OSCARS 2026: If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (2025)

In 2012, Kier-La Janisse published "House of Psychotic Women." The style of film the book covered had existed since at least 1928's "The Wind" but Janisse's "autobiographical topography of female neurosis in horror and exploitation films" helped put a label on a subgenre of melodrama and psychological horror that had previously been unclassified. It's a very hip style of film, as the influence of "Persona," "Possession," and "Fire Walk With Me" grows ever more apparent. Should Janisse ever publish an updated edition or sequel to her most discussed book, it would surely mention "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You." The latest from filmmaker Mary Bronstein, it represents the taste makers at A24 tricking the Academy into watching something weird and abrasive. While it scored no other nominations, Rose Bryne does seem to be the popular second place choice for Best Actress as of this writing. 

Linda is having a hard time. Her daughter has a medical condition that necessitates a feeding tube. This means Linda must drive her to appointments every day and pour nutritional powder into a machine every night. If the kid can gain fifty pounds, the tube can be removed but Linda's child is a very picky eater. Her husband is an officer in the Navy and currently at sea. Upon returning home one day, she discovers a leak in the ceiling... Which quickly turns into a downpour, a massive hole erupting through the house. Linda and her kid move into a sketchy hotel while the repairs drag on. All the while, she continues to go to her day job: Therapist to women in crisis and horny teenage boys. Her own therapist seems increasingly antagonistic to her. Unable to sleep, Linda engages in riskier behavior. Such as drinking, buying drugs, sneaking into her old home, leaving her daughter unattended for long stretches of time. As the endless stresses pile up, the line between dreams, nightmares, visions, and reality blur.

After checking into the hotel they'll be spending the rest of the movie in, Linda is awoken by her daughter's feeding tube machine beeping in the middle of the night. This is opposed to the regular beeping the machine makes when it's working correctly. Whenever she ventures out of the hotel room at night and leaves her daughter behind, she carries a baby monitor with her so she can still hear the beeping. That low level of worry, of frustration, of annoyance, is always present. “If I Had Legs” is basically a cinematic panic attack, which is accomplished by adding ever more disturbances and concerns onto its heroine's head. She can't sit in her car outside the clinic without a man tapping on her window, telling her she can't park here. She can't get a bottle of wine because it's past 2AM. When she arrives early to buy the same wine, she is told she needs her I.D. Her daughter's voice, almost always petulant and needy and demanding, is usually heard crying off-screen as well. Her patients bother her at work and at home. It's never ending for Linda. She has no peace, no quiet. The explosive flood of water into her home in the opening act is not a climax of her worries overflowing. It's the beginning of a chain reaction of bothers that do not cease. 

It is, in other words, the life of a mother. The hole that burst through Linda's ceiling in the first act is an image the movie returns to repeatedly. The opening is yonic in appearance but also recalls both a gaping wound. Not unlike the hole in her daughter's stomach. Throughout her nightmares, the opening begins to resembles both a circle and an ovum about to be fertilized. And if you're standing in the middle of a circle, what is it besides a prison? During a meeting with her daughter's doctor, Linda goes on a largely incoherent rant about how everything is the mother's fault. She sees footage on a TV of a woman eating a baby in a horror movie. Her most desperate patient ends up abandoning her screaming infant child at Linda's office. When she contacts the child's father, he berates her. Being a mom doesn't only mean constantly being needed and being relied upon, it also means that any time something goes wrong, you are to blame.

It's not as if the men in her life are any help at all. Her husband – played by a special guest star that made me point at the screen like in the Leo DiCaprio meme – is rarely anything more than a chastising voice on the phone. In one pointed moment, he's at a baseball game while on the phone with her. He gets a break. Her perpetually annoyed therapist is played by Conan O'Brien, his ability to translate bemusement with only a look finding an extremely suitable use here. She tries to enter his office during an emergency and he repeatedly tells her to leave, fighting over the gap in the door like the tips of their shoes are sabers. Finally, once he's had enough, he simply says this isn't working and gets up and leave. When you're a man, you can do that. The father of the abandoned child demands Linda drop everything and bring his baby to him, because he's busy right now. Guys can leave whenever they want but motherhood is forever. 

In the beginning, Linda being a therapist is a sick joke of sorts. She has all these problems in her life pushing her to the absolute edge... And her job is to listen to other people bitch about their issues. What makes her job even more humiliating is that she does genuinely care about her patients. Caroline is the woman who, in the midst of a nervous breakdown, drops her kid at Linda's office. She is worried about Caroline, trying to contact her, genuinely hoping to help her. Much the same way she cares about her daughter – always off-screen, only her hands or feet seen – despite being forever stressed about her. Being a therapist is a commitment to care about your patient. The same way being a mother is a commitment to care about your child. It's a relief to someone else but a burden to you, no matter how sincere you are. 

All of which is to say that “If I Had Legs I'd Kick You” is an utterly nightmarish cinematic experience. Christopher Messina's cinematography is excellent at making mundane spaces, like the hallway of Linda's office or a beach at night, look uncanny. At a certain point, I began to wonder how much of what Linda was experiencing was a nightmare or her increasingly strange waking reality. The film does not give us the catharsis of confirming one or another. This is a another way it makes us feel trapped in this hell world with its protagonist. Rose Bryne is excellent at conveying how Linda is always only barely pushing back the tide of emotions overwhelming her at all times. Honestly, as someone who does regularly deal with actual panic attacks, I found the film to hit a little too close to home. The most grotesque and unsettling scenes – an escalation of minor horrors involving a pet hamster, that opening deluge, the tidal finale – had me straining the muscles in my jaw from grimacing so hard. 

I would sum the picture up as for the folks who thought “We Need to Talk About Kevin” was too cuddly and light-hearted. Though it features no ghosts or ghouls or hatchet murders – though a little bit of bodily mutation before the end – it is absolutely a horror movie. Like any modern horror story, it features a final scare right before the credits too. In this case, it is the suggestion that Linda's madness is sure to be passed onto her daughter, the same way her mother passed it on to her. That's what I think the vague title means, by the way. A baby is known to kick its mother from within the womb, the beginning of a child putting pressure on its parents. But the young daughter's future offspring hasn't developed legs yet. But it will and it'll kick her too, when the time comes. File this one under one of those films I must admit is extremely well made and thoughtfully created in many ways that I have no interest in ever watching again. [7/10]

OSCARS 2025: Bugonia (2025)

2003 would see the release of Jang Joon-hwan's oddball dark comedy “Save the Green Planet!” The film would receive a DVD release stateside some time afterwards, grabbing a little bit of press among the horror fandom and cult movie crowd. This was around the same time South Korean crime and horror movies like “Oldboy” and “A Tale of Two Sisters” started to develop a real following around the world. “Save the Green Planet!” never quite got that kind of attention though. Currently, it doesn't even have an American Blu-Ray release. You're going to have to import the UK disc or dig up the out-of-print SD release to own a physical copy. Certainly, I didn't expect a big name director like Yorgos Lanthimos to remake such an obscure title. Meaning I was intrigued by “Bugonia” from the moment it was announced. A notoriously weird filmmaker remaking an already weird movie, unsurprisingly, resulted in a pretty quirky flick. Despite that, Lanthimos has gathered such a following among Academy voters that “Bugonia” managed to score four nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Lanthimos' by-now go-to muse Emma Stone. 

Will Tracy's screenplay hews relatively closely to most of the original's story beats while approaching from a very different tonal perspective. Either way, the set-up is the same: Teddy is an apiarist and a conspiracy theorist thoroughly convinced that Earth is under threat by an insidious invasion from the Andromeda galaxy. He believes that Michelle Fuller, the CEO of pharmaceutical company Auxolith, is one of these aliens walking among us. With the assistance of his neurodivergent cousin, he kidnaps Fuller. They shave her head, believing her hair to be an antenna to communicate with the mother ship, and cover her in skin cream. Fuller attempts to talk her way out of this bizarre situation, Teddy unmovable in his belief that only he can save the human race before the mother ship arrives with a lunar eclipse. Soon, his interrogation of Fuller turns towards torture. As the situation progresses, more of the captor's backstory is revealed and the reality of what exactly is happening here gets murkier. 

When “Save the Green Planet!” was released, conspiracy theories were still regarded with a degree of whimsy by most. The fantastical idea of extraterrestrial life were still centered in most of these beliefs, removing any degree of serious consideration from these ideas. They were kooks, figures of mockery with no cultural power. Things are very different today, when Q-Anon and far right dip shits have effectively taken over the top tiers of America's government. Moreover, in a post-Epstein files era, we have to reckon with the unavoidable conclusion that the cranks were not entirely off-track. This is the mood “Bugonia” inhabits and why it is a lot darker than the frequently wacky original. The film is essentially trying to play out the current anxieties of our times in microcosm. It is a chamber drama showdown between a heartless corporate overlord and a nut case who nevertheless has some good points. 

Fuller is a pharmacy company CEO, directly responsible for the suffering of thousands and never held accountable. She confronts Ted's seemingly unhinged speeches with therapy-speak platitudes, insincere strategies to regain control of the situation. On the surface level, “Bugonia” is a tale of evil versus evil. Much like the collapsing colonies Ted is obsessed with, Fuller is a queen bee, ruling over a colony of what she sees as drones. Her opening scene has her guilt-tripping employees into staying after the hours they can legally be kept on, to get around new worker rights mandates. Ted is an extremist, a kidnapper who electrocutes his bound and captive prisoner. His rantings make Fuller seem like the reasonable one. However, during a key confrontation, she reveals that she's exactly as petty as you'd expect someone in her position to be. She sees herself as superior to underclassmen like Ted and his comatose mother. In other words, while Ted's methods might go too far and his beliefs are delusional, he is actually taking the fight to the Powers That Be and seeking out sorely needed justice. Both are bad but, ya know, at least one is recognizable as a human being and not a blood-hungry capitalist. 

The more we learn of Ted's history, the more sympathetic he inevitably becomes. Through black-and-white dream sequences, the film's most willfully surreal moments, we learn of his relationship with his mother. She was seemingly an addict who underwent an experimental treatment that stuck her in a coma. The corporate reaction to this was insincere. No wonder he's pissed. He references a time before life got all fucked-up. I hope we've all learned that nostalgic feelings for an idealized past is based more in fascist ideology than any reality. At the same time, I don't blame this guy for longing for a more innocent period in his life. When he still had his mom, before his world fell apart, back when things made some degree of sense. Conspiracy theorists look for patterns in the universe to establish order over the seeming chaos of our lives. Naturally they appeal to someone whose life has too often been at the mercy of the cruel and unpredictable.

There's a specific reason he's stuck in this childhood mindset too. An early scene has Ted waxing poetically on how bees pollinating flowers is like sex without “the messy parts.” He chemically castrates himself and his cousin with hormonal injections so they are not distracted by sexual thoughts. Later on, we meet a local cop who was apparently Teddy's childhood babysitter. And, we learn soon enough, molested him as a boy. Lanthimos cast Stavros Halkias, best known as the chummy co-host of a hilariously vulgar podcast, to emphasize how commonplace abuse like this truly is. Teddy's entire paranoid mindset is a reaction to sexual trauma in his childhood, another way to impose order on the random horrors of life. Sexual trauma as the origin point of a splintered mind is a well understood phenomenon. If you've dug into the schizo-posting that's run rampant on social media in the past months, you also know conspiracy theories swirl around abuse such as this as a method for mind control. I don't know about that but all of these things are different types of control. If “Bugonia” is a film concerned with queens having sway over their hives, about the strata of power, these ideas fit right in.

All of that is extremely dark and depressing stuff. Which might seem at odds with “Bugonia” also being a comedy. Yorgos Lanthimos' particular brand of absurd humor is well established by now. “Bugonia” rests unsteadily between the inhuman horror of “A Killing of a Sacred Deer” and the darkness-tinged wackiness of “Kinds of Kindness.” Working from someone else's script means the film is not as heavy on the oddball, staccato dialogue as Lanthimos' earlier work. However, the director's style is still undeniable. Robbie Ryan's cinematography is precise, placing the characters like figures within a diorama. The production design is similarly exact, the sterile offices contrasting with the filth of Ted's basement. The musical score acts as a punchline of sorts, a burst of bombastic sound that put an exclamation point on many absurd moments. The most apparent evidence that we are meant to be amused somewhat by these events on-screen are the bursts of cartoonish ultra-violence. When blood splatters in “Bugonia,” it comes in “Evil Dead”-like waves of crimson. 

Those bursts of over-the-top gore points towards my biggest problem with “Bugonia” and why I've not been able to embrace it fully. Something else the visuals, often looking down at the characters from an elevated distance, bring to mind is a dispassionate god watching ambivalently as these meaningless little ants circle their own destruction. Teddy is a sympathetic figure but he's also a clown. It's hard to deny that we are meant to snicker as he spits his insane theories with utmost conviction. The character of Donny, his cousin, seems to be on the autism spectrum. He speaks in clipped sentences, with an unsteady and lisping tone. Is the implication here that only someone mentally disabled would go along with Ted's bullshit? The actor playing Donny, Aidan Delbis, is genuinely autistic but the way the film regards him, as a foolish other open to mockery, can't help but bother me. When these characters are bloodily torn apart, it is meant to amuse. Are we meant to regard everything that happens in this film as dark comedy? Lanthimos' cold absurdity betrays him here, creating realistically broken anti-heroes and still tugging them along on marionette strings more because it cracks a smile than anything else. 

We head next into spoiler territory but it must be discussed. The assumption “Bugonia” operates on is that Teddy is insane and Fuller is his victim. Any attempts Fuller makes to approach Teddy's crazy bullshit on its level is her trying to bargain with her captor. When Emma Stone delivers a stone cold monologue – that outlines the backstory of the Andromedan beliefs, seemingly mixing Altantis pseudo-history, Oscar Kiss Maerth, dinosaurs, and UFO religion – it represents the film willfully playing with the ambiguity of its situation. Might Michelle Fuller actually be an alien? Is the crazed conspiracy theorist right? This deliberate uncertainty extends right up to the climax of the film before a lengthy epilogue... Confirms it as all true. (While also dropping the bomb that Teddy was a de-facto serial killer.) This reveal in “Save the Green Planet!” was the wacky punchline to a frequently silly film. In “Bugonia's” much darker take on the material, it feels like the bleak end point of the film's cold point-of-view. The final images of the film are of apocalyptic extermination, all of humanity wiped out by alien overlords who have deemed them too innately savage to save. 

It's a sequence impressively pulled off, a darkly detached montage of corpses piling up in multiple mundane scenario. However, what are we meant to take away from this ending? “Bugonia” is a psychic scream about how deep into the shit we are in the 21st century, disinformation and corporate greed battling it out over a planet spinning towards ecological collapse. And the saddest, most frustrating part is the messiness of it all is partially the work of broken humans trying their best. That ending is dismissive, the darkest chuckle at all the horrors that go on here. (Both in the film and in this world, I mean.) There is a note of poetry to them. The sequence is scored to “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,” that plea to how we are all caught in a repeating cycle of short-lived innocence leading to death before being reclaimed by the Earth. The final shot of a bee buzzing around a flower, when contrasted with earlier images of dinosaur bones in a museum, suggest this as maybe natural. Humans had their time, just like the thunder lizards did. The Earth will spin on and some other lifeforms will inherit it next, starting the bloody cycle all over again. And that's interesting, more interesting than the snide messaging that none of it matters anyway and we can only be smugly amused by humanity's efforts to fight against the dying of the light that the rest of the film points towards.

The title, by the way, comes from an ancient folk ritual to spontaneously generate bees from the corpse of a cow. Perhaps suggesting all of these events are sacrifices worthwhile as long as they bring the bees back. All of which is to say that “Bugonia” is a very, very interesting film with a lot of fascinating ideas on its mind that ultimately puts me off by being too coldly critical of its own characters. By sanding off the more manic comedy of “Save the Green Planet!,” it's probably a more consistent film. However, I can't help but wonder if Lanthimos' tendency towards coldly considering the foibles of humanity with nothing but a dark grin was the right approach here. Technically, it's a magnificent film. Stone and Jesse Plemons are excellent. It's a movie that buzzes about in my head persistently, that I can't quite dismiss, that I also can't quite love. [7/10]

 

Halloween 2025: September 21st

 

Nang Nak (1999)

Every corner of the globe has their own monsters. However, it does seem certain ideas catch on within specific geographical spaces. Practically every Eastern European country has their variation on the vampire. La bruja seems to be the dominate bugbear in Latin American cultures and the djinn is prominent in Muslim majority countries. Meanwhile, multiple areas in East Asia tell tales of ghostly women who seek vengeance on unfaithful men. Sometimes while having long, stringy black hair and wearing white burial gowns. Japan has been fascinated with the story of the ghost of Oiwa for two centuries. The equivalent figure in Chinese myths is called a nü gui while the Korean version is usually known as cheonyeogwisin, the virgin maiden ghost. In Thailand, they have the supposedly true legend of Mae Nak Phra Khanong. A shrine to the phantasmic bride and her unborn child stands in Bangkok to this day. Wikipedia mentions at least 24 film adaptations of the folktale. This meticulously researched Letterboxd list points to a 1936 version as the earliest cinematic take on the story. Of these many retellings, the most well known in the West is 1999's “Nang Nak,” from director Nonzee Nimibutr. It was, for a time, the highest grossing Thai film ever made. 

For those unfamiliar, this is how the story goes: Mak has been drafted to fight in the Siamese-Vietnamese War. He leaves his small village behind, his devoted – and very pregnant – wife Nak being left alone. While on the battle field, Mak suffers a near fatal injury. He is rescued by a monk and his assistant, who insist he leave behind his old life and devote himself to the spiritual path. Mak refuses to abandon his wife and child though. He returns home, joyously received into his wife's arm. While haunted by dreams of the war, Mak notices that Nak is starting to act strangely. He also notices that no one else in the village wants anything to do with him and that many of their neighbors are dead. An old friend tries to convince Mak of something that seems impossible to him: Nak died during childbirth and now exists only as a ghost, terrorizing anyone who dare tries to separate them. Mak refuses to believe at first but soon can no longer deny that his wife is an undead spectre.

 

Most folk tales persist because they tell a moral that speaks to the values of the surrounding culture. Admittedly speaking as an outsider looking in, it would seem to me that the story of “Nang Nak” contains a specifically Buddhist message. After nearly dying and being saved by a monk, Mak is told to leave all his worldly possessions and passions behind. He can't do it because he loves his wife so much. Similarly, Nak herself cannot move onto the hereafter because she remains utterly attached to her husband. The idea of refusing to accept death as a part of a natural cycle and trying to escape the cycle of rebirth runs throughout the whole film. Unsurprisingly, the same Buddhist monk from earlier emerges as the story's hero by the end. It's as much a lesson about the tenets of Buddhism as any story of a vampire being warded off with a crucifix is a message about how awesome Christianity is. No belief exists in a vacuum and stories are reflections of the people that birthed them. 
 

It reads, like most folklore that is at least a hundred years old, as melodrama to modern eyes. The emotions on display in “Nang Nak” are quite oversized. The first ten minutes of the film involves characters' names repeatedly being shouted, amid dramatic partings. Nang and Mak often declare their love for one another. The guy is so excitable that, simply seeing an old friend is enough to make him leap naked from a lake. When the ghost business takes precedence, the villagers are soon wielding torches and promising to drive out the evil. Nak's threats of supernatural vengeance against those who are trying to separate her from her husband are similarly overblown. However, despite the sweatiness of the emotions in this story, it still worked for me. This is mostly because the love story, one-note as it may be, is quite sweet. Intira Joroenupra and Winai Kraibutr have strong chemistry together as the couple. We never learn much about their history together but scenes like a flashback, in which they flirt in the field and share some betel leaf, are genuinely sweet. By the end, when yet more operatic declarations of love are being made, I admittedly found myself effected by them. The idea of loving someone so much that you refuse to live without them – despite being dead – is a powerful one. 

Given the story its telling, Nimibutr's film functions more like a supernatural romance than a horror movie. However, the other villagers have good reason to be afraid of Nang Nak. When enraged, she summons a fire storm. In the legend's most famous moment, she stands upside down on a ceiling above a group of monks plotting her destruction. The special effects in “Nang Nak” are often quite cheesy. Another pivotal moment in the story, when Mak realizes his wife is a ghost when he sees her stretch her arm out to pick up a fallen piece of fruit, looks fairly silly. However, there is a classical eeriness to much of what follows. A thunderstorm billowing through a thatch hut, a dead body washing up in a boat, a shaman forced to bash his own head in: These are all striking moments that appear as mythic and old as they actually are. The period setting and ancient rites that seal the ghost make this the folkiest of folk horrors. Nimbutr's film is a respectable, stately retelling of these events that speaks to their power. 

Much of “Nang Nak” seems to function as a historical lesson. An opening narration establishes the period setting. An epilogue expands on the legend of what happened to the ritualistic artifact that ultimately contains the ghost. I have no idea how this “Nang Nak” compares to the many other tellings of the story. Older Thai genre cinema is still almost impossible to find on the English language web and largely undistributed on disc. However, it is easy to see why this legend has endured for such a long time. It is a story of undying love and supernatural rage, of rejection and acceptance and unbreakable bonds. It's highly culturally specific, that should go without saying, but these themes are also universal. It is hard to call “Nang Nak” scary. It's almost better described as corny. However, as an argument for the value of folkloric tales such as these, it makes its point. [7/10]

The Ear (1970)

Ucho

I'm not an expert. I know very little. But: In the sixties, De-Stalinization started in Czechoslovakia and a more liberal government began to take shape. During this time, distinctly Czech and Slovakian voices emerged from the country's literary and art scenes. This is when notable filmmakers like Miloš Forman, Juraj Herz, Jan Švankmajer and František Vláčil started to draw international attention. Today, this movement is known as the Czech/Slovak New Wave and produced some of the most acclaimed movies to be made in the country. It all came to an abrupt end when Soviet forces invaded the country in 1968. The previous period of protest, reform, and liberalization was shoved back into the closet and stricter government censorship was reinstated on all sectors. The films made right at this turning point were some of the most inflammatory in Czech cinematic history up to that point. The likes of Herz' “The Cremator” and Forman's “The Firemen's Ball” were quickly banned by the in-coming administration. Perhaps no film captures this time better – he says, not really knowing what the hell he's talking about – than Karel Kachyňa's “The Ear.”  The fusion of domestic drama, paranoia, ice cold absurdist humor, and an overarching tone of nightmarish dread would remain largely unseen until the nineties.

Ludvik is a low ranking member of the ruling Communist regime in Prague. He attends a work party with his wife, Anna. They hobnob with various government officials. Upon returning home, the drunk Anna realizes she left the key to their gate behind. The couple sneak into their own house. That is when they notice apparent government agents standing outside. Ludvik obsessively goes over his memories of the evening, becoming convinced that him and his wife are being targeted for elimination. As the two scour their home for hidden electronic listening devices – ears, you could call them – their already tense relationship begins to fall apart. Every minor slight and long-held complaint rushes to the surface. The night grows stranger and more distressing as they argue endlessly, burn documents, and repeatedly wonder how much they are being watched and listened to. 

“The Ear” is not a traditional horror film by any means. Despite its presence on many lists of acclaimed scary movies, it resides on the margins of the genre. The horror present in this motion picture is strictly of the psychic variety. As Ludvik becomes increasingly convinced that every aspect of his life has been under surveillance, he reflects on everything he's said and done. The threat of living in a totalitarian state is that nothing is private. You are held accountable for every thought you have. Every grumble, whisper, and yawn can be held against you. Throughout “The Ear,” Ludvik and his wife move from room-to-room in their house. Private sanctums like the bedroom and bathroom slowly become violated as they are revealed to be bugged too. Their mental state slowly cracks up under the pressure of constantly being listened to and watched, any and all personal feelings being flattened out and kept private by a state that demands constant and complete submission. 

One of the scariest suggestions in “The Ear” is that it doesn't truly matter whether this governing body, policing everything the characters say and think, exists or not. Throughout the film, Ludvik and Anna frequently argue about the degree of observation they are under. By the end, there is this creeping suspicion that the bugs in the house aren't hooked up to anything. The events of the next morning, coming at the very end and only after the endless night, leaves the protagonists wondering if they've done anything “wrong” at all. That perpetual uncertainty is exactly where the state wants them to be. Never sure when the hammer might come down, always fearful that they could slip up at any moment and be unpersoned the next day. Whether the structure of control exists or not is irrelevant The mere suggestion of it is enough to shake the duo to their core. The last line in “The Ear” is simply “I'm afraid.” When everything you say and do may or may not be evidence against you, it creates an unending fear of the inevitable punishment. Because we are all guilty of something, after all, aren't we? 

In such an environment, what role does interpersonal relationships play? From the opening minutes of “The Ear,” it's evident that Ludvik and Anna's marriage is not a happy one. He seems to regard her with contempt. She seems to drink to help deal with the repressed feelings of resentment towards her husband. The two have a child but he never appears on-screen, only existing as a voice and a concept to be argue about and bargained over. A reoccurring thread in “The Ear” is how these two have never actually known each other, how both have sides they refuse to show. Not unlike how they must keep some thoughts and feelings secret from the government's ever-listening ears. They clearly dislike each other far more than they've ever cared about one another. However, they stay together anyway. In an oppressive country such as this, all relationships are mere tools for the government. More than once, Anna shouts out to the ears, eager to reveal (real or imagined) betrayals her husband has inflicted on her. “The Ear” gets quite a lot of suspense out of how far this unraveling of the relationship will go, supported by a properly frantic performance from Jiřina Bohdalová as Anna and a far more contained Radoslav Brzobohatý as Ludvik.

I say all of the above as if I actually have a clue what the hell I'm talking about. Much as I did when I watched "The Devil" last year, I must concede that I lack the proper cultural context to truly get my brain around "The Ear." Kachyňa's film is not only specifically Czech but also very relevant to life in the country during this particular moment of transition. Which means everything I wrote above is mostly me grasping in the dark. However, that doesn't mean I didn't find value in "The Ear." Josef Illík's black-and-white cinematography is extremely moody. The shadowy images establish an eerie tone right away. When the lights come on for the first time halfway through the movie, it feels almost akin to a jump scare. So much of "The Ear" is about secret deeds done in dark rooms, that the presence of brightness feels like an intrusion. The camera often assumes the point-of-view of the film's characters, furthering a paranoid feeling of being watched. Svatopluk Havelka's eccentric score creates a deliberately surreal atmosphere. A sequence where the government officials begin doing a strange dance at the party is when "The Ear" properly captures the sense of a nightmare. When Ludvik's "friends" from work arrive at the house and refuse to leave, it continues the feeling that we are stuck in a bad dream that simply won't end. When the sun comes up and the night finally concludes, the characters are stuck with the realization that their nightmare of paranoia is far from over. 

I'm definitely too dumb to fully understand "The Ear." I think I would have to watch a lot more Czech New Wave movies – plus read a few books about the Prague Spring, the resulting Warsaw Pact invasion, and life under Soviet rule – to truly appreciate this one. I'd also argue that its classification within the horror genre is more metaphorical than literal. Not that the spectre of constant government surveillance, the resulting de-personalization, or the crushing paranoia isn't pretty scary. It simply doesn't scream Halloween spookiness to me. Nevertheless, the chilly atmosphere, the creepy visuals, and entombing tone of suspicion did work for me. It's kind of funny too, in that extremely dry and very absurd Eastern European way. Probably best recommended to the serious art house crowd and not your average Fangoria reader, unless you're working hard to expand your boundaries like I am these days. [7/10]

 

Darkroom: Uncle George
 

Looks like it was about six years ago when I last watched an episode of NBC's short-lived 1981 anthology “Darkroom.” I wasn't much impressed with what I saw but the James Coburn hosted program does have its defenders. Let's give it another shot, shall we? “Uncle George” concerns the Haskells, a nice old couple who live in a simple home out in the woods. Since Bert had a heart attack, he can't work the way he used to. Margo devotes her days to taking care of Uncle George, the bed-ridden relative in the upstairs bedroom. When Uncle George passes peacefully in his sleep, it is more than simply an emotional loss. Old George received a pension check every month and it helped the couple pay their bills. Bert buries George in the basement and drives over to the local bar. He finds Dixie, a homeless man. Bert takes him into a bar, buys him a drink, and makes him an offer: Dixie can live in their home for free if he poses as Uncle George, insuring that the household still gets that check every month. It seems like a sweet deal and Dixie happily accepts it... There's a serious catch though. 

IMDb lists 16 episodes of “Darkroom.” However, this was one of those hour-long shows that usually included two segments per episode. Meaning the whole series actually only lasted for eight installments. The other “Darkroom” stories I've seen have been tales of supernatural horror. The one paired with “Uncle George,” for example, is a monster movie riff from ol' reliable Robert Bloch. For the majority of “Uncle George's” runtime, it seems to be an exception to that rule. It's a thoroughly sentimental story. Bert and Margo are happy to take care of their Uncle George, simply because he's family. It wasn't until Bert's injury that the checks became essential to their survival. When he picks up the old drunk off the street, it's basically a charitable act. Dixie describes how he's never had a family of his own, never been much valued by anyone around him. Here a complete stranger is, giving him a roof over his head and a bed to sleep on. There was a part of me that was wondering if this wasn't “Darkroom's” “Kick the Can” or “The Messiah on Mott Street.” Ya know, a break from the usual macabre subject matter for something more whimsical. 

However, all throughout the episode, there is an underlying sinister intent. Claude Atkins and June Lockhart are as warm as can be as the couple. However, they approach what they are doing like it's a serious crime. I mean, it is a swindle but they are rather grave about it. The hushed tones they carry themselves with leaves the viewer guessing, wondering what exactly is up with these two. When that reveal comes, it's literally minutes before the end credits roll, the truth being held off until the final second. It's a hell of a swerve too, that changes the entire tone of the episode and successfully moves an otherwise sweet story into the realm of grisly horror. I don't know if “Uncle George” would have much value at all if it wasn't for that dynamite ending. However, sometimes that's all you really need to bring a half-hour episode together. Maybe “Darkroom” was better than I thought? James Coburn isn't a bad host either, with a wry winkle in his eye as he delivers grandiose, Serling-like introductions. [7/10]

The Addams Family: Pugsley's Allowance

If you'll allow me to, once again, compare and contrast America's two favorite families of the macabre once again:. It is a common observation that, while the Munsters are a working class family, the Addams family are rich. Herman was often at his day job at the funeral home. I think there's been exactly two episodes where Gomez' profession as a lawyer has been relevant at all. I bring it up because the Addams' philosophy towards employment is central to “Pugsley's Allowance.” The eldest child comes to his parents with a strange request: He thinks it's time for him to get a job. Gomez and Morticia are horrified at first, wondering why an Addams should have to work at all. The boy refuses offers of an allowance or an easy job with his dad. Instead, he seeks out a series of odd jobs, none of which are particularly suited to his eccentric personality. It comes to a head when Mr. Henson, frequent season one antagonist and the normie next door, hires the kids to clean out his attic. 

“Pugsley's Allowance” does feel a bit like an episode where the writers looked around at some elements they hadn't used in a while and decided to do something with them again. Pugsley hasn't truly been the focus of an episode since that time Fester thought he turned him into a chimp. Mr. Henson is brought back, for the first time since “Gomez the People's Choice,” to once again fill the role of all-purpose antagonist. Now, he's the Addams' neighbor and ends up threatening to sue the family after Pugsley and Wednesday blow his attic up. That is when Gomez' knowledge of the law come back up, planning on counter-suing the guy. Ya know, for all the hardcore “Addams Family” nerds who are closely following the continuity of this silly old sitcom. 

This episode does have a good number of funny bits. Pugsley repeatedly being sent back home by his employer every time, because of his unusual perspective, makes for an amusing running gag. It reaches an ideal climax when Pugsley's final attempt to find work outside the home – being the assistant to a bookie – results in another visit. Lurch reaching for guests' hat also gets a good repeat here. The direct way the kids did with Henson's dirty attic is a joke you see coming. But it's a strong one, specifically because it plays off the differing values between the Addams and stuffy, regular suburbanites like Henson. This episode also shows one of the few times in the series when Morticia gets genuinely angry, when her children are threatened. You definitely don't want to piss her off! “Pugsley's Allowance” also features Gomez being chained and padlocked by his wife. He remains tied up for most of the episode. Looks like these two are altogether freaky, am I right? [7/10]

Halloween 2025: September 10th

Final Destination 5 (2011)

By committing themselves to such a strict routine, the producers of the "Final Destination" series probably limited their options for a long-running franchise. By which I mean there are only so many mass transportation disasters that can occur before it starts to get a little unlikely. Auto accidents happen every day. Plane crashes are a common anxiety. Roller coasters operate on seeming out of control, though they rarely are, and train derailments happen from time to time. A stadium collapse following a massive auto racing wreck in the fourth movie was already starting to push things. Despite that, the 3D gimmick in "The Final Destination" goosed the box office enough to make a fifth entry profitable. Filming on the water is notoriously difficult, elevators aren't very cinematic, and I don't think there's ever been any mass fatalities involving a people mover. Thus, "Final Destination 5" decided on a bridge collapse instead. The sequel was nearly hassled with the far more embarrassing disaster of having a silly title, as this one was briefly called "5nal Destination" during production. To think some marketing exec denied smarmy teenagers everywhere a chance to ask for a ticket to see "Five-anal Destination." 

The unlucky Cassandra randomly cursed with the power of foresight this time is Sam, an office peon in the corporate branch of some sort of manufacturing company. Everyone is being sorted onto a bus that day for a team-building exercise. That includes Sam's coworker Peter, Peter's girlfriend Candice, their boss Dennis, Sam's ex Molly, and a few other people. While crossing a busy bridge, high winds cause a catastrophic collapse and result in the brutal deaths of everyone present... Or so Sam sees in a psychic warning. He gets his friends and coworkers off the bridge in time. Unfortunately, their nightmare is only beginning. Once again, as the looming presence of oddly knowledgeable coroner William Bludworth informs them, Death has been cheated. Now, the reaper is out for suitably ironic, unnecessarily elaborate revenge. This time a new way to disrupt the pattern of deaths is presented: Murdering someone before Death gets to you, forcing them into your place. 

In the eleven years since the first "Final Destination," mainstream horror movies had arguably gotten more sadistic. By 2011, audiences had already endured seven "Saws," after all. Fearful of losing the arm's race of increasingly nastier horror franchises, New Line Cinema stepped up the mayhem in "Final Destination 5." The death sequences in this installment are, for lack of a better term, meatier. A gymnastic mishap results in twisted limbs and protruding bones. A squished head throws an awful lot of brain matter around. The opening bridge collapse finds a number of novel ways to impale, crush, batter, and dismember the human body. Moreover, the long build-up of minor mishaps that lead to these violent ends feels more teasingly mean-spirited towards the participants. An always-horny office creepoid is subjected to numerous humiliations at a massage spa before his final fate. The boss is a boorish lout and another victim is an argumentative factory worker. The most painful death is saved for Olivia, an apparent groupie prone to vanity and casual nudity. Her LASIK surgery goes horribly wrong, in maybe the most cringe-inducing sequence in the entire franchise. 

If taken too seriously, such a parade of horrible deaths and drawn-out build-ups would become too punishing to be much fun. Luckily, "Final Destination 5" keeps its tongue thoroughly in cheek. Perhaps well aware that the 3-D effects last time were subpar, New Line recruited Steve Quale to direct this installment. Quale was James Cameron's second unit guy on "Avatar," presumably making him something of an expert in 3-D filmmaking. The result is a follow-up that utilizes the depth of field much more effectively. The gymnast scene, for one example, cleverly puts the balance bars and pummel horse in the foreground and adds depth to the unfolding Rube Goldberg machine of mayhem behind them. Mostly, Quale and his team delight is thrusting shit right at the viewer. Rebar, sheet metal, a ship mast, meat skewers, an industrial hook, an acupuncture needle, and a friggin' laser beam all come flying right at us. It all gives the impression of being an especially gory theme park attraction, a thrill ride that happy to simulate danger without making us feel too personally attacked. 

That deft hand is also present in the way each chaotic end is playfully teased. The gymnast sequence sets up the fall brilliantly and patiently, with a loose screw rolling perfectly into place and a bowl of talcum powder being precariously perched before a fan. The sense the film is carefully taking its time also allows "Final Destination 5" to pull off several clever misdirects. The massage parlor scene introduces a number of potential objects to cause death before utilizing an unexpected one. A clever shot has a body falling into frame before the reveal that the guy's head has been impaled on a massive hook. The best misdirect of all is saved for the final minutes of the film, which brings the "Final Destination" series full circle in a clever way. It's the kind of twist ending that rewards the viewer too, carefully foreshadowed in such a way that is obvious upon a re-watch but easily missed the first time through. 

After the second "Final Destination" made its roster of meat-bags into human beings you could actually care about, the third and fourth installments increasingly didn't give a shit about the innocent victims caught up in Death's design. Part five works a little harder in that regard. David Koechner plays the kind of amusingly vacant dumb-ass you hire David Koechner to play. P.J. Byrne is on a similar level as the dorky, high libidoed Isaac. I'm not sure I was necessarily captivated by Nicholas D'Agosto as Sam, nor his subplot with his girlfriend, but at least he's given the hobby of being a French chief. Miles Fisher – who looks enough like D'Agosto that I thought they were playing brothers – as Peter does get the juiciest character arc, the character driven to the edge of madness by the grief of seeing his girlfriend go splat. The plot point that committing a murder might spare you from death's wrath provides a different angle to what we expect from the last act of these movies. I wouldn't go so far as to say this shift represents any sort of lore, as Death's pattern ultimately remains inescapable and random. It certainly isn't handled with any depth or insight, as Fisher just gets silly as he goes crazier. At least it shakes stuff up a little bit. 

"Final Destination 5" did well at the box office, ending up as the second highest grossing entry in the series with a worldwide total of 157 million. You'd think that means we would have gotten way more sequels since then. Screenwriter Eric Heisserer – who eventually got an Oscar nomination for "Arrival" – notably said that it was getting harder to cook up new deaths for the series though, which might explain the hiatus that followed. Stuck as the final "Final Destination" for many years, the fifth installment stands as another highlight of the grisly and flippant franchise. It managed to deliver fans of these films exactly what they want, while managing to find some new ways to keep the increasingly wrung-out formula fresh. I don't know if it did for suspension bridges what "Final Destination 2" did for trucks carrying logs but it did add an extra intrusive thought any time I had to drive across a bridge. And isn't that what we watch cinema for, to make us more paranoid and uncomfortable in our daily lives? [7/10]

 

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)
 

The always enchanting stop-motion creature effects of Ray Harryhausen made “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” into a minor classic of the fantasy genre. It took him a decade and a half to get another film based on this highly franchisable mythological hero made. After “The Golden Voyage of Sinbad” became a box office success in 1973, Columbia decided not to waste any time on getting a follow-up into production. Sam Wanamaker, better known as a Shakespearean actor who had dabbled in directing up to that point, would lead the production. Since “Golden Voyage” wasn't truly a sequel to “7th Voyage,” there was no expectation to link the 1973 film to this newer installment. Patrick Wayne, son of John, would inherit the role of Sinbad the Sailor from John Phillip Law and Kerwin Matthews. No supporting characters, love interests, or cast members would return for “Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.” The film had the misfortune of hitting theaters the same summer as “Star Wars,” being easily overshadowed by the pop culture phenomenon. It's still regarded as the weakest of the three “Sinbad” movies Harryhausen worked on but it does have some of his trademark monsters in it, barely justifying me including it in a horror marathon. 

Having forgotten the princess he was previously engaged to, Sinbad the Sailor arrives in the city of Charak to seek the hand of Princess Farah in marriage. Instead, he discovers that Prince Kassim, on the night he was to be crowned king, was turned into a baboon by Zenobia, the prince's evil stepmother and a powerful sorceress. Zenobia's plan is to keep Kassim an ape so that her son, Rafi, can inherit the throne. Farah encourages Sinbad and his crew to journey to the island of Casgar, where the great alchemist Malanthius lives. He points them in the direction of Hyperborea, a mythical land located far beyond the frozen north and full of fantastical technology. Malanthius and Dione, his beautiful daughter, join Sinbad on this journey. Zenobia and Rafi, their boat propelled by a eight foot tall golden robot minotaur, are in hot pursuit. Sinbad  and his friends will encounter many strange beasts and challenges on this quest. 

Harryhausen's previous “Sinbad” films had highly episodic plots, built around the simple premise of a hero journeying from one location to another. There were lots of stops along the way to encounter strange creatures and magical perils that could then be brought to life with Dynamation. Somehow, “Eye of the Tiger” manages to feel more like a series of set pieces than either of the earlier adventures. The plot truly is no more complicated than “we have to head to this location, to un-monkey the prince,” with the bad guys slightly following behind and trying to stop them. Malanthius and his daughter are easily recruited to Sinbad's cause, being convinced to help out largely because the sailor showed up. Much talk is made of the difficulties of navigating the arctic ice on the way to Hyperborea but no one seems to struggle with it that much. The threat of the prince's mind slowly being consumed by baboon instincts, his humanity being lost forever, is the only element truly adding any tension to the story. 

This is by design, naturally, in order to highlight Harryhausen's stop motion creations as the real stars of the show. Early in production, the decision was made that this Sinbad adventure would feature fewer fantastical creatures and more prehistorical critters. This, combined with what Ray himself would call a rushed production schedule, results in “Eye of the Tiger” not featuring the effects master's best work. That's not to say that there isn't some extremely impressive, eye-catching special effects here. The dinopithecus-like baboon is highly expressive, showing life-like movements and expressing a lot of emotion in its eyes. The oversized walrus is similarly impressive in how it moves. A hawk-sized wasp is probably the scariest threat in the film, an insect right out of a nightmare. However, the fact of the matter is that bigger versions of regular animals aren't as cool as the mythic beasties of the previous films. 

The Minoton is probably the most memorable creation in the film, the golden calf robot looking awfully cool. It also contributes little to the story, not doing much besides standing around and looking intimidating, disgracefully exiting the film before the climax. I like the horned troglodyte the crew befriends but it does look and feel a lot like a lesser descendant of the cyclops Harryhausen previously animated. The ghouls that are summoned up are clearly inspired by the skeletons and Selenites of Harryhausen's past hits. The saber-toothed tiger that appears at the end, and presumably provide the title, is a bit too fluffy and stiff to blow the viewer away. Disappointingly, these creations are paired with some deeply underwhelming photographic effects. The scene where the sorceress turns into a seagull features some truly crappy color distortion, while several moments inexplicably spotlight shitty rear projection work. 

Another factor holding “Eye of the Tiger” back is its leading man. This film was released the same summer as “The People That Time Forgot,” the two movies representing the brief period when Hollywood was trying to turn Patrick Wayne into a star. It's easy to see why the career of the Duke's second son never truly took of. He is utterly devoid of charisma, blankly delivering all of his dialogue and never having a single spark of chemistry with any of his co-stars. That is notably a problem, as the love story between Sinbad and Jane Seymour's Princess Farah already bordered on the non-existent. Taryn Power, also the child of Old Hollywood royalty, is lovely but only has a molecule more screen presence than her co-star. The fact that both actresses have a very brief nude scene in a G-rated kids' movie proves more notable than their acting. At least Margaret Whiting is a decent villainess and Patrick Troughton hams it up a little as the eccentric old Melanthius. 

Ray Harryhausen's stop motion marvels were utter works of art in their own way, few talents matching him in terms of imbuing little puppets with so much life and energy. It was also a style of visual effects inevitably linked to the past. “Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger” shares a cast member with “Star Wars.” Peter Mayhew, the very tall guy who filed Chewbacca's fur suit, also plays the Minoton any time it's not a stop-motion model. “Star Wars” would, of course, point towards the future of what could be achieved on-screen. Compared to that, “Eye of the Tiger” must have seemed antiquated. The other effects work in the film certainly did the comparison no favors. Hampered by a lumpy script and a blank leading man, this is easily the weakest of the “Sinbad” trilogy and probably the lamest movie Harryhausen was ever involved with. (I'll get back to you on that after I finally watch “The 3 Worlds of Gulliver.”) There's still some of that ol' Dynamotion magic in this one, as held back by other factors as it might be. [6/10]

Night Gallery: Green Fingers

Playing the Bride of Frankenstein turned Elsa Lanchester into an iconic image of horror but it didn't make her the female Boris Karloff. Later in her career, however, she got a few more spooky roles. Such as “Green Fingers,” a season two highlight of “Night Gallery.” Industrialist Michael Saunders has bought a massive plot of land for his next factory. The only hold-out, right in the middle, is little old lady Lydia Bowen. She refuses to part with her simple country cottage, no matter how high the asking price soars. Lydia is too invested in the garden she's planted, claiming she has “green fingers” and can make anything grow. When Saunders himself can't convince her, he hires a tough guy to threaten the woman into moving. The hit man breaks in and chops off her fingers, threatening to return and remove more each time. Lydia is rushed to the hospital and dies of shock shortly afterwards. Saunders is satisfied that the land is his now... But he didn't anticipate how literal Lydia was being when she said she could make anything buried in the soil grow. 

For this one, Rod Serling adapted an ironic, twisted little story by R.C. Cook into something more akin to an E.C. Comics horror story. This is a classical morality tale: Mr. Saunders only has eyes on expanding his empire, thinking money is the only thing that talks and everything else is the bullshit that walks. Lydia believes in something more than the dollar, frustrating and baffling the businessman to the point that he pays to have her wiped out. There's an ecological layer too. Saunders notes that his latest factory will feature multiple smoke stacks, presumably pumping polluting smug into the sky. Lydia notes that the construction team has already flattened a hill in the distance. She has an appreciation for the simple things, for the flowers and vegetables that grow out of the ground. The world of industry, concerned only with profit and indifferent to ruining the natural world, is brought low by those same simple green things in the soil. If only it worked that way more often in our world.

It's a nice story, though a fairly simple one. The idea of the hit man chopping off a little bit of the old lady, saying he'll come back for more, is a nice gruesome detail that could've been expanded on. However, “Green Fingers” is preoccupied with moving towards its fantastical climax. Saunders is merely driven mad by what he sees, not ending up in the ground himself, which separates this from the E.C. template, I guess. Such a direct story did need two strong performances to prop it up. Lanchester has a whimsical gleam in her eye as Ms. Bowen. Moreover, she delivers her lines about what she believes in with the proper amount of authority, like an especially stern but sweet grandmother. Cameron Mitchell adopts a fairly silly Southern accent as Saunders. I do like that the businessman gets a little more depth than necessary, clarifying that he had humble roots and got where he is by never taking no for an answer. Mitchell delivers the final line of the segment directly to the camera, which is a darkly funny and odd note to end on. [6/10]

 

 

The Addams Family: Morticia the Sculptress

After giving writing a try in the previous episode, Morticia is still feeling unfulfilled in her life as a mother and wife. She decides to pursue another creative endeavor: Picking up the hammer and chisel and carving rocks into sculptures. As you might expect, her art works are of an unusual nature. She starts to fill the Addams' home with big rocks in weird shapes, claiming each one represents an abstract concept. The critics are aghast but Gomez pays Sam Picasso – Grandmama's painting tutor from “Art and the Addams Family" – to buy the stones. As it did in the previous episode, Morticia's new hobby takes over her life, leaving her husband alone and increasingly frustrated. 

Yes, “Morticia the Sculptress” has almost the exact same structure as “Morticia the Writer.” Thankfully, this one doesn't have Gomez outright sabotaging his wife's new career. Instead, he simply begs her to give up something she enjoys and is passionate about so they can have more sex. He doesn't frame it that way exactly, though references to Morticia being “a lover” as her most important role and a husband being left “uncuddled” were probably still kind of spicy for 1965. Eventually, Morticia is dissuaded from being a full-time sculptress when her children make themselves chocolate fudge for a meal. I guess, as much as the Addams rejected the societal norms of the times, this was still a sixties sitcom. A woman staying out of the kitchen or the bedroom was still a cause for crisis. Her efforts to define herself by any other role were destined to be mocked. Don't worry, Morticia, second-wave feminism was right around the corner. 

All of that aside, this is still an amusing episode with less of a weird rhythm than “Morticia the Writer.” The gags are strong. The doorknob reacting in odd ways to new visitors is not among my favorite “Addams Family” running jokes but it pays off nicely here. Ted Cassidy gets some good moments, when Lurch is called upon to model for Morticia or work at a spinning stone. Gomez is so troubled throughout this episode that he doesn't immediately react to his wife calling him “bubbela,” which she points out. Glad to see the show was willing to play around with its own rules by this point. I don't know what the modern art scene looked like in 1965 but I can't imagine that the sculptures Morticia carves here – a smooth stone she calls “World War II,” a rocky formation that she names “Motherhood” – would be seen as especially bizarre or unorthodox at the time. She looks awfully cute in her little smock and askew beret though. I can't imagine her devoted husband being upset about that. [6/10]