Halloween 2026: September 18th

Faces of Death (1978)
 

It is one of the most notorious titles in horror history. I believe I was in the sixth grade when a classmate informed me about “Faces of Death,” a documentary that presented viewers with real images of death: Automobile accidents, political assassination, war footage, executions. The idea comes across as almost quaint today, when any sixth grader with a cell phone can find such things within seconds. Who has time to assemble their gore reels into a faux-documentary format these days? Back in the dial-up era, such content was slightly harder to come across. Not so hard to find was proof that “Faces of Death” was mostly composed of faked footage. Despite that, the film itself remains. A cult following, composed of horror fans who recall when this was the ultimate litmus test for gore hounds, has gathered. Today this once widely banned film, the kind of thing you could only find at the sleazier video stores or among hardcore tape traders, can be streamed with ease. I've never watched “Faces of Death” before. As fascinated as I am by the morbid and macabre, actual footage of dead people or animals is not something I enjoy looking at. However, before watching the remake, I figured I better brave the original. 

In the tradition of mondo movie shock-docs before it, "Faces of Death" attempts to assemble its salacious footage in the context of a documentary with some sort of point. A pathologist with the not exactly convincing name of Francis B. Gröss – actually actor Michael Carr, who seems sleepy – is our host. After many years of looking death in the face, he claims to be haunted by recurring dreams of a funeral. He has dedicated himself to examining footage of different forms of death from around the world, in hopes of gleaming some deeper understanding of our mortality. The film is actually the work of John Alan Schwartz, previously an assistant editor on eleven episodes of "In Search Of...," who roughly splits the film into segments loosely based around gruesome themes: The animal world and slaughterhouses, autopsies, crime and punishment, religious rituals, natural disasters, accidents, the horrors of war, and the possibility of life after death. 

What this means in execution is "Faces of Death" leaps between quasi-documentary footage of debatable merit, obviously staged episodes, and genuine footage. The latter element most gives the sickos what they came for. The difference in film grain makes the actually gruesome stuff easy to spot. A woman committing suicide by leaping from a building is distressing. A political assassination happens so quickly as to be indistinct. A parachuter crashing to the ground is similarly blurry. Extensive recordings of the inside of a kosher slaughterhouse or an coroner's workplace is, simply put, extremely gross. What benefit do we as viewers receive from looking at sheep being skinned, cows having their throats slit, the fat and sinew being cut away and the bones ground into pulp? The recording of morticians steadily going about their work, peeling faces back to remove internal organs only to sew the flesh into place, seems to draw a parallel between these two places. The final act shows us the remains of a bicyclist struck by a truck, the brain matter picked off the asphalt. We similarly see the aftermath of an airplane crash, globs of barely recognizable bloody flesh clinging to the street, or a waterlogged corpse washed up on the beach. Are we all but electric signals bouncing across spongy brain matter and piloting an assemblage of meat and bone? What truly separates us from the steak on the plate, other than our slaughterhouse being the world? 

Obviously, Schwartz or anyone else who worked on the film were not pondering too hard on such esoteric topics. The gnarliest footage in "Faces of Death" represents nothing more than a sleazy geek show, from exploitation filmmakers hoping to make a few bucks by showing people shocking images. People want to pay to test the strength of their stomachs, so "Faces" throws a dead body on-screen. Shoddy reenactments and obviously hoaxed imagery being placed alongside real newsreels, of starving children or mass graves, shows how sincere the filmmakers were about delving into human understanding. If I were a family member or loved one of any of the deceased pictured here, I would certainly like to see their bodies treated with more dignity. The script has the narrator delivering faux philosophical monologues over the grotesque footage. Much of which isn't very interesting, though one or two line at least has a certain poetry to it. A random aside about how, if genocide on the level of the Holocaust occurs again, we should all go to Hell. Or ruminating about switching to vegetarianism after seeing the inner workings of an slaughterhouse or a farmer chopping a chicken's head off. But those are fleeting moments in a film that feels more like, in line with Schwartz's past credits, a version of "In Search Of..." hosted by the Evil Spock from the Mirror Universe. 

The question then becomes what value, if any, "Faces of Death" has in 2026. Unsurprisingly, it mostly exists now as a camp artifact, thanks to those unconvincing staged sequences. An alligator attack on a golf course contains a lot of alternate camera angles for supposed raw footage of a guy getting chomped on by a wild animal. A bear attack is more hilariously awkward. A husband goads a sedated looking grizzly until there's a dramatic scream from his camera-holding wife, a fumble of footage, and a shot of the bear chewing on something inside the man's shirt. The most notorious moments are the most ridiculous. Satanic hippies sliced open a body and smear blood on their tits on their way to an orgy, a moment of such clumsiness that I'm not sure why it was included at all. The infamous monkey brains supper is so melodramatic in its presentation, that it feels like a farce. (Though that poor bound macaque clearly was really getting smacked in the head with rubber mallets. At least the dog fight sequence actually depicts two pit bulls trying to mate, with a little fake blood spread around.) 

The moments in "Faces of Death" that most made me laugh are less lauded. The epilogue devoted to an investigation of a supposed haunting and seance definitely feels like a regional horror film from 1976. The most baffling decision made was to end this cinematic vomitorium with a life-affirming montage of moms and babies, animals in the wild, and beautiful sunrises set to a truly maudlin piece of auditory schlock. And, yeah, once or twice, the filmmakers actually stumble upon an interesting visual. Faked footage of a police shoot-out, concluding with a suburban rifleman being gunned down and scenes of his butchered wife and kids inside, plays like proto-found footage. The recreation of Dr. Gröss' nightmare includes some decently eerie first person perspective of a casket being lowered into the ground and covered with dirt. An interview with a supposed political assassin distorts his voice and covers his face in such a way as to add a surreal edge. The recreation of an execution by electric chair suggests some degree of actual horror by the filmmakers at what they are showing us. As much as "Faces of Death" is classified strictly as artless hucksters pointing a camera at dead bodies or cutting together traffic accidents, there was a molecule of talent or skill involved here. Those involved probably should've scrapped together a few more bucks and made a cheapie horror flick instead. 

But that wouldn't have made as much money. As a con man's shtick, the movie is mildly impressive. These guys really did throw this shit together on the fly and made millions of dollars off it. Several sequels would follow, the degree of bullshittery in each varying. A cottage industry of more explicit shock-docs would spring up in "Faces'" wake. Questionable exercises in free will like "Death Faces" or "Traces of Death" would give those craving actual footage of death and the grisly aftermath exactly what they asked for. All of these are the ancestors of LiveLeak, Ogrish, BestGore, and other seedy corners of the internet devoted to showing us awful things. I guess some folks are nostalgic for such things. Schwartz's "Faces of Death" made me laugh from its shoddiness and awkwardness a couple of times. I don't object to the film existing and believe that, perhaps, there are contexts where footage such as this could be presented in a meaningful manner. Merely looking at animals and dead people getting chopped up does little for me. "Faces of Death" has its place in genre history but how worthy it is of being sought out, in this day and age, depends on how interested you are in this disreputable style of filmmaking. [5/10]

 

Ruthless Father (2019)

Cinemas were first built in Afghanistan in the fifties. Locally produced motion pictures began to emerge in the next decade. In the aftermath of the Cold War, the newly emerged government banned film productions within the country. When the Taliban took control a few years after that, even watching a film was declared a crime. There's been growth since then, though the Afghan film industry still remains small. Letterboxd currently list 173 feature length, finished titles with Afghanistan as their primary country of origin. Of that entire list, only two seem to fall within the horror genre. A project entitled “The Yesterday's Shadows” was supposedly released in 2011, though I can find no way to watch it. 2019's “Ruthless Father,” however, can be located with a minimal amount of effort. Director/star Hamid Ehsas announces in the opening credits that this is Afghanistan's first horror movie, which at least seems to be true from any practical perspective.

The same credits also declare that, excluding the supernatural and romantic elements, “Ruthless Father” is a true story. Which is kind of like saying “This story is true, except for all the stuff we made up.” Nevertheless, the plot concerns a cruel father who mistreats his wife and their three sons. Every day, he sends his boys – Hamid, Fahim, and Fayaz – out into the city to work. When they return home at night, he beats them until they hand over whatever money they made that day. Aging into adulthood, Hamid has decided he's had enough. He decides to marry the woman he loves – whom the extremely wonky subtitles describe as “his uncle's daughter” – and start over in a new town. Instead, his dad bullies him into simply moving into his house with his new bride. While Fahim is at work, thieves supposedly attack the home and murder Hamid with an axe. This is the first in a string of tragedies that befall the family, it becoming evident very soon that supernatural forces have cursed the household. 

After watching “Ruthless Father,” I felt the same way I did after watching “Dead Sands,” the Bahrani zombie movie I covered last year. Both were made by aspiring filmmakers with limited resources, in a country with little professional support for projects like this and no established horror cinema traditions of its own. So I'll start by saying some positive things: “Ruthless Father” features some effectively atmospheric lighting in several scenes. A nightmare sequences includes some cool billowing fog and lights semi-abandoned buildings in fluorescent reds. It looks neat. There's also, I believe, a decent attempt to build suspense in a few other sequences. A haunting set piece beginning in a locked bathroom, featuring bloody hand prints slowly moving up the wall, is decently executed. The filmmakers certainly show potential. 

Otherwise, it's hard not to notice that a clear lack of professionalism inhabits most of “Ruthless Father.” The acting is embarrassingly stiff, with most of the performers mechanically rattling off the dialogue they've been given. The music is heavy-handed, often overwhelming the dialogue in a scene. I suspect some of the score is license-free music, or at least sounds generic enough to be. The pacing is quite poor, with multiple scenes stretching on for far too long. Such as when a pair of night watchmen at a cemetery indecisively go back and forth on whether or not they are, in fact, seeing a guy at a grave. Or several extended moments of people walking up stairs or sitting down, which feel like nothing more than padding. I hear that Indian cinema is popular in Afghanistan and the masala influence is evident in “Ruthless Father.” There are a few music video style fantasy sequences, of the brothers wooing their ladies, that feel very out-of-place compared to the rest of the film. Not as out-of-place as the sudden burst of action movie theatrics. An apparent flashback to the day of Hamid's murder features the guys doing over-the-top spin punches and leaps. Except “Ruthless Father” clearly did not have the budget or resources to hire an actual stunt coordinator or fight choreographer. The scene is instead instantly giggles-inducing, peppered with misplaced or mistimed slow-motion and ramping. 

Maybe the biggest problem facing “Ruthless Father,” more so than its amateurish production values or awkward acting, is a script with little in the way of suspense. Perhaps the above fight scene is so over-the-top because we are meant to recognize it as bullshit. I'm reluctant to spoil the film but, needless to say, the facts about how the son of a physically abusive father ended up suddenly dead, right after he attempted to assert control of his own life, are not hard to predict. With this prediction in mind, the film's vengeful haunting is still inconsistent. In some scenes, Hamid's ghost seems to target people who had nothing to do with his death. At one point, it appears in angelic white to explain that it means no harm to someone. I would say having your film's antagonist outright announce that they aren't going to hurt certain characters undermines their threat potential, man. 

In general, “Ruthless Father” is simply a mawkish, off-note motion picture. The attempts at scares are often derailed by super limp digital effects, a bad sound effect, or a poorly timed shock. The script is heavy on the melodrama, with several romantic subplots amounting to nothing. The film's ideas about what are scary – a photograph's eyes changing suddenly – are more corny than intense. The version I watch comes with its own subtitles, an English translator being credited as well. The result of their work is below-par, with most sentences being barely coherent and text-speech abbreviations like “pls” cropping up. I'm still trying to figure out what insult “son of a donkey” is a mangled translation of. It's hard to be too down on a film like this, more-or-less the first of its kind. This is the rough prototype that better, future productions will hopefully build on. But that doesn't make it any less rough either. [3/10]

 

 

 

The Mind Beyond: Stones

The British Broadcasting Corporation used to be quite fond of anthology programs. Programs like “Play for Today” or “Screen One” would present original, stand-alone dramas, often adapted from contemporary stage plays or other classy source material. Another example was “BBC2 Playhouse,” whose main distinguishing characteristics seems to be that it, uh, aired on BBC2 instead. In autumn of 1976, born of producer Irene Shubik's personal fascination with the topic, “Playhouse” would devote six broadcasts to the theme of extrasensory perception. This sub-series was labeled “The Mind Beyond” and several of its episodes have been pointed out folk horror scholars. Such as “Stones.” It concerns a plan by the British tourism board to move Stonehenge from the Wiltshire field it's resided in for centuries to Hyde Park, in the middle of London. Historian Nicholas is fiercely opposed to the idea. (Not the least bit because the project's head is his wife's old college boyfriend.) In his research, he uncovers unknown lettering hidden under the spine of a book on the subject. This leads him on a journey to investigate the power and meaning ancient stone structures like Stonehenge had... And may still have, as the monoliths seem to be holding a strange sway over Nicholas' adolescent daughter.

On one level, “Stones” really shows the limitations of seventies British television. As an hour of television, “Stones” is quite dry. Almost the entire runtime is devoted to different stuffy old British men, standing around in rooms, talking about things. Nicholas talks about the plan to move Stonehenge with other officials and academics in tuxedos. He goes to a friend and expert in languages and talks about the symbols he's uncovered. He ends up in a museum and argues with the keeper of the old books. He journeys to a book seller and discusses the sales history of several old stones. At least one of these encounters has him outside, near the henge itself, as he discusses the topic with a portly, jolly Welshman. It is, obviously, not the most cinematic presentation. The performances are all quite stately and British. While the conversations about the history of Stonehenge, and especially past doomed attempts to move it, are intriguing... I'll admit, my interest did start to wane during all the talk of the mysterious symbols. You would think an expert on Stonehenge, of all people, would recognize that the weird letters resemble the standing stones he's always talking about. 

The stiffness of the characters and their long-winded discussions may, in fact, be the point. Early on, Nicholas is accused of having “The Oxford Problem.” He's so deep into the world of academia, so used to talking about ideas, that he's no longer able to talk to people. The rest of the hour certainly backs that up. His relationship with his wife seems tense. She references past relationships as being more active and passionate. Later, Nicholas defaces a book after being directly told not to do that. After a secretary doesn't respond to him, he dismisses her as annoying and doesn't notice that she's literally deaf. He's most clueless about his own daughter, whom he doesn't seem to notice has been having distressing dreams and acting very strangely. The irony is that the girl's unusual behavior is directly connected to the old rocks he's obsessed with. If he actually bothered to pay attention to people, and not premises, he might have noticed that. 

Where “Stones” is going with all this talk of ancient ruins and their power over people is not revealed until the final minutes. Whether it's a satisfying pay-off or not is debatable. No answers are provided for the strange power of the stones. Whether an otherworldly force is acting through them or if they are simply imbued with that power through our belief in them, this is not specified. However, Stonehenge sure doesn't want anyone to move it. A show like “Beasts” would connect its more academic ideas to a greater point about human nature, to why these beliefs exist and have endured. “The Mind Beyond” is more about the mysterious nature of these things. This is not as compelling but this episode does generate some spooky vibes. The montage of the stones' magical abilities is well done. The creepiest moment occurs when a photo is found, with one face marked out and two more left. Like “The Blood on Satan's Claws,” “Stones” uses ancient rituals to comment on anxieties around what the kids today are getting up to. Interesting but could've used more murder magic. [6/10]
 

 

Friday the 13th: The Series: Root of All Evil

“The Root of All Evil” features probably the grisliest plot device “Friday the 13th: The Series” has cooked up yet. A man working in the garden with his bitchy mother clobbers her over the head with a rake. He then feeds her body into the mulcher, cold hard cash being spit out the other end. Eventually, the machine ends up on the property of a rich woman, currently converting the grounds into a public garden. Among the groundskeeper is Adrian, seemingly a formally homeless youth who owes some people money. After an old enemy harasses him on this, Adrian discovers the money generating powers of the mulcher. He soon intuits the mechanics of this supernatural process: That people worth more in life generate more cash when feed into the machine. Ryan and Jack are soon on the case, while Micki finds herself pulled between her new life and her old one. 

Here's another episode with a silly pun as its title. A need for money is what motivates the Villain of the Week to kill, his job and the nature of the machine putting him literally close to roots and plants. While this observation is about as shallow as can be, “Root of All Evil” almost stumbles on something genuinely thoughtful. Adrian doesn't seem to be a bad guy at first. ___ plays him as tired and in a bad situation, desperate to do anything to survive. When he stumbles onto a device that literally makes money, in exchange for human bodies, it's understandable that he would be tempted to cross some moral boundaries. We are all dependent on how much cash we can make in this sad, capitalistic society of our's. Indeed, most of us have jobs we hate, doing something we normally would not do, simply because we need the paycheck to live. The script almost seems to say that class boundaries are what genuinely force people into bad circumstances that cause them to commit crimes. Sadly, this is tossed out by Adrian becoming more of a blatant, unhinged villain as the episode progresses. How someone's “worth” equates to what the mulcher produces is vaguely defined. Are we talking about their financial worth? Their philosophical worth? A greater point about social structures and what value human life actually could have been made here but the episode falls short. 

Maybe the A-plot is a little underdeveloped because “Root of All Evil” also builds up some continuity in its B-plot. Remember how Micki had a lawyer fiance in the first episode? He's been referenced once or twice since but this is the second time he's actually been on-screen. He wants to know why his bride-to-be is spending all her time at a spooky antiques shop and not with him. An understandable concern but the guy is such an obvious jerk. I'm not surprised this plot point arrives more to write an awkward, lingering premise out. I guess the show deserves points for remembering this detail at all and not simply ignoring it. More than anything else, this sets up more of that hilariously uncomfortable tension between Ryan and Micki. He seems more jealous of her boyfriend than simply concerned about their mission to collect evil objects. Indeed, the guy even suggests that Micki is cheating on him with Ryan. The script points out that they are merely cousins by marriage, the program encouraging its viewers not to be weirded-out by the incest subtext. The same reason why all those videos on the internet are about “stepsisters,” in other words. Anyway, this episode is notably for its gory set-up but certainly needed to be further fleshed out. [6/10]

Halloween 2026: September 17th

 

Psycho (1998)
 

It begs the same question now as then: Why? Why remake "Psycho," one of the most hailed and studied films ever made by the medium's most lauded master? It will inevitably be compared to the original and found lacking. I suppose the same could be said for making sequels, which didn't stop Universal and produced some interesting results. If a filmmaker was compelled to remake "Psycho," surely it would be out of a desire to explore something unsaid in the original. To go deeper into Norman Bates' twisted world or to reinstate the elements from Robert Bloch's novel that didn't make it to the screen. Instead, Gus Van Sant came to studio head Casey Silver with a pitch for a shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock's classic. Silver found this to be, quote, "a very strange idea." Van Sant, however, was still riding high on the critical, commercial success of "Good Will Hunting" and apparently could get any crazy idea green-lit. Upon release in 1998, Van Sant's "Psycho" was met with confusion and irritation. Most audience members seemed annoyed that they were presented with an almost identical but obviously inferior version of "Psycho." Critics generally found the project to be pointless, which was probably the consensus opinion. I mean, it would have to be. A 1-to-1 reenactment of "Psycho" could be achieved far more easily, and in a far more satisfying manner, by simply renting "Psycho" from the video store. Why spend 25 million dollars on that and several million more on releasing it? 

Now, Gus Van Sant is an artist, a reputation earned from his prominent position in the New Queer Cinema Movement of the eighties. He has been called upon to explain himself a few times over the years. While he's given vague answers that he remade “Psycho” “so no one else would have to” or by explaining that all remakes are merely “marketing schemes,” his true intentions are observable within the film. Van Sant's “Psycho” is a meta-experiment. If we take the screenplay to a great movie and shoot it in the exact same way as was previously done, will the results still be a great movie? The answer is obviously “no,” that you'll only get a rather literal pale imitation. You would think any filmmaker who has actually done the day-to-day work on the set would understand that. The alchemy happens because of who is there, the choices made in the moments, and copying that is not the same thing as doing it.

 

Nevertheless, I suppose it's an experiment worth trying, simply to prove if it could be done. Or as an expression of the filmmaker's obsessive fixation on the minutia of another work of art. If the stories of Van Sant and company keeping a VHS of Hitchcock's original on set and watching and re-watching scenes right before trying to replicate them are true, I suspect the remake is most a manifestation of that. He wouldn't have been the first nor the last die hard fan to attempt this. However, usually such an experiment is done by kids or students working with what's available to them and not the resources of a major studio with big stars on-screen. It's an exercise done more for the filmmakers themselves, to see if can replicate what made their favorite subject special, to push themselves to that level of greatness. It was presented to a mass audience anyway, with its own degree of pomp and circumstance and pretensions around it. 

 

But, okay, Gus Van Sant. I'll play your game. If the thesis of your “Psycho” is that the people making the film indirectly change it, even when slavishly following the blue print, what does the evidence say? Yes, Van Sant's “Psycho” is different from Hitchcock's, despite the fidelity to the source material. It is noticeably worst. Obviously, a wide released film in 1998 was going to be in color. Unable to replicate the original's stark black-and-white cinematography, the remake instead amps up the color. It makes the interior of the Bates Motel reds, greens, and yellows. The colors of Marion's bright dresses, the clean white of Norman's final prison cell, and Mother Bates' immaculately preserved bedroom are all strikingly colorful. It's not as creepy but it looks interesting, at least. 

Most of the other riffs on what came before are noticeable down grades. This is most obvious in the editing. Amy E. Duddleston cuts the remake faster than the original, managing to shave about three minutes off the runtime. Subtle though it may be, the result feels rushed. This “Psycho” feels impatient, unwilling to sit with its characters as much. I would say it sinks any chances for suspense but that was never possible, because we know every reveal and moment before it comes. The devotion to duplicating the exact camera movements, the smooth pans around Norman as he cleans up the murder scene or peering down as Mother is carried into the fruit cellar, feel less like an organic expression of the story and its themes. It's not careful choices to draw us in. It's choreography, Van Sant and his team doing the Groucho mirror gag with Hitchcock but failing to convince us that we are seeing the same thing. This is also true of the score, Danny Elfman and Steve Bartek brought in to tweak Bernard Herrman's music just enough that you notice it's different but not enough to feel like anything but a glitchy cover.

Despite everyone describing this as a “shot-for-shot” remake, it's not exactly. Minor updates are made to the story, Lila wearing headphones in one scene and the amount of money Marion steals being increased. The late nineties R rating is secured by adding stab wounds, more blood, and Anne Heche's ass in the shower scene. To show  equal oppretunity offense, I guess, Viggo Mortensen's modesty is barely maintained by carefully placed body parts in the opening scene. Most notoriously, we hear Norman tugging on his dick while looking through the peep hole. Imagine the fun the sound designer had trying to find the perfect fap-fap sounds for that moment. These additions certainly don't make the material more shocking or upsetting, while dragging away some of the original's subtly.

The other changes are even more intrusive. The sound design ups the discordant chatter in the background, which is only distracting. Lila entering into the Bates mansion occurs in daylight, rather than night, a choice that is significantly less atmospheric. She also lands a punch on Norman after he's restrained, some ill-made decision to make the character more proactive, I guess. The most baffling choices are surreal visual interludes during the murder scenes. Split-second cuts to a nude woman in some sort of mask or a cow in the middle of the road during Arbogast's face slashing do nothing but make the audience asked why they are there. The faster paced editing renders the tightly-wound frenzy of the shower stabbing to a rejected industrial rock music video. Why set out to make a shot-for-shot remake only to add these sudden swerves? That does nothing but cause the film to fail at its own stated objective, quite confusingly. 

One must be forced to ask another question: Is the “Psycho” remake a prank? Did Gus Van Sant giggle mischievously while burning through Universal's money, as he wankishly played a game of monkey-see-monkey-do with Hitchcock? Perhaps. Vince Vaughn adopts a loose-limbed, cocked hip physicality to Norman. His nervous prater projects more a sense of insecurity than under-the-surface instability. Meanwhile, his body seems squeezed into Anthony Perkins' tight-fitting turtlenecks. The impression is that the serial killer is now a swishy homosexual, giving his face-to-face confrontation with Sam Loomis a new layer. Norman now wears his mother's nightgown when acting out his murderous impulses, a sillier visual that seems to also point towards deliberate camp. The fruit cellar is now a bird-filled, curtain decorated chamber. That suggests a kind of giallo-esque, DePalma like exaggeration. If the remake had embraced that tendency more frequently, I be more charitable to agree with those that enjoy this film as a subversive act of queer parody. 

All the performances seem to have been ramped up a bit. Anne Heche adds a squirrely quality to Marion Crane, which feels like an attempt to reinterpret the character in the more openly neurotic nineties. While the film is ostensibly set in the modern day, William H. Macy is playing Arbogast as even more of a noir throwback. There's a recognizable character actor in most of the supporting roles. Robert Forester as the psychologist, James Remar as the highway patrolman, Phillip Baker Hall as the sheriff, Rance Howard as Marion's boss. All fine performers whose presence are never anything but distracting, a further indication to the viewer that we are watching an elaborate fan film rather than an involving work of art on its own. You really feel that way when Flea, of all people, shows up as Bob, the guy working in Sam's shop. Why, man? Why'd do that? 

And “Why?” is the same question I opened this review with, meaning I'm no closer to finding any deeper meaning in this act of cinematic imitation. Van Sant inserts himself into the space in the original where Hitchcock's cameo was. He is now talking to a rotund man in a hat, a clear stand-in for Hitchcock who is supposedly berating the younger filmmaker. This furthers my feeling that  “Psycho” (1998) is not a legitimate attempt to retell this story. It's not an especially effective act of meta-commentary on the idea of remakes or authorial intent. As a prank, it's not that funny either. I can only conclude that this was some masochistic humiliation for its auteur, Van Sant doing a blasphemous act and luxuriating in how obnoxiously pretentious and pretentiously obnoxious he's being. If you're into that kind of thing, more power to ya but I got little out of it. [4/10] 

 

The Demon of Mount Oe (1960)

Ooe-yama Shuten-dôji
 

You might have noticed that I am fascinated by similar folkloric concepts emerging across different, far-off cultures. St. George slaying the dragon to save the princess was likely inspired by Ragnar killing the serpent for Thora. Or Perseus rescuing Andromeda from Cetus... But what of Rama's wife Sita being abducted by demon king Ravanna? Or Māui protecting the bathing Hina from Kuna, the eel god? These are comparable stories that developed independently of each other. The hero, the maiden, and the monster he must save her from is a narrative that resonates deeply within the human soul. In Japan, another island nation often isolated from the rest of the world, there are stories like this too. Susanoo dismembering Orochi for the sake of Kushinadahime is probably the most direct parallel. Consider, also, the tale of Shuten-dōji. A hard-drinking ogre who dwelt on Mount Oe and had a habit of snatching young maidens, actual historical figure Minamoto no Raikō is credited with decapitating the monster. The most famous beat of the story then occurs, as the not-quite-expired head of the beast takes one last chomp at the samurai. Luckily, Raikō wore a couple extra helmets that day, which is all the demon gobbled before it died. It is a beloved legend in Japan, often adapted and referenced across pop culture. One such example is the 1960 film "Ōeyama Shuten Dōji," a samurai-and-kaiju predecessor to Daiei's later "Daimajin" and "Yokai Monsters" series. Since we rubes overseas don't know what the hell a Shootin' DJ is, the film is internationally known as "The Demon of Mount Oe."

Princess Nagisa is the bride to the emperor. After a demonic ox attempts to abduct her, she is transported to the city of Genji and placed under the care of general Raiko. The princess reveals that she is cursed. Demons follow her to Genji. Tsuno, Raiko's greatest warrior, is attacked by a witch and slices off her arm. Bandits, some of whom possess magic powers, torment the village. Nagisa reveals that the emperor stole her from the mountain-dwelling bandit king, Shuten-dōji. He was once human, a disgraced samurai, and is now plotting to kill the emperor with his band of otherworldly cohorts. Raiko is tasked with assembling a team to scale Mount Oe, confront and kill Shuten-dōj, and bring this reign of terror to an end. 

"The Demon of Mount Oe" begins with a heavily stylized rendition of the Shuten-dōji tale as Japanese audiences in 1960 would probably know it. After that wild opening, the film then announced that it's going to tell you "the real story" behind this legend. Yes, the film belongs to that style of post-modernist fairy tale adaptations, an approach surely taken from Matsutarō  Kawaguchi's source novel. This is probably why the sake swilling demon king of the mountain is simply a guy in this version, played by Kazuo Hasegawa in a really cool wig. That approach also assumes the audience is already familiar with the traditional telling of this story. Minamoto-no-Raiko, Watanabe no Tsuno, and the rest of the Four Heavenly Kings are introduced with little preamble. The script weaves a few different legends into the plot, alongside various historical battles. The film stars Raizō Ichikawa and Shintaro Katsu, a few years before headlining two long-running samurai franchises for Daiei. Both actors are put in similar looking period garb, with the same style of make-up on their face. When this is combined with a plot that frequently leaps around in time and location and has a large cast of characters, "The Demon of Mount Oe" proves a little hard to follow for a clueless American like me. 

For the same reasons, it's a bit tricky for me to engage with what is obviously the film's attempt to deconstruct a famous folk tale. All the more so because director Tokuzō Tanaka and screenwriter Fuji Yahiro do not dismiss the otherworldly elements. Shuten-dōji may be human in this telling but he's still backed up by demonic henchmen. Like Kidomaru, who can teleport and turn into that hideous bull demon, and the ninja-like Tsuchigumo, who shoots silk from his fingers before changing into a big-ass spider. The plot concerns folkloric devices like a witch having her true form revealed in her reflection, disguising herself as an old woman to retrieve her detached arm, a sword that glows in the presence of demons, and a magical arrow being delivered by the gods in a dream. This back-and-forth between more grounded elements and blatantly fantastical ones throws me off a little. Maybe the Japanese don't feel the need to distinguish as much between historical fact and legend as we stiflingly literal Americans do. 

Of course, the monster stuff is what got me to watch “The Demon of Mount Oe” in the first place, so I can't complain about its presence too much. Indeed, the fantasy sequences are the best part of the film. Compared to the relatively grounded and black-and-white “The Whale God,” the previous Tokuzō Tanaka film I wrote about, this one is very far-out and colorful. The opening sequence is all surreal lighting and frantic movements. The first appearance of Kidomaru is proceeded by a swirl of colors in the sky. The sequence where Shintaro Katsu meets and fights the witch is lit in bright pinks and purples and shot on an intentionally artificial looking sound stage. When she ascends up into the air and takes him with her, that is achieved in an effect that clearly looks fake but in a playful, dream-like way that really sells that this is a reenactment of an old folk tale. This peaks during the confrontation with Tsuchigumo, whose web of entwining silk are usually accompanied by bright flashes of lights. The giant spider sequence does feature a fairly stiff puppet, whose awkwardly spurts sparks from its mouth and slowly kicks its eight legs. It also takes place on a back-lit night set, with interesting uses of pyrotechnics and cinematography. It's all very stylized and neat. 

For all the verve in its fantastical scenes, “The Demon of Mount Oe” still favors feudal melodrama more than monstery stuff. There are many scenes of court intrigue, two love triangles, and at least one dying declaration of affection. At about two hours, it gets a little long winded at times. Yet the film is also likable in its stylistic bursts. There are, in fact, three separate dance numbers as well, all of which are quite interesting. One of which involves Shintaro Katsu kicking up his heels, if that's something you want to see. “The Demon of Oe” is not as grimly intriguing as “The Whale God” and doesn't feature the crowd-pleasing kaiju destruction of the “Daimajin” trilogy. It's still scratch that itch for me, of seeking another corner of obscure Japanese monster movie action. Also, I've enjoyed how many times this review has given me a chance to type “Shuten Dōji.” It's a fun name! Shoe-ten Doe-jee! [7/10]

 

Thriller: The Double Kill

The episode of “Thriller,” Brian Clemens' British crime and murder anthology from the seventies that has nothing to do with someone whose name is surely Boris Karloff, I watched last year was pretty good. So here's another! “The Double Kill” concerns Hugh Briant, husband to rich heiress Clorissa. The two are fighting more often, as Clorissa uses sleeping pills to soothe her restless mind and Hugh spends all night at poker games. The man has developed a habit of bragging in public about all the riches and wealth in their home and also how they have no locks on their windows. He's hoping a burglar will enter the house, a common crook he can then blackmail into killing his wife. That way Hugh receives her significant inheritance and doesn't have to get his hands dirty. He thinks he's found the man in a shifty-eyed young thief named Max Burns. Max has other plans though, deliberately leaving clues behind that implement the husband. Now Hugh has to enact a new plan, that gets rid of the loose end and clears his name.

“The Double Kill” is a twisty act of misdirection most made worth seeing by Gary Collins' lead performance. The prolific star of film and TV brings his resounding voice to the role of the scheming husband. Collins slithers through every scene, quite confident in his own ability to manipulate those around him. When he gives his proposal to the various home intruders he “auditions,” the certainty and smoothness in his delivery is quite convincing. The script, of course, is build around increasingly upsetting that sense of control. Watching this guy slowly loose his grip on the plan he's cooked up is worthwhile. His facial expressions as the cops reveal each new piece of evidence against him is almost comical in how on point they are. While watching this jerk slowly blow his cool as he's double-crossed at every turn would be fun, Collins' instinct as an actor are sturdier than that. A guy like this isn't going to slip up overnight. This is why Hugh is still toying with Max in their final scene together, still so confident that he can make this work. 

He can't, of course. “Thriller” has a fine twist ending coming the viewer's way. I can't decide if it's a cheat or not. It doesn't depend on misdirecting our attention so much as leaving a very key piece of information hidden until the finale. I didn't see it coming though, so I guess that means the writers got me. “The Double Kill” does keep you guessing, largely because Stuart Wilson as Max is so effectively unpredictable. You are left wondering which of these snakes will come out on top. While the twist is a good one, “The Double Kill” lacks a satisfying punchline of an ending. The implication is that the guilty party will get their comeuppance soon enough but they probably should have shown that on-screen as well. Nevertheless, this is a well assembled and nicely acted bit of seventies pulp, if a bit too stately in its presentation. I usually like the dryness of these British seventies shows but “Thriller” definitely feels a little more dry than the others I've seen. [7/10]

 

 

Friday the 13th: The Series: Shadow Boxer

 

 I love how literal the titles of "Friday the 13th: The Series" episodes tend to be. "Shadow Boxer" is about a cursed pair of boxing gloves that makes the wearer a champ in the ring... At the cost of causing their literal shadow to detach from their body and act upon their anger and resentment, beating the target of that rage to death. The Villain of the Week is Tommy, a wannabe boxer and current janitor at Manny's Gym. After coming across the gloves, he quickly starts winning matches. People around him also begin to die violently, including Manny himself who left the letters T.O. in his own blood at the crime scene. The Curious Goods team are on the case, with Micki pretending to be romantically interested in Tommy in order for Ryan and Jack to get into his apartment. This has unforeseen consequences. 

The rule I laid down last time, that any given episode of "Friday the 13th: The Series" is only as good as whatever baddie the heroes are chasing this week, holds true. If this episode had been made in 2026, the script would probably characterize Tommy as an incel. He's a loner, a smaller-in-stature young male that seems to simmer with resentment at everyone around him. In the gym, he's surrounded by bigger, stronger guys who are better at the sport of punching people into submission than the physically weak Tommy. He glares at Manny's favored student with jealousy and rage. Modern online Tommy would call this guy a "Chad," the Alpha Male that denies him access to that which he believes is his. (Or, since the rival is a black man, he would call him "Tyrone," because incels are also totally absorbed in the hyper-racist rhetoric of the terminally online right.) It's not being an outcast or shrimpy that makes Tommy an asshole. It's his unearned sense of entitlement. Tommy believes he deserves to be a champ. The magic boxing gloves allow him a short cut to achieve that dream of being intimidating and easily cutting his objects of scorn down. The same way an AR-15 does for any bitter, misogynistic manlet. 

While the plot is focused on the ultra-macho world of the gym and the ring, Tommy is still super weird about women. Micki is given the unfortunate task of charming the young psycho. The script doesn't go into it but Tommy is immediately enamored of Micki, presumably because womanly attention is something else he longs for that has been denied him. Probably because he's also a sexist jerk. After sharing one piece of pie, he assumes this female he's never talked to before, who knows nothing about him as far as he's aware, wants to sleep with him. "Shadow Boxer" takes an unexpected turn in the last act. The villain is defeated and the Cursed Artifact of the Week retrieved, the point where this show would normally end. Instead, it goes on for an extra act, Tommy breaking into Micki's apartment. He restrains her in bed and threatens her with a knife, a set-up obviously reminiscent of sexual assault. Denied access to the object he wants, he turns to violence, just like he did with the guys at the gym. Bitterness over not having what he's been taught should be his is the root of Tommy's evil. 

Josh Miller's script is not that deep and "Shadow Boxer" doesn't get into the web of toxic masculinity that births monsters like this. Tommy's rage manifesting as a shadow is a clever, Jungian image but the guy is also a sleazy ass in his regular life. His anger is not exactly repressed. It's mentioned that each of the boxers have nicknames like "Killer" or "Terrific," emphasizing that violence and triumph is what distinguished people in this world. Yet the gym seems pretty chill otherwise, the episode having neither the time nor depth to explore why prizing aggression and victory over everything else produces kids like Tommy. The script is also unaware enough that it depicts Ryan giving Micki a playful smack on the ass as charming male behavior. Which may just be another example of this show seeming to forget that these two are cousins and probably shouldn't have a will-they-won't-they dynamic going on. What's a little incest in-between solving weekly mysteries, ya know? 

As is typical of this show, it eventually gets bogged down in the nonsensical magical rules around its cursed object. Tommy's shadow is beaten back by bright light, leading to a goofy scene of Micki fighting it off with a flash camera. The exact link between the gloves' wearer, the shadow, and the object itself are not always clearly defined. The climax features an especially confusing turn of events, in how Tommy is defeated. Still, this is easily one of the better episodes I've seen so far. It shows that our modern day "crisis of masculinity" isn't anything new, that entitlement and might-as-right attitudes has been producing guys like this for a while. [7/10]

 

Halloween 2026: September 16th

 

Lee Cronin's The Mummy (2026)
 

When it was announced that Blumhouse and James Wan would be producing a movie called “The Mummy,” I had assumed it was part of Blumhouse's on-going wave of reboots of the classic Universal Monsters. After all, the mummy is one of those characters. Director Lee Cronin is a hot, up-and-coming name in the genre, much the way the other filmmakers involved with these projects have been. However, at some point, I noticed something very odd: Universal was not involved in the production, nor distribution, of this “Mummy.” Instead, this was a Warner Bros/New Line Pictures release. In fact, shortly after teaser trailers started to come out for this film, Universal announced a third sequel to the Brendan Fraser/Rachel Weiz “Mummy” series. The director – still far from a household name, even among genre fans – would have his name amended to the title to further distinguish it from past “Mummy” films. The official Blumhouse account on the website formally known as Twitter would, in the days leading up to the April release, repeatedly clarify that Fraser was not involved in this film. This was, apparently, a source of confusion for test audiences. I assume the film began development at Universal before, for whatever reason, Blumhouse and team were allowed to take the project else where. I can assume Universal signed off on all this to some degree as “The Mummy” is a title that originated with them, even if the general concept of mummies obviously did not. Ultimately, “Lee Cronin's The Mummy” does not acknowledge the 1933 Boris Karloff film nor any of its sequels or remakes in its credits at all. 

It's certainly a particular case, leading some to wonder if cross studio sabotage or something wasn't in play here. It would seem to me that this was very much intended to be an edgy, modern revival of the classic film that, through various contractual shenanigans, had to sever all legal connection to that original... Though weirdly not quite changing its title, which you would expect to be the first thing to go. That I was thinking about this so much in the lead-up to the film's release seem to obscure what should be a more pressing issue: Namely, whether the film was any good. This was certainly a question after I saw the divisive reaction to this “Mummy.” The chief complaint, not dissimilar to what people said about Leigh Whannell's “Wolf Man,” was that this wasn't much of a mummy movie at all. Presumably, this was another factor in the film parting ways with Universal. Cronin's “Evil Dead Rise” impressed me enough to allow him the benefit of the doubt. Let me now consider this film, which is not a remake or reboot of past “Mummy” movies in any way despite the unavoidable feeling that it actually, most definitely is. 

Charlie Cannon and his wife Larissa are expecting their third child. The family, including eldest daughter Katie and middle son Sebastian, currently live in Cairo, Egypt, where Charlie works as a television reporter. After Larissa leaves for her own job one morning, Charlie is approached in the family garden by a mysterious woman who hands her a fruit. This would be the last time Charlie and Larissa would see Katie, their daughter disappearing. Years later, the family – which now includes eight year old Maud – are living in New Mexico with Larissa's mother. This is when they receive some shocking news: A plane carrying a black sarcophagus crashed in Aswan, Egypt. Inside the casket was a mummy... Who was a very much still alive Katie. Charlie and Larissa are overjoyed but years of apparent isolation have left Katie catatonic, physically twisted, and prone to violent behavior. It soon becomes apparent that something is wrong with their daughter. A detective in Cairo attempts to find out what happened to Katie, uncovering an occult conspiracy around the girl. Charlie and Larissa, and everyone else in the household, soon discover how much Katie has been changed.

Whatever other issues I have with Lee Cronin's “Lee Cronin's The Mummy,” I do think the film has an interesting initial premise and a decent first act. This is, at the start, the story of parents having to grapple with the unpleasant fact that their daughter is now a mummy. That is to say, something petrified into a suspended state – Katie seems to have aged very little during her time in the casket – and something that is dead. The family tries to treat the girl like she's going to get better eventually. That normal life will resume at some point. This ignores that her body and mind have irrevocably been altered, her limbs twisted, her skin grey, her face locked in a dazed expression. Parallels to a loved one developing a mental illness, chronic condition, or terminal disease are obvious. Before Katie is returned home, we see that her mom has preserved her bedroom perfectly during the years she was gone. Human beings have a tendency to cling to the past, to be unwilling to move on from what they love and admit that what's gone is gone. In other words: Katie is dead, the way all of us are going to rot and decay someday. Her family just doesn't know it yet. 

As a reinvention of the hoary cliché of a shambling corpse wrapped in bandages, that's a decent take. However, the longer this “Mummy” goes on, the more apparent it becomes that Cronin's script is not that concerned with subverting cliches. Midway through the film, Charlie consults an Egyptologist about bandages covered in ancient writing he peeled off his daughter's body. This leads to exposition about an ancient demon that corrupts the family and must be warded off with ritual and spells. This immediately stuck in my folklore nerd teeth. The classical Egyptians did not believe in demons, not in the Judeo-Christian sense. They had household spirits, guardian deities, and detested gods but not invisible bogeymen that crawled into living bodies. The villain of Cronin's “Mummy” is identified as "the Nasmaranian," an invention of the filmmaker. A little later on, the film features another exposition dump in the form of a forbidden VHS tape depicting profane rites. This has fast become a cliché in horror, last seen in “Bring Her Back” and “Together.” The footage has the ritual performed by people in wooden, undefined masks, which has become the standard uniform for weird cults in modern folk horror movies. Damn, Lee, you couldn't have put some Anubis masks or something in there? Some connection to the rich world of ancient Egyptian mythology? Which is unexplored in film and was absolutely obsessed with the separation of the soul and the body, the state of the flesh after death, and the associated rites? Seems like a massive missed oppretunity to me.

In its second half, it becomes clearer that Cronin idea of reinventing the mummy seems to amount to ripping off “The Exorcist” and “The Evil Dead.” Katie's voice is soon distorted into a demonic baritone. She says inappropriate things, a habit soon picked up by her siblings. There's levitation and vomit and a profaning of Christian symbols and a body tossed through an upstairs bedroom mirror. Not only is it all stuff we've seen before, it is reenacted in a listless fashion. Simply put, I don't find little kids swearing nor dodgy CGI telekinesis to be scary. Once the film turns more towards the idea of its villain spreading a malicious virus of corruption around the whole household, extending to the recently deceased, it feels like Cronin is reheating his “Evil Dead Rise” leftovers. That's when I noticed that this is Cronin's third film in a row about a loved one coming back “wrong.” Seriously suggesting that the guy doesn't have nearly enough ideas to earn having his name above the title. 

That Cronin is mostly regurgitating ideas from better movies is all the more disappointing. The guy is good at some things. Namely, the deployment of sickening gore and bodily mutilation. When Katie is first returned home, I actively wondered for a bit if actress Natalie Grace was under heavy make-up or had been completely replaced with a life-like puppet. Post-mummified Katie looks freaky as hell. The film packs in several teeth clenching moments. The showstopper involves a simple toe nail clipping going horribly wrong but a later bit, in which a scorpion takes a very direct escape route, also got a good reaction out of me. The film is full of blood and vomit, often projected into people's faces. A gut ripped open by a pack of coyotes is quite nasty. These moments are delivered with the kind of propulsive shock that the rest of the movie's attempts at scares lack. 

While the grisly violence is where Cronin's film excels, he's not able to establish the same ambiance of isolation that he did in “Evil Dead Rise.” You'd think the New Mexican desert location would achieve that but nobody seems to have much trouble getting back and forth from the home. Cinematographer Dave Garbett applies a piss yellow tinted color filter to far too much of the film, creating an increasingly dour mood with little energy behind it. Stephen McKeon's score hammers on the loud musical stings, which seems to foretell an increasingly reliance on tacky CGI before the end. The film's primary visual gimmick is a high number of split diopter shots. Their frequency begins to feel like a running joke quite quickly. The cast isn't bad, with May Calamawy as the detective giving a decent performance, but the familial drama in the story never feels natural. 

Lastly, what of those complaints that “Lee Cronin's The Mummy” is not much of a mummy movie either? I believe the premise of a mummified Egyptian corpse is wide enough to encompass a lot of ideas. After all, the 1933 film mostly features Imhotep minus his bandages. Cronin's film does indeed feature a mummified body, one wrapped in bandages too. However, this feels incidental to the demonic possession story the film is actually telling. Ultimately, this is more of generic folk horror movie, too cowardly to pull from actual folklore, wrapped around an incredibly underwhelming “Exorcist” wannabe. I'm forced to conclude that there's simply not much mummy in “Lee Cronin's The Mummy.”I don't know what secret sauce the guy had on “Rise” but it's been lacking in his other features. Considering the most successful and well received of the recent classic monster remakes – Egger's “Nosferatu” and del Toro's “Frankenstein – were highly personalized but nevertheless straight-forward adaptations of the material, maybe these archetypes do not need radical reinventions after all. [5/10]

 

 

Beauty and the Beast (1978)

Panna a netvor
 

In "The Epic of Gilgamesh," the titular warrior king has an enemies-to-best-bros arc with Enkidu. Enkidu is born as a horned, hairy wild man, who lives among the animals and acts as they do. A "sacred prostitute" named Shamhat is sent to lure Enkidu out of the wilderness. She successfully does so and, after two weeks of nightly love making, the wild man is civilized. He starts wearing clothes and everything. Yes, the idea of a beautiful woman soothing the savage heart of a wild beast, teaching him to clean his act up if he's going to spend a night in her bed, dates back to the earliest work of narrative literature. This is, quite sincerely, a tale as old as time. Passing through earlier iterations like Psyche and Cupid and Thabaton and Keibu Keioina, the story arrived in its most famous form in 1740s France. That's when Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve wrote the fairy tale "La Belle et la Bête," later further distilled by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont into the iconic version. Countless direct adaptations and interpretations have followed since. While many tellings veer towards the whimsical side of the tale, the fact that the Beast must be a beast links the story to the gothic monster tradition. One such adaptation to especially emphasize this element was made in Czechoslovakia in 1978, by master of the uncanny Juraj Herz. In Czech, the title is "Panna a netvor," which literally translates as "The Virgin and the Monster," but most copies go with the better known name. 

In this telling, the beauty is Julie, the youngest daughter of a merchant. After a shipment is destroyed by bandits while passing through the woods, her father travels abroad to sell the family's belongings. He asks his daughters if they would like him to bring any gifts back. His eldest two daughters, about to marry wealthy men, ask for jewels and pearls. Julie wants only her father to return safely and a single rose. Getting lost in the woods on his journey, , the merchant seeks shelter in a derelict castle. Inside, food and drink and treasures galore are offered to him by an unseen host... But when the man plucks a rose from the garden, he is accosted by the price of this manor, a victim of a curse that has turned him into a hideous amalgamation of man and hawk. When he explains that the rose is for his daughter, the beast asks for her instead. While the man refuses, a trade of hostages is still made. Julie arrives at the crumbling castle. The prince begins to court Julie from afar, unwilling to show her his monstrous face. Will Beauty fall in love with the Beast of her own accord or will he give into his blood lust for her?

 

Herz' take on the beloved fairy tales begins with images of horseback riders passing through a fog-drenched forest. The bandit attack that follows features a dramatic burst of flames and a bloody sword fight. A maiden flees from the chaos and encounters the Beast. At first, I wondered if this was our beauty but, no, he strikes her down with his fearsome claws instead. That is a clear establishing moment. Julie's poor, provincial town is introduced through a montage of animals being butchered. This further sets up a theme of consumption and transaction. Julie's greedy older sisters are only concerned with material things, eagerly waiting to marry rich men. Their father, after all in the business of trading and selling, is desperately anticipating the dowries. The Beast, meanwhile, is almost vampiric. He literally hungers for blood and must kill a deer to overcome his desire to tear into Julie's neck instead, with his raptor claws and hooked beak. The film's fantasy kingdom is a grim place, in which a need for flesh and gold drives everyone. 
 

Everyone, except for the girl. Julie is played by Zdena Studenková, whose wide eyes suggest a doe-like innocence. Her golden hair and glowing skin provides a light in the foggy darkness of this world. She is satisfied with simple pleasures and cares most of all about people. Her dreams are of a beautiful, kindly prince and the pure, euphoric love they share. Herz' "Beauty and the Beast" has that Eastern European, Soviet-era dourness to it but that is essential for the message being sent. This Beast is troubled, far more than most takes, but he strives to be better. When his Belle returns to her father and siblings out of loneliness, he decides that he truly is as unworthy of love, of grace, of forgiveness as he believes and surrenders to misery. But Julie does return to him, does accept him, because she can see the kindness within. There's a powerful line near the end of the film, that "Every woman has the power to make the man she loves beautiful." It's easy to dunk on any version of the "Beauty and the Beast" as a defense of rape culture. Sending the moral that girls should tolerate abusive men because they are really a nice, sensitive guy deep down. That the onus is on the Belles of the world to be beautiful and forgiving, to nurture brutish men into suitable husbands. Herz' telling gets at a deeper truth, that this is a story of the restorative power of love. That empathy, understanding, and kindness can change anyone, no matter how damaged or outwardly fearsome, into a better person. That these values are especially worth striving for in a world that often only cares about what it can get out of someone. 

It's a beautiful message, that love can change anyone. I'm not going to lie, I found myself relating to this Beast quite a lot. Herz' telling does include the castle servants being turned into the decor. However, instead of singing jaunty tunes, they watch ominously. They whisper to the prince, reinforcing every negative and self-hating thought he has. They urge him to kill and drink blood. That this is his nature and that being alone is his fate. When Julie's affection changes his claws back to hands, the voices mock him, saying he can't kill now and is accepted neither in the world of man or beast. Speaking as someone who has struggled with intrusive thoughts of self-loathing his entire life, this strikes me as a worthy metaphor. Of any peace of mind or chance for self-acceptance being spoiled by the nagging fear that you aren't good enough, that you deserve to be alone. His beastly appearance is a manifestation of his self hatred and his crumbling castle represents him sinking deeper into suffocating despair. The kindness of a stranger, someone beautiful loving him and seeing his worth under the years of self-inflicted scars and isolation, saves him. Not to bring up my impending nuptials yet again, but that spoke to me. I saw a lot of myself in this moldering bird-beast, given a light in the dark by the love of a fair maiden. 

While ultimately optimistic, this telling resides soundly on the horror side of the genre.  The sets for the castle are detailed and beautifully realized but also heavy on the debris and ruins. The fog in the first scene reoccurs throughout, often blanketing the ground. The score is heavy on the deep rumble of a pipe organ. It creates an atmosphere that is often deeply foreboding but also suitably dream-like. Julie explores these wrecked remains like the protagonist of a dream, wandering through always with curiosity and never fear. The often striking images – the Beast's raven eyes starring through the portrait of the girl's mother – further that twin feeling. Of being transported to a surreal realm but also one of danger and uncertainty. Of going into the deep, dark woods but emerging into the light on the other side. 

I often see this "Beauty and the Beast" referred to as a "gothic" telling of the story. That's most true in the literary sense, in the way the real world and the dreamy world of the subconscious blend together, in its archetypal characters, and in its distinctively old world setting and ambiance. In the modern sense, this might also be among the most spiritually goth movies I've ever seen. There's no eye-shadow or Siouxsie Sioux lookalikes but the co-lead is a literal black bird, lingering in the darkness and tormented by despair but longing for salvation via the love of a beautiful girl. What lonely teenager, too fond of old movies and old books and Dracula capes, couldn't relate to that? Grand stuff, in other words. I loved it. May all your beasts be tamed by their beauties. [9/10]

Leap in the Dark: To Kill a King

Two years ago, I was impressed with an episode of "Leap in the Dark." That's another partially lost British horror anthology show from the seventies, heavy on the haunted ambiance and influenced by local folklore. There's a surprising number of them! "To Kill a King" concerns Harry, a man living alone in an old seeming, largely wooden house. He seems to be an award-winning writer or poet. His career has been derailed by intense headaches and erratic moods, which he takes medication for. The spectre of a medieval maiden sings to him and he attempts to transcribe her words. When he shows what he's written to his visiting agent, it's all gibberish. When Harry's obnoxious sister visits, his voices and visions intensify. 

Both "To Kill a King" and "The Living Grave" were from the final, 1980 season of "Leap in the Dark." It shows how experimental the BBC was willing to get by this point. "The Living Grave" was a quasi-mockumentary that felt like a proto-found footage film at times. "To Kill a King," meanwhile, resides further on the art house side of the spectrum. It never explains itself totally. Harry is clearly some sort of writer and obviously quite troubled but the nature of what he's experiencing is vague. The ghostly woman is never acknowledged by anyone. The people around him often speak in looping, almost nonsensical sentences. At one point, the agent and his sister have a conversation without moving their lips. The climax sees the protagonist surrounded by persecuting presences, people and spirits and voices and words. They insult his abilities as a writer and his worth as a person, calling him an "it" that something must be done about. Is Harry a schizophrenic, haunted by ghosts, or simply dreaming?

A little background information provides some context. "To Kill a King" was written by Alan Garner, better known for his fantasy novels like "The Owl Service" and "Red Shift."  He also lived in a renovated medieval cottage called Toad Hall. Which "To Kill a King" seems to have been, at least partially, filmed inside. Garner has also publicly discussed his struggles with mental illness and manic depression. Knowing all this, the episode reads as largely autobiographical. Furthermore, it strikes me as a discussion of what being a writer is like sometimes. Harry receives words and sentences from beyond, transferred via the mysterious muse occupying the house with him. He struggles to get them out of his head and onto the page while maintaining their purity, something any writer can relate too. At one point, the ghostly woman beckons him into the woods. He's compelled to fish something out of a lake but what he comes back with, a stone covered with black sludge with a crude face carved into it, horrifies him. That's also what the creative process is like sometimes, digging into the depth only to come back with something so unformed and vile that the only reasonable response is to scream at it. A dozen other factors, internal and outside, all make what seems like the simple process of writing a thought down into an anxiety-inducing nightmare. 

Garner's writing is highly influenced by the forests, folklore, and Cheshire dialect of the Manchester neighborhood he grew up in. This is evident in "To Kill a King" too. Not only in the finely observed and almost musical dialogue. The opening scene establishes this ancient cottage as positioned between a railway and a massive satellite dish. (Another indicator that our protagonist is receiving broadcast from another world.) The camera focuses on the arcane symbols carved into the wood the home is made of. All of this suggests that Harry lives in-between the past and the present, at a nexus point of the modern world and the deep well of spirits and stories this land stores. It's really fascinating stuff, if a bit oblique but well acted and with enough creepy atmosphere to satisfy this horror fan. It's a potent observation of the sometimes nerve-wracking process of of telling the tales that rattle around in a chaotic head. [9/10]

 

Friday the 13th: Doctor Jack

The eighth episode of “Friday the 13th: The Series” seems to suggest that this show's heroes are instantly aware of any weird murder or strange event that happens nearby. The opening scene depicts a masked man slashing a street vendors throat with a scalpel before effortlessly cutting through a metal fence with the same tool. The next morning, the Curious Goods gang is immediately going through the store records to find a cursed artifact that matches this description. Sounds like this silver-bladed scalpel – that supposedly belonged to Jack the Ripper though I'm not sure how they would know that – that can cut through anything is the culprit. They quickly track the instrument to Dr. Vincent Howlett, a superstar surgeon who makes crowd-attracting spectacles of his operations. Howlett has recently been hired as a failing hospital. When Jack and the gang find him, a woman is attempting to murder the man. That's cause Howlett killed her daughter. Yes, the surgeon with the magical blade is also a serial killer, whose device will only heal patients on the operating table if it's also fed a regular supply of blood from murdered victims.

I'm starting to notice that the quality of any given episode of “Friday the 13th: The Series” is tied to whether it has a decent villain or not. If the Baddie of the Week is a scheming padre or the ghost of Uncle Lawrence, you're probably in for a good time. If it's a pop star with a cursed tea cup, not so much. Luckily, “Doctor Jack” has probably the best adversary the series has provided so far. Cliff Gorman plays Dr. Howlett as hopelessly conceited and sure of his own abilities, much to the annoyance of the hospital official he's working for. At the same time, his blood lust seems uncontrollable. The guy almost comes across like a murder junkie, killing not because he wants to but because he has to. It's still a wild rush for the slasher though. This means Gorman gets to play multiple juicy angles. He's an asshole doctor and a crazed knife nut. He's also a Dr. Jekyll who wants to help people tangoing with a Hyde that wants to destroy life, making him kind of sympathetic too. He's a source of tension during scenes when he's stalking a random street walker but also the uncertainty you see in his eyes is compelling. 

This episode also has two other things going for it. First off, it's heavy on the action sequences. There are two separate chases through the shadowy tunnels underneath the hospital, a good setting for a frenzied foot chase. The second chase features a neat visual gag, of the magic scalpel slicing a hole in a door. The other reason this episode is top tier is that it features multiple scenes of the heroes bullshitting information out of people. The scene where Jack and Micki trick the shifty owner of the knife shop into revealing pertinent information is a highlight for sure. It's easy to imagine a version of this show without the supernatural theatrics, that was just a straight detective series, heavier on scenes like this. That would honestly probably be a better show than “Friday the 13th: The Series.” However, this episode does gain a little bit of tension out of endangering one of the central trio in the climax. It goes in a very silly direction. Can you guess which surgeon is the only one that can save Jack? How that plot bends that way is quite absurd and sorrowed me a little on this one. Still, a fun episode of a program whose frequent ridiculousness sometimes charms me and sometimes annoys me. [6/10]