of the neat things I can get from there is fancy stats and graphs and whatnot, so let’s take a deeper dive into my 2023 in movie watching:
Overall Stats
A general look at my 2023 in movie watching:
388 Movies Watched (-1 movie from 2022)
693.9 Hours Watched (-19.1 hours from 2022)
32.3 Movies a month on average (-0.1 movies from 2022)
7.4 Movies a week on average (-0.1 movies from 2022)
The general numbers are extremely close to last year, with only the “hours watched” metric being a little more volatile (interestingly, the differential was also down significantly last year – I suspect this is due to the occasional TV series being tracked “as a movie” on Letterboxd – something that has been declining for me). The numbers are also pretty close to pre-pandemic 2019, though that was a record-breaking year at the time (immediately shattered by 2020 for obvious reasons). After a few years, this seems to be the plateau.
Breaking that down by decade:
So watching by decade is roughly similar to the past couple years, though the 20s-60s mostly saw modest declines (steeper declines for 50s and 60s). That slack was picked up by the 70s and 80s and the 2010s and 2020s. I haven’t done the 50 From 50 postmortem yet, but I suspect most of those were recent (and took away from time that would have gone towards older movies). Perhaps its time for a movie resolution for older movies again, akin to the 50 Under 50 project?
Movies by week remains relatively consistent. The only interesting pattern is that towards the end of last year, I had a few months of remarkably consistent viewing, and that seems to have carried over into the first quarter of this year. Then I went on vacation (a few times) and things got a little more choppy as the year progressed, with a general spike during the 6 Weeks of Halloween. In terms of day of the week, we’re slightly more consistent here, but the weekend still gets the bulk of watches and Tuesday (which is game night) gets the least time.
Genres, Languages, and Countries
Here we see the usual dominance of USA and English language. You can’t really see it, but the 50 From 50 project did have an impact and overall count of USA and Anglosphere is actually way down. But since that project spread watching across tons of other countries, no one country stands out. The biggest changes came from a surprising showing from Mexico and Spain, which knocked China and Japan off the chart this year.
There some minor movement on genres, with Horror jumping up into the #2 slot after a stint at #5 last year. But genre fare still seems to be high here, and I do think the 50 From 50 project had some influence here as well – a lot of those films were horror or action (but again, we’ll need to do a full postmortem to really see what the breakdown was). Also of note: Documentary drops off the list of top genres (which aligns with a decline in non-fiction book reading last year as well). I don’t know that this means anything, but it’s interesting…
A new feature on the Letterboxd stats page is Themes and Nanogenres. Fun, but not too surprising – these are mostly related to action, thriller, and horror.
Despite the USA and English language dominance, you can really see the effect of 50 From 50 here in the map, which shows probably the most coverage of any year yet. Definitely the most coverage for South America and Africa in any given year, and the funniest thing about this map is that some countries that I normally cover were not – notably Ireland and New Zealand (both were excluded from 50 From 50 due to being Anglosphere countries – doesn’t mean I couldn’t watch anything from them or anything, but I didn’t go out of my way). Even funnier is that we’re only two weeks into 2024 and I’ve already seen a movie from Ireland. Go figure.
Ratings and Other Patterns
20.6% of my watches were a 2023 release, which is actually a bit of a drop from 2022. (Funnily enough 100% of my 2024 watching so far has been 2023 releases, so I’m catching up…)
24.2% of my watches were actually rewatches, which is just slightly below 2022 numbers (a 0.2% difference) so we’re mostly on par with that.
Ratings Spread continues to be roughly bell-curve shaped and centered on a 3 star (out of 5) rating. There’s a decrease in 3 star reviews, but those got distributed in the adjacent ratings (rather than more extreme ratings). Interestingly, while I rarely give out the 1 star rating, I gave out 4 this year. That’s actually a mild decrease from 2022, but I literally sought out terrible movies in 2022 as part of a project with friends. This year I just watched some bad movies on my own. Go me.
Letterboxd has a watchlist feature where you can add movies you want to watch (or at least, not lose track of). This year saw a notable increase in both movies watched from the watchlist… but also movies added to the watchlist. As a percentage, I probably did significantly better than last year, but overall still added 23 movies to the overall list. Will 2024 finally be the year in which I make progress on the watchlist? (So far I’m at parity – 3 added, 3 watched (not the same 3))
Stars and Directors
Sylvester Stallone takes the cake this year, mostly on the back of rewatches (including smaller roles like in Guardians of the Galaxy movies and The Suicide Squad). Only two women on the list (down from 3 last year), but it’s nice to see Lin Shaye and Michelle Yeoh on the list. Two black men on the list, an actual improvement over last year, though obviously not outstanding. So not exactly diverse, but not completely generic either.
The director list is significantly less diverse, though there are far fewer outliers here (usually there’s someone with more than 4 movies, for example) and there are a few folks where I watched 3 of their movies, but they’re not on the list because it’s limited to 10. Go figure.
Highs and Lows
The appropriately titled High and Low takes highest rated this year, certainly a worthy successor to last year’s The Godfather. Best. Christmas. Ever! (one of those Hallmark Christmas imitation movies that Netflix somehow manages to convince real stars to be in…) was the lowest rated thing I watched all year, which is saying something in a year when I also watched Sharknado and They Saved Hitler’s Brain. No surprise that Barbie was the most popular movie of the year on Letterboxd. And Most Obscure was a documentary I watched for 50 from 50 about Nokia (would make for an excellent double feature with Blackberry if you were so interested).
So there you have it, 2023 was a pretty great year for movie watching, here’s to 2024!
It’s become fashionable to point to a specific date on the Gregorian calendar and call it arbitrary (and I’m certainly guilty of this), but the calendar is based on astronomical movements in the solar system. Even granting that it doesn’t perfectly capture, for example, moon cycles (not to mention other idiosyncrasies), it’s not entirely arbitrary. It’s rational and considered. Our tendency to use this specific time to take stock of our lives, where we’ve been, and where we’re headed, is perhaps a touch more arbitrary, but I dunno, it’s cold out and I’m stuck inside, so might as well do something. Given the state of the world these last few years (not to mention that 2024 is a presidential election year in the US), such examinations can get a bit depressing, but let’s focus on the positive and less-existentially terrifying aspects of life, like book reading in 2023.
I keep track of my reading at Goodreads (we should be friends there), and they have a bunch of rudimentary statistical visualization tools that give a nice overview of my reading habits over time, especially now that I’ve been logging books there for over a decade. So let’s get to it…
Graphing Books and Pages Over Time
I read 56 books in 2023, a little above last year (and my usual calendar-based goal of 52) but still a far cry from the pandemic fueled heights of 2020. It’s more or less in line with pre-pandemic reading patterns…
You can see the full list of books I read in 2023 on Goodreads. Pandemic patterns have mostly disappeared, socializing and other activities are higher than the past few years, and so on, such that earlier in the year I was actually lagging behind my usual goal. But then I got kinda hooked on a series (who happened to have a great audibook reader) and that fueled something of a resurgence.
Average book length was 347 pages, a slight uptick from last year, but basically on par with established patterns (and honestly not that far behind my record average of 356, set in 2013). I didn’t read a lot of short fiction this year (I also didn’t participate in the Hugos, which can drive shorter fiction reading), though I didn’t read a ton of massive tomes either. Overall page length is also basically on par with last year as well (again, a slight uptick).
Of course, we must acknowledge the inherent variability in page numbers, which can be very misleading. In any case, this seems like a pretty solid pace that I seem to be gravitating towards.
The extremes
The shortest story being just 26 pages is notable given the relatively high average this year, but it was basically the only short fiction I read all year (maybe one novella?). The longest story being 758 pages is the lowest since 2017, though not by much. Basically, this just speaks to me having read mostly 200-400 page books throughout the year, with only a handful of things significantly above that count. The most shelved book is Agatha Christie’s first Poirot book, a series that I read several entries in last year (and will most likely continue to explore). The lowest shelved book was something I didn’t enjoy very much, which perhaps indicates why it’s not very popular… All of these extremes are fiction, and I do seem to have had an off year on the non-fiction front.
Assorted Observations and Thoughts
I’ve been leaving off the graph of publication years because I read some Shakespeare a few years ago which has made the overall chart look awkward (a ton of whitespace), but last year’s reading was sufficiently diverse in publication year that I think it’s worth trying to crop the chart down a bit.
The X Axis is cut off to avoid copious whitespace, but the last two columns are 2023 (click the image to embiggen and see the full, uncropped image).
Of course, there’s still something of a bias towards recent releases, but the overall pattern is more consistent.
Nostromo, by Joseph Conrad was the oldest book I read in 2023. Published in 1904, it’s also the fourth oldest book I’ve read since 2010. That said, the bulk of Agatha Christie novels that I read were all in the 1920s and 1930s, and there was also some Vintage SF Month entries early in the year. Plus, a bunch of 1960s and 1970s novels creeped in, which drove a pleasing pattern to 2023’s reading in the graph above…
7 non-fiction books in 2023, a dramatic decrease from last year. I can’t think of a particular reason for this, but it’s something I should try to improve in 2024, I think…
14 books written by women in 2023, a significant decrease from last year. This isn’t something I generally try to consciously control, but it’s worth noting that at least half of those 14 were written by Agatha Christie. I suspect this number will go up in 2024, but you never know…
26 science fiction books in 2023, a bit of an uptick, mostly driven by the Expeditionary Force series by Craig Alanson, which I kinda got hooked on (and which represents a rather significant portion of my overall reading in 2023). I have mostly caught up with the series at this point, though, so it’s a bit of an outlier in 2023.
My average rating on Goodreads was a 3.9, which is a tad higher than last yea, but I will note that I tend to round up to 4 stars for the grand majority of books. A lot of those 4 ratings would be 3.5 if that option was available. Also of note: I didn’t participate in the Hugo Awards this year, and that tends to drive at least a few lower ratings…
So 2023 was yet another solid year in book reading. The only thing I think I’ll consciously change in 2024 is seeking out some more non-fiction. I’m still on the fence for participating in the Hugos, but I’ll at least be checking in on the nominees.
Anywho, stay tuned for the year in movie watching, at least one Vintage Science Fiction Month review, and the kickoff of the Kaedrin Movie Awards, starting in mid-January and culminating in the traditional top 10 in February sometime (yep, two months after most people post theirs, I know, I know).
Back in March, I made a resolution to watch 50 movies from 50 different countries this year (lots of caveats and rules for what qualifies, as enumerated in that introductory post) and about 50 weeks into the year, we have a success on our hands. Because I started in March, I’ve been playing catchup in terms of recapping qualifying movies, but I mostly caught up during the Six Weeks of Halloween. That said, this post will cover the final 9 qualifying films (and some may not be as thorough as others). As with previous movie-based projects, I will probably get to a Postmortem at some point, but it may be a while since we’re rapidly coming up on end of year posting and 2023 movie awards and whatnot. Anywho, let’s finish recapping the films that brought us to 50 from 50 success. More 50 From 50: [Intro | Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | 6WH Week 2.5 | 6WH Joko Anwar | 6WH Speed Round]
Saudi Arabia – The Book of Sun – High school senior Husam finds himself drawn to the world of filmmaking and sets about making a no-budget horror movie with the help of his friends and one supportive teacher. A coming of age story mixed into a guerrilla filmmaking plot makes for a nice combo, and while this doesn’t cater to Western audiences, it’s more interesting because of that and still quite relatable. Perhaps the human impulse towards art and being opposed by crusty old deans are more universal themes than I thought.
While not quite as low budget as the horror movie within the movie, this production makes the most of its limitations, even deploying some mixed media and animation in service of an entertaining little story. At 130 minutes, it’s a tad overlong and some of the beats are derivative and predictable, but the pacing is brisk and it never really drags. This is one of those movies that sorta languishes in the depths of Netflix’s catalogue (though, hmm, it appears it’s no longer there) and I only found it because I was scouring Letterboxd for 50 From 50 movies from unlikely countries like Saudi Arabia. It’s not perfect or anything, but I’m really glad I stumbled onto this one, and it’s one of the bigger surprises of the whole 50 from 50 exercise. **1/2
Bolivia – Sealed Cargo – A police officer whose career is on the rise gets tasked with smuggling cargo containers filled with toxic waste to Chile. He commissions an old train for the trip, but things do not go to plan as the entire population of Bolivia is seemingly aware of the cargo and assumes it’ll be dumped on their land. There’s a lot of potential avenues for drama here, maybe even political satire, but nothing quite comes together in a cohesive way and the entire endeavor drags.
It’s well shot and looks good, plenty of painterly landscapes being traversed by an old-timey train, and it touches on lots of potentially thorny themes, including duty and honor, government corruption, local resistance movements, and so on. Alas, this doesn’t really deliver on any of those promises and sometimes veers sharply in confusing directions (at one point, a policeman decides to start literally eating the neon blue, probably toxic dirt that’s being transported for no discernable reason… another scene involves one of the policeman assaulting a woman who was trying to hitch a ride on the train to escape her local problems… and so on). Points for the attempt, but it doesn’t quite get there. *1/2
Mongolia – Genghis: The Legend of the Ten – The Mongolian title for this movie is Aravt, a reference to the way Ghengis Khaan organized his troops into decimal-based units of 10, 100, 1000, etc… It translates literally to “ten families” and consisted of ten soldiers from ten different families. This movie tells the story of one Aravt tasked with finding and retrieving a doctor to help with an illness plaguing Khaan’s troops. Naturally, they find themselves facing obstacles all along the way, including an abandoned infant that needs care and an enemy force informally led by a power-hungry soldier willing to betray everyone to get his way.
This feels a lot like a Western (the baby subplot reminded me of 3 Godfathers, for instance) with integrated Mongolian culture and history (perhaps that should be phrased in the opposite way, given that this is a Mongolian production). It’s shot well, another movie with lots of beautiful landscapes, and it features some decent small-scale action that gets a little more fantastical as the film approaches its climax. It’s reasonably well executed and entertaining enough, and though it doesn’t break new ground, it is interesting to see a sorta on-the-ground, soldier level view (as opposed to focusing on Ghengis Khaan and epic battle sequences, as a lot of movies have done) of the era from a Mongolian perspective. **
Denmark – Pusher – Nicolas Winding Refn’s debut is a crime movie about a drug pusher who desperately tries to recover from a botched deal and thus finds himself deep in debt to his suppliers. Shot in a vérité style, lots of handheld camerawork and long takes following our characters from behind, it does not paint a pretty picture of drug dealing.
Most crime films at least make some attempt to show why people would be attracted to this way of life before pulling the rug out later on, and sure, the opening of this film isn’t entirely miserable, but our protagonist is clearly not doing great. Once the inciting incident occurs, he’s immediately thrust into a life or death scenario that he has little hope of escaping. The ending has a bit of ambiguity to it, but not really, and it hits pretty hard. Kim Bodnia plays the titular pusher and puts in a remarkable peformance. Mads Mikkelsen is great as usual, but has more of a supporting role (apparently he becomes the main protagonist in the sequels). It’s an impressive debut and very well made, but its the sort of film that doesn’t really appeal to me. Your mileage may vary. **1/2
Egypt – Karmouz War (aka No Surrender) – In colonial Egypt, a police captain refuses to hand over British soldiers who raped a local woman. British forces lay siege to the police station in an attempt to force the release of the prisoners. Amusingly blatant anti-colonial propaganda with larger than life Egyptian heroes and despicable British villains. At its best, it reminded me a bit of over-the-top 80s action B movies starring Chuck Norris. At its worst, it reminded me a bit of over-the-top 80s action B movies starring Chuck Norris. It’s certainly a little overheated and ridiculous at times, but it has its moments. I stumbled onto this movie because it features Scott Adkins, but as it turns out, he’s only shoehorned into about 5 minutes of the movie, and while he injects some more acrobatic action into the proceedings, it’s certainly not a typical Adkins DTV actioner. Not a movie I’d recommend, but it’s got some interesting stuff in it. **
Cambodia – The Prey – Cambodian filmmaker Jimmy Henderson made a name for himself with martial arts actioners like Jailbreak, but here he tackles yet another spin on The Most Dangerous Game. An undercover Chinese agent finds himself in a jail that sells prisoners to trophy hunters. This time, the prisoner turns the tables and the hunter becomes the hunted. Obviously a tired premise, but this is a well executed version of the story with a few minor wrinkles that make it all a worthwhile exercise. I’m definitely going to keep an eye out for future Henderson offerings. **1/2
USSR – Stalker – Based on the novel Roadside Picnic, this tells the story of three people traveling into the Zone, a place where normal laws of physics cease to operate as expected. The titular Stalker is a guide, and the others are hoping to find a specific area of the Zone that grants your most desired wishes. Widely considered a classic, it’s one of those films I find rather frustrating. It’s absolutely gorgeous. The cinematography, framing, and compositions are exceptional and deserving of all the praise the film gets.
The ideas in the story are thematically rich and thought provoking, even if this sort of blunt philosophizing can seem a bit ham fisted at times (it’s certainly a step up from dorm-room philosophizing and I’m willing to grant that something may be lost in translation). It’s certainly not surprising that a Soviet filmmaker in 1979 would be interested in exploring the philosophy of desire and the human inability to actually know their deepest wants and needs. At this point in the USSR, central planning was clearly struggling, and this movie represents a sorta morose acknowledgement that it might be impossible to accurately know our own deep-seated desires, let alone those of others (especially at a societal level).
While it’s a visually spectacular movie, it certainly takes its time, lingering on nearly every shot much longer than needed. Yes, yes, this extra time gives you the space to consider all the ideas and ponder great mysteries and so on, but I’ve always been suspicious of Andrei Tarkovsky. In Solaris, there’s an infamous sequence where a guy travels from the countryside to a city via a highway, with visuals that look more “futuristic” as he approaches the city. It’s nearly five minutes long, and while it does emphasize one of the film’s themes (juxtaposing the natural world with the man-made world), did it really need to be that long? Lots of folks will say yes, but I distinctly remember listening to the Criterion Collection commentary for that film where they explain that the “futuristic” footage of the highway was actually filmed in Tokyo (and in 1972, Tokyo was sufficiently futuristic looking for those in the USSR) and that Tarkovsky included so much of it because he had to justify the expense of his trip.
Maybe I’m overstating this, as clearly Tarkovsky likes his films to be deliberately paced, but man, you really feel that time. In fairness, Stalker is not nearly as bad as Solaris in this respect, but the glacial pacing can be a challenge, especially when combined with some of the more surrealistic components of this story where you struggle to make sense of what you’re being shown. I have a lot of respect for what this movie is doing and I’m glad I’ve finally caught up with it, but it’s a hard movie to recommend and I’m not nearly as rapturous about it as a lot of people… ***
Pakistan – Altered Skin – Ostensibly a blend of zombie horror and conspiracy thriller, this tends to lean harder into the latter, with middling to poor results. I usually don’t mind a derivative plot if it’s executed well, but this is one of those examples where it’s trying to do two different things, but doesn’t really succeed at either. The acting and performances are awful, and it’s visually mediocre. Look there’s no shortage of crappy zombie films out there, but I was hoping the conspiracy angle would give this a leg up. Unfortunately, it’s poorly executed and the only real spin on the formula is the setting in Pakistan… but I don’t think that’s really enough to save this. *
Netherlands – The 4th Man – This was the last film Paul Verhoeven made in the Netherlands before heading off to Hollywood. A psycho-sexual nightmare thriller with some homoeroticism and Catholic guilt thrown in for extra flavor, it tells the story of Gerard, an alcoholic author who starts an affair with Christine, a cosmetologist with a mysterious past. Filled with religious imagery, gratuitous sex, and surreal, dreamlike violence, it’s certainly not a subtle film, but neither is it a bombastic exercise a la some of Verhoeven’s Hollywood productions. Indeed, I’m not sure if the story isn’t happening entirely in our protagonist’s head.
Speaking of whom, he’s played by Jeroen Krabbé, who has been in lots of stuff, but I most associate him with his memorable supporting turn in The Fugitive. He’s excellent here, as is Renée Soutendijk as the kinda, sorta femme fatale. It’s an interesting movie, I’m glad I caught up with it, and I’d like to explore more of Verhoeven’s Dutch films. Certainly not my favorite, but worthwhile! ***
And so that marks 50 different films from 50 different countries. Alright, there are some minor cheats here – Stalker being USSR when I’d already watched a Russian movie is questionable, for example. And I will probably not get to 20 movies from one country (as originally planned), though I did get to 10-15 movies from both Hong Kong and Italy, so I figure that counts for something. As mentioned above, I’ll probably do a postmortem for the project at some point, but it may be a while, as we’ve got a packed schedule coming up with the usual year-ending recaps and Movie Awards and whatnot…
Tis the season to draw up a list of 2023 movie releases that I want to catch-up with before embarking upon the traditional Kaedrin Movie Awards, Top 10, and other year ending nonsense. Of course, the professionals are releasing their Top 10s and year end summaries right now, but for us normals who don’t go to Sundance and Cannes or get screeners and other opportunities, it takes a bit longer. So the Awards happen in January and the Top 10 usually in February (hey, at least we’re faster than The Oscars!)
As of this moment, I’ve seen 67 movies that could be considered a 2023 release. This is actually a significant drop from the last few years, even though my overall movie watching numbers have not declined too much. Part of the decline may be the focus on 50 from 50, but I think at least some of it has to do with the industry’s return to theatrical releases and floundering streaming channels. Obviously streaming exclusives are still a thing, I’m still seeing plenty of streaming slop, and while the theatrical windows for a lot of movies are returning to pre-pandemic levels, many are still available pretty quickly. I haven’t actually done a deep dive on this to see if it’s true, but it does feel like a heartening trend. Movies are back, nature is healing, etc…
Anywho, it’s traditional around here to take stock of the year so far and take a look at what I missed as well as what’s coming soon. The end of the year usually results in a deluge of prestige pictures looking for Oscar nominations. The pandemic threw a bit of a wrench into that pattern for sure, but it does seem as if this December is jam packed (and January will no doubt see some stragglers in theaters as well). Standard disclaimers apply: I consider some 2022 movies a 2023 release if it didn’t get distributed in the US until 2023. This list is not comprehensive. I probably won’t watch everything on this list. I will probably watch things not on this list. I started compiling this post a couple weeks ago and have already seen some of the movies on it. And so on. Let’s get to it:
Blockbusters
Napoleon – A Ridley Scott historical epic always piques interest, especially after the underrated/underseen The Last Duel, and the subject matter hasn’t been overdone (despite being of interest to lots of famous auteurs, notably Kubrick).
Update: I have seen seen this movie! It’s very messy and glosses over too many events in an attempt to cram in everything it can, but Joiquin Phoenix’s Napoleon is an astounding buffoon, the battles are epic, the pace never falters, and while it’s not entirely my thing, I’m glad I caught up with it. Curious about the rumored 4 hour cut, though I doubt it would change my feelings too much
Ferrari – Michael Mann’s passion project has been a long time coming, and it’s been quite a while since his last film (the disappointing Blackhat), but I’m always curious to see what Mann’s got cooking.
The Creator – This low(ish) budget came and went without much fanfare and I never caught up with it (such is the fate of movies that are released during the 6 weeks of Halloween). I’m not expecting much given what I’ve heard, but it looks visually spectacular and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it well enough.
Dumb Money – The story of the Gamestop stock craze is a fascinating one, so even though I tend to prefer a documentary over dramatizations, I’ll certainly give this one a look.
Next Goal Wins – It’s become fashionable to hate on Taika Waititi and the guy has mostly brought that upon himself (plus, the last Thor movie wasn’t very good), but I’m always curious to see what he’s got up his sleeve. This seems a bit derivative, but it could be fun. Alas, I appear to have missed out on the theatrical release, and you never know when things will show up on streaming/rental these days, so who knows if I’ll actually get to this.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem – I’ve heard good things about this and the animation style looks interesting, but there are some hesitations as well. Will definitely check it out at some point.
Elemental – Disney has trained us all to wait for streaming, so that’s what I’ve done. Pixar’s star has fallen a bit of late, but they can still put out great stuff, so this is certainly worth a look.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie – Not expecting a whole lot, but it’s the second most successful movie of the year and it’s quite possible this will tickle some nostalgia in my bones, so I should probably take a gander.
Streaming Exclusive
Maestro (Netflix) – Bradley Cooper’s directorial biopic has lots of Oscar buzz and it’s interesting that Cooper has become something of an event filmmaker (in a way), so I’ll certainly check this out.
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Poison, The Swan, and The Rat Catcher (Netflix) – Wes Anderson made this series of short films based on Roald Dahl stories earlier this year, and they sorta just came and went in the way Netflix exclusives do, but I definitely want to catch up with them. Come to think of it, Asteroid City didn’t make too many waves either, but I enjoyed it well enough, and Anderson is always up to something interesting.
Candy Cane Lane (Prime Video) – Eddie Murphy Christmas movie jam that could be fun, I guess. Update: I’ve seen this. There are a couple of fun things about it and at least it doesn’t follow the Hallmark formula, but it’s maybe only a hair above Hallmark in terms of quality. Jillian Bell is great though, and this is fine low-stakes fodder, I guess.
BS High (Max) – Sports documentary about a sorta fake high school football team? Sounds interesting. Update: I’ve seen this, and it’s an absolutely bonkers story with some crazy twists and turns and a charismatic con-man villain who just gets worse and worse as the story unfolds. Stylistically straightforward, but worth a look even if you’re not a sports person.
Reality (Max) – An intriguing concept: the script for this movie is simply an FBI transcript of an interrogation into an intelligence worker who is alleged to have leaked classified information. Again, I may prefer a documentary over the dramatization (and there actually is such a documentary), but the gimmick here certainly seems worth a look.
May December (Netflix) – Lots of buzz in the film dork community around this one. I’ve never been much interested by Todd Haynes, but I’ll probably give this a look.
Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire (Netflix) – Zack Snyder’s faux Star Wars certainly looks interesting and bombastic and I’m honestly glad he’s not doing DC comic book movies anymore. Hopefully this will pay off.
Rye Lane (Hulu) – British romantic comedy with under-the-radar buzz, I’m into it.
When Evil Lurks (Shudder) – It’s always telling when a horror movie attains a reputation as being extra dark, as this one has, so I guess I should find some time for it.
Hit Man (Netflix) – Richard Linklater directed this movie starring Glen Powell that apparently did well in the festival circuit, but couldn’t secure a full release, instead going to Netflix. It’s unclear when this will actually be released, and at this point, I’m guessing it won’t be a 2023 release…
Independent, Foreign, and Art House
The Holdovers – Alexander Payne can be hit or miss for me, but this story about a grumpy prep school teacher forced to spend Christmas vacation with a student seems like it could be up my alley.
Update: I’ve seen this, and it’s a hit. I’m not as rapturous as some people are about it, but I like it quite a bit, and while it maintains an acerbic edge, it’s got some sentimentality and wit to it as well.
Poor Things – Yorgos Lanthimos is certainly a weirdo, but that often translates to interesting filmmaking. This has been getting lots of praise in the festival circuit, and I’m looking forward to catching up with it when it goes wide later this month.
Polite Society – Billed as an action comedy, this British flick sounds like an interesting and unconventional combination of elements like martial arts and a… wedding heist? This has been on my radar for a while, but it’s now on Amazon Prime, so I will definitely be catching up with it soon. Sounds like a hoot.
Sound of Freedom – The little Angel Studios thriller that could, this sucker cleaned up at the box office and garnered bizarre conspiracy theories about its support of conspiracy theories, but I will definitely catch up with it at some point.
The Boy and the Heron – Hayao Miyazaki has returned from retirement (again) and while I don’t know anything about it other than its director and the title, that’s enough to make me want to see it.
Jules – I’m going with “modern-day Cocoon” to describe this one, but it’s probably better than that sounds.
The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial – RIP William Friedkin… his final film sounds interesting enough and I definitely want to check it out.
Dream Scenario – High concept Nicolas Cage flick about a guy who starts showing up in everyone’s dreams. Sounds interesting!
Past Lives – An art house favorite that came out early in the year, but still seems to have some buzz around it.
Return to Seoul – A film that appeared on many critics best-of lists last year, but wasn’t really available to watch in the US until this year.
AKA – Alban Lenoir is a French action star that I know from the Lost Bullet movies (both of which are great fun) and this is his latest. It’s on Netflix, so why not check it out? (This approach worked well for those Lost Bullet movies, also on Netflix)
Pathaan – I saw a clip from this Indian action flick on Twitter the other day and, yes, I will watch this.
Full Time – I learned about this one from John Waters’ best of 2023 list (his lists are always edifying). He describes this as being about: “a normal single-mother hotel worker and whether she’ll get to work on time” and I’m sold.
Miscellaneous, Genre, Mutant Fam, etc…
The Toxic Avenger – Can a remake of the crude, schlocky 1984 masterpiece even begin to approach the original? I guess we’ll find out (and early indications are that it’s great). The involvement of Macon Blair and others in the production are certainly encouraging. As of yet, no idea when this will be released (it could very well be a 2024 release).
The Artifice Girl – Micro-budget SF about AI that sounds right up my alley. Whether or not I end up liking this, it’s exactly the sort of movie I write posts like this for: I never would have even known this existed if I didn’t explicitly seek out 2023 movies to catch up on…
Lola – Another Micro-budget SF movie (this one about time travel) that I never would have known about if I wasn’t going through this exercise. Looking forward to catching up with this.
The Conference – German slasher movie set at a corporate retreat? Sure, why not?
Sisu – This Finnish WWII action flick actually got a push in theaters early this year and I’m not sure how I didn’t catch up with it back then, but I didn’t, so I feel like I need to catch up with this one…
We Kill for Love – A documentary about the obscure sub-genre of the erotic thriller that had a moment in the early 90s (mostly with DTV, cable, and VHS, but which also broke into the mainstream for a bit). Discovered this when the director was interviewed on the Bulwark Goes to Hollywood podcast. Definitely an interesting interview and it makes me want to watch the movie.
Late Night with the Devil – Low budget horror movie about a TV broadcast that unleashes evil or somesuch starring David Dastmalchian. Not sure if this will come out in time for 2023, but it appears that it will be a Shudder release at some point.
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person – Goofy sorta premise about a vampire who is too sensitive to kill running into a suicidal guy that could save her life. Could be fun! That being said, I have no idea when this is actually coming out.
Blackout – Larry Fessenden’s take on werewolves is another movie I’m not sure will come out in time for 2023, but it sounds interesting and I’ve heard good things about it, even if Fessenden is another hit-or-miss filmmaker for me…
Phew, that’s a lot of 2023 movie releases to catch-up with, though as noted, several are not likely to be released in time.
To ring in the season, I’m rebrewing what is probably the best all-around homebrew I’ve ever made: my homebrewed Christmas Ale. I call it: Rantlers! A portmanteau of “reindeer antlers” coined by the one and only Rocky Balboa in Rocky V. Not a great movie, but it is a great name for homebrew.
I used to do this thing where I’d cross-post the brew-day recap here and on my Beer Blog, but I won’t bore you all with all the gory details here. Instead, I’ll just leverage the magic of hyperlinks to send you over to the Beer Blog, where you can inspect the recipe to your heart’s content. Thanks Vannevar Bush!
Update 12.3.23 – Bottling day has come, everything appears to be on track, including some fancy fortified versions that I’ve been playing with. Excruciating details at the Beer Blog thanks again to the magic power of hyperlinks.
It’s been a while since I posted about the Book Queue, but these books won’t read themselves, and I’ve found that posting about them publicly does tend to motivate me to actually read the books I have (rather than getting distracted by new shiny objects and the like). So let’s get to it:
Starter Villain, by John Scalzi – The last few Scalzi books have felt like he’s treading water, but his style is snappy and fun and not every book needs to be some sort of world-changing epic (which, to be fair, has never been Scalzi’s metier). This story about a guy inheriting his uncle’s supervillain business seems much more inclined to be comedic than anything else, which is fine by me. Probably would have gotten to this earlier if he didn’t release it during the Halloween season…
System Collapse, by Martha Wells – The latest Murderbot story has finally arrived, and that’s all I really needed to know. No idea bout the plot, but the Murderbot series has been consistently great (I obviously have not read this one yet, but I recommend you start with the initial novellas, they’re short and well done and you can come up to speed quickly…)
Bleeding Edge, by Thomas Pynchon – I apparently purchased this many moons ago, put it on a shelf somewhere, and promptly forgot I had it. I was doing some reorganizing recently and stumbled upon it and realized I should probably read the darn thing. Not sure what to expect as this could range anywhere from impenetrable literature to page-turning genre fare. I guess there’s only one way to find out.
A Half-Built Garden, by Ruthanna Emrys – Not sure how this got in the queue in the first place, other than that the premise sounds interesting and I’ve been somewhat neglectful of recent SF of late. Sounds like a first contact story that could be interesting enough.
The Blighted Stars, by Megan E. O’Keefe – Another recent SF book with a decent enough premise, and I don’t remember where I heard of it first, but it sounds good…
The Icarus Plot, by Timothy Zahn – About 25 years ago or so, Zahn wrote a book called The Icarus Hunt, a very enjoyable space opera in the vein of Star Wars (I mean, really quite inspired by Star Wars, like at this point they probably could put the Star Wars logo on it and while you might wonder why there’s no member-berries or, like, Jedi in it, you’d probably enjoy it). Anywho, Zahn has finally written a sorta stealth sequel to that book. As I understand it, it’s not particularly reliant on the events of the first book, it’s just set in the same universe (it’s not even particularly being marketed as a sequel, which sorta makes sense because this one has a different publisher than the first). Anyway, Zahn has long been a reliable genre page-turner, and I’m glad he seems to be finished with his Star Wars Thrawn novels for now…
Star Maker, by Olaf Stapledon – Vintage SF Month is quickly approaching, and this one is rising to the top of the list for now. It appears to be a sorta history of the future, spanning billions of years, sounds like fun.
Obviously lots more on the queue, and all of the above are SF or SF-adjacent, so perhaps I’ll leave the other fiction book queue and non-fiction book queue for other posts.
“Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit – all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.”
A Cautionary Crime Data Tale – There’s a lot of talk about disinfo out there, but it’s worth noting that much of it isn’t intentional, though that doesn’t really make it any better. It just means that we need to do some basic vetting of the sorts of numbers we see put out there, perhaps especially when they confirm our priors.
From all appearances, the Six Weeks of Halloween is primarily a movie watching exercise, but all is not what it appears: the Halloween season is filled with other nominally spooky activities like hayrides, haunted houses (and haunted dining establishments and haunted mini-golf and haunted bonfires/cookouts, you get the picture), pumpkin mutilation carving ceremonies, and of course, lots of Halloween Reading. The past few years have led to several new discoveries on the horror writer front, but I also like to dip my toes into some more obvious choices, so let’s see how this year’s selections fared:
Halloween Reading Roundup 2023
Wounds, by Nathan Ballingrud (aka The Atlas of Hell) – A collection of six stories ranging from short to novella length, it’s named after a (not very well regarded) movie adaptation of one of the novellas, but the original title of The Atlas of Hell is a much more fitting descriptor of the collection. (Now that the movie has come and gone, future editions of this will revert back to The Atlas of Hell as title and man, even the artwork is much better…)
All of the stories touch on Ballingrud’s peculiar conception of hell as a physical location, some more than others, and “The Atlas of Hell” is also the name of the first story, a horror/crime hybrid that works well as an introduction to this vision of hell. “The Diabolist” veers in a completely different direction, taking a mournful first person perspective that speaks to the reader in an odd way. It’s a stylish approach which only serves to make the more traditional horror elements more effective. “Skullpocket” goes even further afield, telling the story of how a particular town is coexisting with literal ghouls with an almost YA tone to it (my guess is that this would be the most divisive of the stories). “The Maw” returns to more conventional territory, though as the characters start to explore Hell’s intrusion into our reality, the distressing imagery and creepy ideas become more effective. “The Visible Filth” is the aforementioned novella that got adapted into a movie. It’s about a bartender who finds a cellphone in his bar and starts getting increasingly disturbing text messages. It’s a neat setup, and it actually reminded me of a more serious and sober take on something like Unfriended 2: Dark Web. It wasn’t my favorite story and it’s not an obvious choice for an adaptation, but it’s certainly creepy.
“The Butchers Table” is the longest story in the collection, and by far the best. Ballingrud accomplishes in just 100 pages what most writers would spend 500 pages (or more) to do. Several of the other stories in the collection touch upon the mythology that Ballingrud is building, but mostly on the periphery. Here, it emerges fully formed and perfectly calibrated. This story packs in so much: pirates, satanists, cannibal priests, disturbing hellscapes where, like, the characters hang out in a giant corpse of an angel, and absolutely terrifying monsters called Carrion Angels that are hot on our protagonists’ heels. It’s truly impressive how much worldbuilding Ballingrud was able to pack into this story without descending into tedious info dumps and still finding room for the requisite intrigue and betrayals that you’d expect given the type of people involved. I will most certainly be reading more Ballingrud during future Six Weeks of Halloweens…
X’s For Eyes, by Laird Barron – A genre mashup evoking the like of the Hardy Boys and The Venture Brothers taking on elder gods and touching on cosmic horror, this is a short novella (novelette?) that incorporates plenty of corporate skullduggery, science fiction, and a heaping helping of adventure.
Not quite as impressive or seamless as Ballingrud’s “The Butcher’s Table”, this nonetheless manages to pack a lot of ideas and worldbuilding into a quickly paced thriller. It’s not quite episodic, but there are some jarring and sudden twists and turns that might throw you for a loop, but I wound up quite enjoying this. Recommended!
Skeleton Crew, by Stephen King – Over the past several years, I’ve been working my way through King’s major short story collections. As with all such endeavors, especially longer ones like this, the stories can be hit or miss. But it’s Stephen King, so most are a hit.
Notable stories include “The Mist”, a novella that’s almost too perfectly constructed (with a great movie adaptation as well). “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut” has a great progression and might be my favorite of the collection. “The Jaunt” is the odd science fiction story that King manages to add his usual touch to. “The Raft” is also quite effective for such a simple story (and the best part of Creepshow 2). “Survivor Type” has a delightfully macabre premise that would be a spoiler by itself. “The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet” is also quite effective and clearly taps into the fears writers (perhaps particularly fears of horror writers) have about where their inspiration comes from.
As usual, some of the stories fall into King’s standard traps. He sometimes writes himself into corners, and some of the stories can get wordy and go on for too long, which brings down the pacing some too. That said, he’s a consumate storyteller, and his skill is on ample display. I’m a little disappointed that I’ve seemingly exhausted his major short story collections, though there are a couple of other collections (of novellas and the like) that I could check out in future marathons. Or maybe I’ll finally bite the bullet and read It.
The Dead Friends Society, by Paul Gandersman & Peter Hall – Longtime readers of this blog know that I have an inexplicable love of slasher movies, but I’ve had a lot of trouble finding books that can execute the formula well. This is actually a decent example of that sort of thing, though there are some severe flaws. An old house with a tragic past is haunted by a masked killer known as The Fireman, and our heroes must find a way to prevent the tragedies of the past from being revisited upon the present.
There’s the shape of something quite good here, but several aspects of the story kept pulling me out of it. We spend too much time in our main character’s head. She has the makings of a solid final girl, but is hamstrung by uncertainty and constant whining about this or that. Look, there’s plenty to whine about, but it’s boring as hell and makes the story drag. Oddly, if they made a film out of this, I think it could be far more effective, as we wouldn’t get the agonizing inner monologue of the final girl. Her actions are competent and even effective, but it doesn’t feel like it because she’s constantly berating herself. Side characters are marginally better, but they come off as one dimensional and it’s still slow going after the exciting initial set-piece. The pacing bogs way, way down for a long time in the middle before picking up again towards the climax. The motivation and powers of the Fireman are unclear, though that’s more or less par for the course on this type of thing.
I listened to the audiobook for this one, and I didn’t especially like the reader, which I’m trying not to hold against it. Not sure if, for example, the excessive pop culture references are as annoying as they seem because of the way it was performed, but regardless: there’s too much of that sort of thing here. All of that said, there’s some surprising twists that I was definitely not expecting, and there’s an effective mix of slasher and ghost story going on here. I genuinely think a movie adaptation could greatly improve upon this story, if only because we wouldn’t have to deal with the constant whinging.
Traveling With the Dead, by Barbara Hambly – The sequel to Hambly’s Those Who Hunt the Night, one of my favorite discoveries of last year, comports itself quite well, though it does perhaps go on a bit too long. That first novel was about a former spy being recruited to hunt down a vampire killer that was plaguing London’s vampire community. This time around, Asher notices an infamous spy from a foreign power smuggling a vampire away from London. He immediately pursues, while his wife follows on his heels, enlisting the services of Don Simon Ysidro, the suave London vampire that has become something of a friend to the Asher family. Like the previous book, there’s plenty of tradecraft, intrigue, and vampire worldbuilding. This does bog down in the middle section as all of the chess pieces are being maneuvered for the final showdowns and revelations, and some of that maneuvering is repetitive, but Hambly is a good storyteller, and I appreciate the attention to detail. I don’t think this is as successful as the first book, but I like it well enough.
Dead Silence, by S.A. Barnes – A deep space salvage crew stumbles upon a long lost ghost ship and sets about securing a big payday. Naturally, they don’t call it a ghost ship for nothing, and our salvage crew starts to find all sorts of suspicious stuff about the long dead passengers, who all seemingly went insane and killed each other. Will our heroes suffer the same fate?
Unfortunately, I don’t think this novel clicked with me. Part of this might be that the main protagonist is absolutely obnoxious and, like the protagonist in The Dead Friends Society, we spend a lot of time getting inside her head. It also speaks to modern horror’s obsession with characters who are severely traumatized and emotionally stunted. I suppose it could be something of an empathy shortcut to give someone a tragic backstory, but it’s getting tired at this point, and the romantic angle feels a bit perfunctory as well. Later, we get the bog standard modern sci-fi explanation of corporate greed as the root of all evil, another trend that’s becoming overused these days.
It’s not a terrible novel, but it’s one of those things where I feel like the blend of horror and science fiction clash a bit. Sometimes that oil and water approach can work, but, um, you need an emulsifier like mustard to really get it going properly. How’s that for a tortured metaphor? Unfortunately, the science fiction elements generally take a back seat to the horror here, and the horror… isn’t very scary or even creepy. This does seem to be a popular book though, so I’m clearly the outlier, though it’s ratings are not astronomical…
Hidden Pictures, by Jason Rekulak – Fresh out of rehab, Mallory hopes to get her life back in order by taking a job as a nanny to 5-year old Teddy. Things are going well, but soon Teddy’s normally playful artwork starts to depict a grisly murder, and Mallory begins to suspect something supernatural at work. As she sets about to solve the mystery, she discovers more than she bargained for…
This apparently won the Goodreads award for Best Horror novel of 2022, and to be fair, Jason Rekulak does have a knack for turning pages. Unfortunately, the overall story leaves a lot to be desired. It spends too much time on a particular red herring, and once the revelations start flying later in the book, they all feel pretty implausible.
I think I can see why this is successful and I didn’t hate it or anything, but there were just too many little things that kept bugging me… There’s always some tolerance for this sort of thing, but I’ve learned that when I find myself nitpicking things, it’s a sign of some sort of deeper problems in the story. In some ways, the protagonist here is more likable than the ones in Dead Silence or The Dead Friends Society, but there’s a similar sort of focus on a character who’s been traumatized that’s, again, getting kind of tired these days. And while she’s able to make progress on the mystery, she does seem way too willing to jump to the supernatural, and she makes some baffling choices throughout. Again, I can see why this became popular, but I wasn’t quite able to get on its wavelength…
Another successful Six Weeks of Halloween in the books (literally!) At 7 books, I didn’t really approach the pandemic fueled record of 9 in 2020, but I’m still averaging about a book a week, which is a pretty solid pace…
Time flies when you’re terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought. For some reason, these Six Weeks of Halloween went faster than ever this year, and now we’re already at the big day. In accordance with tradition, this is when we engage in a Speed Round of brief thoughts on films I watched during the 2023 marathon, but haven’t otherwise covered. Usually because it didn’t fit with a weekly theme. Or maybe I just didn’t have much to say about it. Or I had too much to say about it, but the moment and/or inspiration has passed. Or it’s a rewatch of an all time classic (or, uh, a non-classic) and you don’t need anyone, let alone me, telling you more about it.
As of right now, I’ve seen 69 (nice!) horror or horror-adjacent films during this Halloween season. This is a big increase from last year and actually relatively close to the pandemic-fueled record of 71 that was set in 2020, but it should be noted that 8 of this year’s entries were Cabinet of Curiosities episodes (and Letterboxd has separate entries for each episode) and the Phillies didn’t make it to the World Series (a different kind of horror!) which means the numbers are a bit inflated over last year.
As per usual, we’ll have one final 6WH post next week about the horror books I read during the 2023 Halloween season, but for now, let’s dive into this year’s Speed Round:
The Six Weeks of Halloween: Speed Round
A Haunting in Venice – Another perfectly cromulent mid-budget self-contained Poirot adaptation, it’s not perfect and it won’t blow you away or anything, but it’s got plenty of spooky vibes, more style than it needs, and plenty of twists and turns. Again, nothing incredible, but it’s the sort of movie I wish Hollywood would make more often. **1/2
13 Ghosts – I decided to go back and watch the original William Castle movie after watching the remake earlier in the marathon. Certainly a more staid production, old-fashioned and corny, actually the sort of thing that was ripe for a remake. It’s not great, but I somehow liked it better than the remake. **
No One Will Save You – The gimmick of this alien invasion flick is that there’s nearly no dialogue at all. There’s plenty of thematic heft that is underlined by this approach and Kaitlyn Dever’s lead performance sells the whole thing well.
The gimmick is cleverly done, but I’m getting a little tired of the genre’s obsession with Trauma and the aliens here are almost as dumb as the ones from Signs. Adventurous filmmaking and interesting because of that, but can’t quite sustain its momentum throughout the full runtime. **1/2
Werewolves Within – After the Werewolfery theme week, I decided to rewatch this bouncy little horror comedy that never really found the audience it deserves.
Its politics are a little ham-fisted, but it’s a ton of fun, and Sam Richardson and Milana Vayntrub are great together and really carry the movie. Recommended! ***
The Face Behind the Mask – 1941 Peter Lorre noir about a disfigured man becoming a criminal mastermind and trying to escape the life, to little success. It’s the sort of thing you’ve seen a hundred times (and barely a horror movie), but Lorre provides gravitas, even when he’s masked up (the masks are actually rather effective for what they are). **1/2
The Exorcist – RIP William Friedkin, the new 4k transfer looks great and the movie is as good as ever. Another movie I watched after a similar themed week, it’s obviously much better than all the movies I watched that week (and the direct influence is clear as well). There are still some things I don’t love about this movie, and the directors cut with the additional footage isn’t as good as the theatrical cut, but it’s still a stone cold classic. ****
Alien³ – David Fincher’s directorial debut is still a frustrating and disappointing exercise, though there are some genuine bright spots, notably Charles Dance’s doctor character, who has great chemistry with Sigourney Weaver, and some other performances (Charles S. Dutton, Brian Glover, etc…) Great ensemble! Terrible story, and I know the point is to be bleak and uncompromising and there are some people who claim to like how unsatisfying the whole thing is, but that’s a really hard trick to pull off and this movie doesn’t even come close (put a pin in this, we’ll come back to the idea below). **
Predator – Not a movie that I usually think of as a Halloween movie, but it’s got all the hallmarks, even if it’s more action than horror. You probably don’t need me to say much here, it’s still great! ***1/2
Casper – After a few weeks of watching nothing but horror movies, it’s easy to get burnt out, but goofy comedies like this are actually a nice way to bring levity to the situation, even if it’s not particularly great. Not bad either, and Christina Ricci and Bill Pullman are great, and there’s some bonkers stuff about Casper the friendly ghost that we learn. Fun. **1/2
Totally Killer – Self-aware slasher comedy mixed with time travel, it’s a whole boatload of fun. More focused on the humor than the horror or sci-fi elements, it’s still effective and well calibrated. The school mascot mask isn’t great and the time travel stuff isn’t particularly rigorous, though they do manage one clever thing I don’t think I’ve ever seen in a time travel story before, which is nice (even if I’m not entirely sure how it works). I think Final Girls and the Happy Death Day movies did it better, but it’s totally worthwhile and again, it’s always nice to find some levity in the midst of all the horror of the season. ***
The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre – Obscure 1964 TV movie starring Martin Landau as a paranormal investigator, this isn’t as twisty or goofy as I’d hoped, but it’s fine. I’ve generally had good luck with this sort of old TV movie type of thing in the past, but I’d say this one didn’t really pan out. **
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning – There was a Friday the 13th in October, so obviously I had to pop on a couple entries in the venerable series. Part V is one of the weirdest entries in the series and I kinda find it fascinating, despite it not being very good. ** (But ratings are kinda tough for movies like this…)
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives – Followed up the weirdest entry in the series with one of the best entries in the series, and the one I tend to watch most often. ***
Happy Death Day – The slasher formula in a Groundhog Day framework works surprisingly well, and this is a movie I like more and more over time. After watching Totally Killer, I decided to revisit and yes, this is better than Totally Killer, with a more balanced blend of humor and horror leading to an overall quite fun experience (Totally Killer is still quite fun and worthwhile!) ***
Happy Death Day 2U – A surprisingly solid sequel that recontextualizes the Groundhog Day formula in a clever way, resulting in another fun movie that’s almost as good as the original. Another movie that’s only gotten better in my estimation the more times I watch it.
If we still had cable classics, I think both of these would qualify (Maybe they’ll get on Netflix at some point and become super popular in the way a lot of underseen (and sometimes even bad) movies do, but that won’t happen on Peacock). ***
Murder, Anyone? – Two playwrights collaborate on a script, and as they do so, we see their story come to life on screen. As arguments arise, the resulting twists and turns manifest in wacky ways. A neat idea, but it doesn’t quite come together as well as I’d hoped. **
Shivers – Early Cronenberg about parasitic sex slugs in a futuristic apartment building, I first watched this for the 6WH almost ten years ago, and had a hankering to revisit. It’s actually become one of my favorite Cronenberg movies, and while it’s definitely dated, it still holds up pretty well. ***
There’s Nothing Out There – Pre-Scream self-aware monster flick about a group of kids vacationing in a remote cabin, and one of the kids is a horror movie dork and sees all the signs of an impending massacre. Points for originality, but the self-aware movie dork works better as a side character (a la Scream); here, his constant quips and complaints can come off as annoying. Creature design is also a bit lacking, though they do keep it mostly hidden in the early goings (with liberal use of POV shots and half-seen glimpses of something in the woods). Some interesting stuff here, but mostly only of interest to students of the genre. **
Phantom of the Opera – Universal remade the silent classic in 1943 with Claude Rains in the title role and glorious Technicolor. We get a little more of a backstory for the Phantom and there’s a goofy love triangle (er, rectangle?) and a whole lotta, I mean, just a ton of Opera. I guess it makes sense that they’d emphasize the singing and music in this version, given that the previous adaptation was a silent film, but at times this feels almost like a musical (though obviously not quite as much as the actual musical versions). The general shape of the Phantom story is there, but the horror elements are downplayed considerably, and the makeup and infamous reveal are nowhere near as shocking as the original (Lon Cheney’s appearance remains effective to this day, Rains just looks slightly singed). If you saw another version of this and thought: I want more singing and less Phantoming, this is the movie for you. It’s certainly a lavish production and the recent 4k restoration looks fantastic, but I was mildly disappointed. **
Demons 2 – The first part of Joe Bob’s Helloween double-feature, it’s a sequel to Demons and basically represents more of the same. This time, instead of being stuck in a movie theater with zombie-like demons, they’re stuck in an apartment building. Visually adept with plenty of gore and memorable moments, but none of it really adds up to anything meaningful and a lot of beats are simply rehashed from the first movie. **
Watchers II – For whatever reason, Dean Koontz adaptations never really caught on in Hollywood, and there hasn’t really been a good one. Watchers was one of Koontz’s most successful books (though middle tier in my rankings, it’s got some effective stuff for sure) and the first adaptation got turned into a crappy Corey Haim vehicle that barely resembled the book. This sequel is more like an alternate take, though once again many liberties have been taken with the story. It’s low budget B-movie 80s cheese starring the Beastmaster himself, Marc Singer. I haven’t seen the first film in a while, but this was at least marginally watchable. Someday, someone might make a good Koontz adaptation, but I’m not holding my breath. **
All Hallows’ Eve – The second part of Joe Bob’s Helloween, this is a horror anthology comprised of previously made short films with some newly filmed scenes used as a framing device. Low budget, mean-spirited, and tasteless, the only thing this really has going for it is that it’s the first screen appearance of Art the Clown, a fledgling horror icon who hasn’t quite broken into the mainstream yet, but is undeniably effective (honestly, his brief appearance in the first segment might be the best, even though the last segment is more dedicated to him). There’s clearly some potential on screen here, and director Damien Leone has some good instincts, but very little of the potential is realized in this first anthology. Poorly acted and visually slipshod (there are occasional shots that look ok, but it’s very inconsistent), this isn’t really recommended except for completists who want to see where Art the Clown originated. (Despite not loving this, I may end up doing an Art the Clown theme week/mid-week next year, as the Terrifier movies seem to get better as they go….) *1/2
The Fly – 1958 B-movie told mostly in flashback, it’s a tale of science gone awry, but what struck me most is that the real tragedy is that even after the accident, indeed, even after the death, the domestic situation of the household remains largely unchanged. The scientist was already so dedicated to his work that he didn’t spend much time on his family, so his avoidance after the accident isn’t much of a change, and honestly, after his death, his wife will most likely upgrade to his brother-in-law, played by Vincent Price, always a steady presence onscreen. The transformation and body horror bits are relatively staid here, even for 1958, but pale in comparison to the remake, speaking of which… **1/2
The Fly – David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of The Fly amps up the body horror in excruciating detail, but the vile minutiae of the transformation are so memorable that I always forget that this spends a lot of time on character and relationships. In 1986, the original Fly movie was 28 years old, but desperately needed an updating. Cronenberg’s movie is now 37 years old, and I don’t think you could do it any better today. The Scream Factory Blu Ray looks great, and there’s plenty of special features too. ****
Zodiac – David Fincher’s tour de force represents a completely different take on the serial killer movie, and unlike Alien³ (see above), the bleak worldview and deliberately unsatisfying narrative here is expertly calculated and perfectly executed. Also of note, this is a film that absolutely nailed the digital aesthetic, it looks amazing, and yet I feel like so many struggle with it to this day.
I’ve always loved the movie, but it has only grown in my estimation over the years and it’s been far too long since I’d revisited it. Thanks to the Blank Check podcast for prompting the idea to rewatch (and for a long, insightful review). ****
The Devil on Trial – This Netflix documentary seems, at first glance and for the first hour or so of its runtime, like a deeply uncritical examination of the famous court case where “demonic possession” was used as a defense against murder charges. Then the other shoe drops, and several more reasonable explanations are put forward, even if some in the family disagree. Even at just 81 minutes, there’s not really enough story here, so the filmmakers rely on extensive use of recreations, which are sometimes unnecessary or potentially misleading. On the other hand, they do have lots of actual source material, including audio tapes of the possessed child, and seem to have been able to interview all the principle players (with the exception of Ed and Lorraine Warren, though they are able to use lots of archival footage). Still, the last 20 or so minutes should have probably been explored more deeply (there’s something to be said for pulling the rug out on a narrative like this, but this movie only does a modest job of that). It’s entertaining, but not quite as enlightening as you might want from something like this. **1/2
Project Eerie – A found footage anthology with some decently constructed segments that are nevertheless mostly conventional (it’s got a sorta X-Files meets Blair Witch vibe). An ultra-low-budget affair that doesn’t look particularly great and suffers from typical found footage flaws, but might be worth a gander if you’re a found footage fan. I suspect the filmmaker Ricky Umberger could be capable of much better if given the opportunity. **1/2
Dark Harvest – David Slade’s stylish creature feature hasn’t garnered much attention and I’m not entirely sure why. It might be a bit heavy handed for general audiences, but horror fans should be eating this up. Lots of Stephen King-esque flavor, especially the subversion of 50s Rockwellian ideals and the rot behind small town veneers (not to mention all the bullies and greaser nonsense). It’s certainly not perfect; there are some twists that are easy to see coming, the writing ham-fisted, and the Purge-esque bloodlust on display seems improbable, but it’s an entertaining and stylish flick that more should be seeking out. **1/2
Halloween – Duh. (For the record, I prefer the Scream Factory 4K to the previous studio release, maybe one day I’ll figure out a good way to do comparisons, because I think it might be interesting to see a detailed analysis of different releases for a movie like this.) ****
Speed Round Appendix: 50 from 50
Earlier this year, I made a resolution to watch 50 movies from 50 different countries by the end of December (lots of caveats and rules for what qualifies, as enumerated in that introductory post.) We’ve already covered several qualifying movies earlier in the 6WH, but I watched a few more that should be covered:
Serbia – Vampir – Great atmosphere and creepy imagery, but incredibly tedious movie where the title is almost a spoiler. I say “almost” because “spoiler” implies there’s some sort of plot or surprise involved, and that’s not really relevant here. Or, at least, the surprises are nonsensical and don’t really build on anything other than an occasionally hallucinatory sequence. There’s something to be said for the isolation and vulnerability that a stranger can feel in a new and potentially hostile environment, but there’s not enough there to sustain this movie. I didn’t like it, but this sort of slow cinema approach is catnip to some people who can get by on “vibes” alone. *
South Africa – Gaia – I guess fungus-zombies are having a bit of a moment, this is a smaller scale story about a park ranger who gets lost in the woods and meets up with some survivalists who have a mysterious relationship with the fungal threat. Eco-horror with some memorable body horror and effective imagery, I enjoyed this well enough, though the relationship between the ranger and the two survivalists is odd at times, even if it ultimately plays out well enough. **1/2
Austria – Goodnight Mommy – The A24 “elevated horror” folks would probably get a kick out of this slow burn story about two kids who think their mom has been replaced by a doppleganger. Well photographed and slowly paced, things pick up towards the end in a rather sadistic way. There’s a big twist and I’m trying hard not to make a reference to the obvious South Korean analogue as it would be a spoiler (but given how deliberate and slow this movie is, you will probably see the twist coming anyway). It’s still a movie that would be solved if people just talked to each other instead of acting strangely all the time, and there’s a few things that don’t fit (not sure what the mom head-shaking bit is all about, for instance), but it’s undeniably effective in the end. **1/2
Hungary – Strangled – Based on a true story serial killer story that takes place behind the iron curtain. Brutal and unflinching, this has none of the lurid notes you sometimes get out of a serial killer movie, despite the killer’s MO and the innocent man behind bars angle (this is a good thing, though it makes the film less entertaining, but then, should a story like this be “fun”?) Thematically rich and technically proficient, it’s well made and looks great, even if it goes on perhaps a bit too long. **1/2
Phew, it’s been a great 6 weeks (and then some). Happy Halloween, and stay tuned for the recap of season’s readings coming soon.
Another entry from the Obscure Horror Auteurs file, this time catching up with a couple of Stuart Gordon films I had not seen before. Gordon is clearly a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft and is best known for making movies (loosely) based on his work, most notably Re-Animator, From Beyond, and Castle Freak (his episode of Masters of Horror is also a Lovecraft adaptation, and it’s one of the better episodes of that series). He’s become a fan favorite of the horror dork crowd, but hasn’t really broken out into true mainstream success. He has an interesting ability to balance horror, humor, and just plain weirdness in a sly way that often gets overlooked in favor of bigger names in the genre. So let’s dive into a couple of Stuart Gordon flicks:
The Six Weeks of Halloween: Week 6.5 – Stuart Gordon
Dolls – A motley crew of wayward travelers become the guests of a pair of doll-collecting senior citizens in their old, dark mansion. At night, the dolls come out to play. Hijinks ensue.
This is Stuart Gordon’s take on the Old Dark House trope combined with producer Charles Band’s obsession with killer dolls/toys/puppets (he’s perhaps most famous for producing the long running Puppet Master series). A VHS staple with memorable artwork that grabbed your attention in the video store horror aisle, it plays out almost like the horror version of Toy Story (before that movie even existed).
Tonally, it reminds me a little of Gremlins. There’s a clear vein of good natured humor throughout, but it also has a nasty streak and Gordon doesn’t skimp on the unsettling visuals and even some gore (even if it doesn’t quite ramp it up to absurd levels, it’s well established and effective). Part of this may just be the throughline involving a little girl and her unlikely friendship with a stranger who believes in the murderous dolls (most adults don’t, you see). That man is played by veteran character actor Stephen Lee (you may not recognize the name, but you will probably recognize him), and he puts on a lovable turn as a bumbling buffoon along for the ride. I don’t know that the themes of the story about keeping in touch with your inner child are entirely consistent or anything, but the two elderly doll-collectors are delightfully creepy and it all works out in the end.
Look, fine cinema… this is not. But it’s a whole boatload of fun, with surprisingly effective practical effects for the dolls (and there are a lot of dolls, dolls galore), and a svelt 77 minute runtime. What more do you want? ***
Dagon – A storm off the coast of Spain causes a boat accident. Paul and his girlfriend Barbara head ashore to the local fishing village to find help, but all is not what it seems, and they’re soon chased by a mysterious cult of fish-people.
This is a (loose, updated) mashup of two H.P. Lovecraft stories, Dagon and The Shadow Over Innsmouth. It’s all a bit silly, but played entirely straight. Once again, we’re treated to some surprisingly effective practical makeup for the fish-people, though there are a few far less effective CGI shots (made in 2001 on an obvious shoe-string budget and used sparingly, I think we can forgive that.) While the story starts and ends well enough, there’s a long interior portion of the film that consists of our hero being chased around town in circles. Some of this is fine, but it’s quite repetitive and wears out its welcome quickly, and by the time things pick up towards the end of the film, I wasn’t quite able to recover.
The acting and performances are clearly subpar as well. For example, the lead is played by Ezra Godden, who looks an awful lot like Jeffrey Combs (a longtime Gordon collaborator – I guess he has a type), but can’t quite sell the story (the way I presume Combs could). Much of the townfolk are simply assembled as a shambling mob, which is fine, but those who do have lines all feel a little… off. And I guess, as fish-people, they should feel a little otherworldly, but it doesn’t quite work as well as it should.
There’s lots of great atmosphere, some gnarly gore, and lots of icky aquatic imagery on display here, but I can’t help but feel that this should work better than it does. It’s not a blight on Gordon’s filmography or anything, but it’s clearly not his best work. **1/2
We’re in the homestretch of the Six Weeks of Halloween. Only the traditional Speed Round remains, though a small programming note: due to Halloween falling on a Tuesday, I may save the Speed Round for the big day itself (rather than the traditional Sunday publication).
