Halloween 2026: October 6th

 

Scream 7 (2026)

Perhaps there will come a time when we can discuss "Scream 7" only within the context of being another sequel in a long-running franchise. Unfortunately, the circumstances around its production are impossible to ignore. How Michelle Barrera, the star of the last two entries, was fired after making pro-Palestine statements. How this led to an entire retooling of the next installment. How director Christopher Landon boarded the project and quickly left, amid harassment from fans. Whether it was even moral to go see the film was hotly debated in the months leading up to its release. With no other ideas on how to continue the story, I guess, series creator and now director Kevin Williamson went with the creatively bankrupt decision of focusing on Neve Campbell's Sidney. Simply put, "Scream 7" is a movie that shouldn't exist beyond the general reasons yet another slasher sequel probably shouldn't be made. None of this controversy stopped "Scream 7" from becoming the highest grossing title in the series' history. While all the bullshit had me skipping the film in theaters this past February, my dorky need to watch and review the entirety of a horror series has led me to finally judging "Scream 7" for myself. (And if you must know, I didn't pay to watch it, meaning the producers received no monetary gain from my viewing.) 

After years of being pursued by Halloween costume clad killers, the former Sidney Prescott has settled in Pine Grove, Indiana. She is now married to a cop named Mark and works at a local coffee shop.
They have three kids, with teenage Tatum being the oldest. Despite having moved on, Sidney's history has led to tension between her and her daughter. This gets a lot worst when Sidney receives a video call seemingly from Stu Macher, one of the original Ghostfaces whose final fate has long been uncertain. Two of Tatum's friends are attacked and killed by a masked murderer at her school. After the town goes into lock down, a Ghostface sneaks into Sidney's home and attacks her and her family. Gale Weathers soon arrives in town, with "Scream VI" survivors Mindy and Chad in tow, to report on the breaking story. Sidney works with her old friend/rival to unravel this latest mystery and keep her daughter safe. Meanwhile, rebellious Tatum and her own friend group decide to take matters into their own hands. 

Aside from Ghostface's victims, another casualty of "Scream VI" was my interest in this series. It seems to me that, for quite some time now, "Scream" has been a series in search of a defining thesis. The original film is a deconstruction of the cliches of the eighties slasher movie. The second one does the same for the expectations around a slasher sequel, a phenomenon in its own right. Rather than evolve with the the times and take on whatever the current trend in horror was at any given moment, the later "Scream" movies have been content to simply eat their own tail. "Scream 3" was about nothing but "Scream's" own self-reflective nature. This was also true of "Scream 4," which gave some passing mentions to the found footage genre before inexplicably revealing itself to be about reality TV. While the fifth "Scream" found some relevance in discussing reboots and legacy sequels, while nodding at the "elevated" horror style, it wasn't about examining horror tropes and their relationship with the real world either. It was about "Star Wars" actually. The sixth film represented the series at its most self-indulgent yet. With the behind-the-scenes kerfuffle shifting seven's focus back to Sidney Prescott, there was almost zero chance of "Scream 7" on focusing anything other than the series' own backstory and unearned sense of self-importance. 

Well, I have some good news. "Scream 7" isn't another "Scream" movie about "Scream." Compared to sixth's masturbatory fixation on referencing past films, this one has fewer shout-outs. Unfortunately, "Scream 7" is also not a continuation of the original's premise of examining slasher stereotypes and the debatable effects fiction has on the real world. There's almost no mention of the "rules" or audience expectations, much less any mention of what is or isn't currently hot in the horror genre. All of which begs the question of what "Scream 7" is about. Well, I'm not sure it's about anything. However, that ever-present cultural boogeyman of "trauma" is mentioned. That Sidney's lingering scars from years of being targeted by serial killers might have had some effects on her own kids is brought up. This mostly manifests in limp arguments between our heroine and a typically temperamental teenager. Tatum resents living her life in the shadow of her mom's pain, which includes being named for the friend who had an unfortunate run-in with a garage door opener back in 1996. Generational trauma is certainly an idea worth discussing, especially as we millennials start to reach the same age our parents were when these movies first started getting made. However, I don't think the esteemed director of "Teaching Mrs. Tingle" has any interesting insight on this idea. The mother/daughter conflict in "Scream 7" mostly feels like petulant whining from Tatum.

 

Instead, the only interesting idea inside the sequel revolves a lingering fear every parent has: That they can't protect their kids. Sidney has moved away from Woodsboro, stopped writing books about her life and disconnected from the true crime world. Neither that, nor marrying a cop or building a safe room in her house, does much to protect her daughter from the latest Ghostface. The only time the seventh film comes to life is when Sidney is desperately racing to the coffee shop, to save Tatum. Via an app in her phone, she can access the security cameras at the business. This is how she sees her daughter being stalked by a killer, while trying to talk her through it in a call. This recalls parents helplessly watching as news trickles in about a shooter at their kids' school, unable to do anything but watch or listen through phones and cameras. That's at least a reflection of our current world. "Scream 7" stubbornly resists developing this into coherent commentary. Instead, it merely exists alongside other indicators of modern anxiety, such as AI or the fear that your daughter's boyfriend might be a future mass shooter.  
 

"Scream 7" is uninterested in reinventing the wheel. The sequel seems to address, and hopefully bury, the incredibly dumb fan theory that Stu Macher somehow survived getting a big ass CRT TV dropped on his head thirty years ago. (While still bringing Matthew Lillard back for an easy pop from the fans.) That's in addition to a largely disconnected opening that sees the Macher house now having become a tacky tourist trap. Which could have been a commentary on the commodification of true crime or how all popular series are wrung out for every dollar until they are a pale imitation of themselves. Williamson doesn't do that either. The eventual reveal of who the Ghostfaces are this time, and the motivation for their murder spree, is somehow the least inspired element of the film, a thrown together twist that is delivered like a half-hearted sigh. 

This is the biggest problem with "Scream 7." At no point can it justify its own existence. I did not find myself caring about any of the new characters or cast members. Joel McHale is Sidney's husband and he shares some okay chemistry with Campbell. The script frustratingly leaves little room fie McHale's trademark sarcasm. Isabela May is mildly irritating but mostly uninteresting as Tatum, a mildly irritating but mostly uninteresting character. Most of her friends are of little note. The true crime fanatic next door or the boyfriend of debatable merit are nothing but obvious red herrings. Rising scream queen McKenna Grace shows some spark as Tatum's BFF but let's just say she exits the film early. The lack of energy behind the new cast would be somewhat forgivable if the script also wasn't so out of ideas of what to do with the old cast too. As has been the case since the third movie, Neve Campbell seems deeply bored with this character and her world. There's an attempt to build something between Sidney and Gale Weathers' relationship. Courtney Cox does what she can but you can't play off a brick wall much. When the film trots out a few more familiar faces, it feels like nothing more than a desperate attempt to spark another burst of dopamine from the dying, overstimulated synapses of an aging fan base by jingling familiar keys in front of our eyes. 

That a sense of franchise fatigue floats over all of "Scream 7" is disappointing. When taken as a simple slasher flick, it's at least got the required amount of gruel and grimness. Much like the sixth flick, there are some well engineered set pieces. The sequel is adapt at putting its characters in unfortunate situations. A young lady is suspended in a Peter Pan rig in a school auditorium while Ghostface lurks below. A cool shot sees the slow reveal of the killer's hiding place within Sidney's home. This proceeds a decently suspenseful sequence where the two final girls have to squeeze through a hollow wall while the attacker on the other side tries to pinpoint their location. That's a good demonstration of the laws of suspense, in showing the audience something the characters may or may not have figured out yet. A stalk-and-slash through the cramped kitchen of a bar, a plastic filled garage under repairs, a dangling from a chandelier, or the aforementioned coffee shop stand-off aren't bad either. You can tell Williamson studied Carpenter's "Halloween," as he emulates the trick of the villain's distinctive white mask slowly appearing in the shadows over someone's shoulders. From a gore hound's perspective, there's one or two amusing butcherings. A beer tap is used creatively. 

All of this implies that "Scream 7" might have been able to generate some suspense or more than a fleeting sense of same-old-same-old entertainment, if these sequences were attached to something other than a contractually obligated continuation. Instead, these scenes occur within a film with zero fresh or interesting ideas of how to stretch this story out for a seventh entry, anchored by a cast with little personality or desire to be there. The film made plenty of money, meaning an eighth installment is all but guaranteed. Such box office results suggest that the team behind "Scream" has no reason to give this series the drastic reinvention it obviously needs. I imagine Barrera will probably get invited back in time, that her storyline will continue in some form or fashion. However, if "Scream 7's" quality is anything to go by, I can't imagine a Sidney or Carpenter sisters-led future for "Scream" that has any actual guts or hot blood pumping through it. [5/10]

 

Lokis: A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach (1970)
Lokis. Rekopis profesora Wittembacha

The idea of a short story that goes on a bit too much to be called "short" or a novel that maybe lacks a few hundred words feel like concepts as old as literary classifications are. However, the term "novella" actually was invented in 1829. By a Frenchman, of course, sticklers for detail that they are. Prosper Mérimée coined the term and this guy's Wikipedia article is wild, man. Best known today for the story that inspired the opera "Carmen," Mérimée was a real Renaissance man in his day. An influential figure in the Romanticism movement, he was also an archivist, an archeologist, the Inspector-General of Historical Monuments, a folklorist, a translator, a prisoner, a senator, the official advisor to the Empress of Napoleon III, and a catty bitch who loved to start beef with his fellow authors and bureaucrats. He also wrote horror stories sometimes, among which was "Lokis. A Manuscript of Professor Wittembach." Set in Lithuania and inspired by its local legends, the novella was adapted to film in Poland in 1970, by director Janusz Majewski. Since its inclusion in the big folk horror box set a few years back, the film has gained a lot more attention. 

The titular Professor Wittembach is a pastor and writer. He travels to Lithuania to study local folk customs and translate the Bible into Samogitian, an obscure dialect of the region. He is invited to the estate of Count Szemiot, whose library includes many useful old texts. The Count is eccentric, with a history of madness in his family. The family physician, Dr. Froeber, informs Wittembach that the Count's mother went insane following a bear attack, believing her son to be the offspring of the same animal. The professor officiates the Count's marriage to a beautiful young maiden but bad omens persist over the castle. Might Szemiot actually be a were-bear or is he merely a victim of his own beliefs?

Most of the Polish horror and fantasy films I've seen so far have been on the artsier side of the spectrum, usually with a heavy political bent. This remains true with "Lokis." (The title, by the way, is a misspelling of the Lithuanian word for bear.) The film seems especially concerned with the separation between man and beast, which the pastor clarifies as a distinction between our higher, spiritual calling and our more bestial nature. Usually, when were-beast movies delve into this, it's about savagery and sex. "Lokis" touches on that a little bit. The count's backstory seems to link the bear with unleashed sexual frenzy and the story comes to its climax on his wedding night. However, Majewski and his team approach the subject from a sociopolitical angle. "Lokis" frequently contrasts the nobility, and its interest in academics, with the peasantry, who are a more superstitious lot. One of the first scenes is Wittembach and some elegant ladies watching, from a train, a street performance with a bear. This sets up a distance between the haves and have-nots. While the film ostensibly adopts the more "high-minded," scientific perspective of the upper crust, this is a world fairly unambiguously at the mercy of otherworldly forces. For all its pomp and circumstances, the ruling class is as governed as much by animal desires and the whims of the hidden world as those they preside over.

“Lokis” was made three years before “The Wicker Man” but bares some resemblance to that watershed moment in folk horror history. Both films concern a Christian authority figure, quite secure in his monotheistic viewpoint of the world, being continuously challenged by pagan beliefs and rituals. Matching the more intellectual tone of the film, “Lokis” has Wittembach's understanding of a world governed by a logical God at odds with the otherworldly events he witnesses. A carriage driver warns him of the devils that haunt the forest. Only to have a wheel pulled right off their vehicle, the supernatural forces seemingly proving their own presence. Later, the pastor and the count encounter a self-styled witch in the woods. She comes across as merely an eccentric old woman at first before walking across the moss covered surface of a river as if it's a solid object. “Lokis” slots in nicely with the political and spiritual upheaval of the early seventies, when traditional structures were falling apart and a different, more daemon-haunted world was presenting itself. 

All of that probably sounds pretty interesting. And it kind of is, if you're into European folklore. Unfortunately, Majewski's film is almost unbearably slow. “Lokis” is a motion picture composed almost entirely of men standing around in stately rooms and talking to each other. When the back story of the Count's mother possibly having been assaulted by an ursine is delivered, it plays out as a conversation over some paintings and books. The climatic moment of the film occurs entirely off-screen. All of this is delivered with a stilted, mannered approach. The movie can summon a certain dreamy energy in its best moments, such as the sequence with the witch. The score ramps up a few times, to get the heart pumping. However, nothing much actually seems to happen. “Lokis” is a horror movie in theory but everything sinister is implied, not shown. Don't go in expecting any were-bear chaos occurring on-screen, is what I'm saying. 

That glacial pacing does seem to divide viewers of “Lokis.” I've seen some enthusiastic reviews of it, from people fully sucked into its folkloric dreaminess and not too bothered by the slowness. However, others have been seriously let down by how the movie focuses on ideas and ambiance over anything else at all. It's a nice looking film, with strong cinematography and eye-catching visuals. The settings, of a forest with sheltering branches and the strange looking castle, do make for a suitably surreal location. Ultimately though, I found myself fighting sleep before the relatively short runtime wound up. Maybe you'll find it a bit more compelling but, despite some interesting sights and more interesting ideas, “Lokis” was sabotaged for me by a plodding pace. The film did intrigued me enough to add the original novel to my reading list, though that might also be because Propser Mérimée's life story caught my eye too. [5/10]

 

Wednesday: You Reap What You Woe

Netflix didn't cast recognizable actors like Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman as Morticia and Gomez only to use them for a bit in the first episode. And so Wednesday's mom and dad come into focus in "You Reap What You Woe." The episode reveals that, while attending Nevermore as teens themselves, Gomez seemingly ran through a romantic rival for Morticia with a sword and dropped him off a ledge. While investigating the recent suicide of the seemingly happy town mortician, Sheriff Galpin uncovers evidence that Gomez did commit murder all those years ago. (How he escaped this conviction originally doesn't come up.) While Wednesday's parents are visiting the school, her father is arrested for the decades old crime. Now their daughter must pause her investigation of the current strangeness plaguing the school to clear her pop's name. Meanwhile, the other students at the academy have their own mama drama to attend to. 

The early flashback reveals that Gomez and Morticia attended Nevermore in the year 1991. Which would put them both in their forties in this show, assuming it's set in the modern day. While the original series did assign specific ages to the Addams, the thought of these two being Gen-Xers doesn't sit well with me. The idea of Gomez growing up during the Reagan administration feels wrong. However, I will say that Guzman and Zeta-Jones are well cast in the part. Guzman even looks a lot like Charles Addams' original illustration. He's certainly capable of bringing the weird gremlin energy of John Astin or the unapologetic eccentricity of Raul Julia to the part. The episode doesn't give him a chance to do that but at least the "Wednesday" show-runners felt no need to subvert the undying devotion and passion the parents have for each other. Zeta-Jones certainly has the demure sensuality and fey glint of the eyes necessary for Morticia. The show continues to play some tension between Wednesday and her mom, which still feels contrived to me. "You Reap What You Woe," in general, heaps on the sentimentality between parent and child. A scene where Gomez and Wednesday talk it out while he's behind glass comes awfully close to being too precious. She has a heart-to-heart with Pugsley too, once again showing how "Wednesday" seems incapable of balancing both the loyalty that defines the family and the sadomasochistic bond between these siblings. 

Despite the program's insistence on sticking intentionally atypical characters into a standard dramatic arc, the guest stars do enliven "Wednesday" a lot. Once again, I like this show the most when it resembles the old sitcom. Gags like Pugsley munching on potpourri with his dad or fishing with hand grenades, or mother and daughter swapping tips on disinterring a corpse, genuinely made me snicker. Almost like this gang was invented to deliver simple visual jokes and not be involved in an elaborate mystery! Speaking of which... "You Reap What You Woe" pushes the ongoing narrative aside for a bit. Eugene was left in a coma by the monster attack, a very annoying reeling back of the previous episode's cliffhanger. The details of what happened back in 1991, that Wednesday uncovers piece by piece, are very stupid. If the solution to your mystery involves mind control potions, you've written a bad mystery. Still, at least the fate of characters we actually care about are at stake here. If the Addams Family must be at the center of some grand intrigue, Gomez having possibly murdered another man for Morticia's affection feels a lot more in-character than whatever bullshit the season is building towards. It also helps a lot that this particular story line is resolved in one hour, instead of being dragged out intermittently for an entire season. 

Actually centering an episode of an Addams Family series on the Addams Family feels like an obvious conclusion. However, it's something "Wednesday" clearly is struggling with, if the subplots of this installment are anything to go by. Enid has a guilting, heavy-handed mother. She eventually gives her daughter pamphlets for "werewolf conversion" camps that will supposedly help Enid embrace her lycanthropic nature. Using a classic monster condition as a metaphor for being gay is an age-old practice. However, I think the allegory falls apart very quickly here. Enid is being told to embrace her inner nature, not deny it. Unlike queer teenagers sent off to abusive "prayer the gay away" camps by bigoted parents, she actually is a werewolf. She also likes boys, in a very traditionally girlish manner, making any attempted parallels seem wrong-headed. Enid's mom is worried about her daughter because she's a late bloomer, not because her lifestyle disagrees with them. It's a weird choice but at least Emma Myers is charming. An additional subplot about the siren girl's mother being in a cult or something is absolutely impossible to care about. More bullshit grist to occupy the runtime with on the way to the A-plot's conclusion, that I'm sure future episodes belabor unnecessarily upon. Who on the writer staff for this show had unresolved mama drama and why did they feel the need to insert it into multiple subplots? [5/10]

Thriller: A Wig for Miss Devore
 

Through no intentional move on my behalf, there's the second classic horror anthology episode I've watched this month to feature John Fiedler. In “A Wig for Miss Devore,” he plays the agent for the eponymous Sheila Devore. A once promising actress, Miss Devore is already washed-up and her looks faded by the age of 31. She is plotting a comeback though and finds a perfect vehicle in the story of Meg Peyton, a 18th century woman hanged at the gallows for witchcraft. Legend has it that Peyton wear a wig woven from the hairs of her victims, which granted her eternal youth and fame as long as she kept it on. Studio head Max Quinke has been keeping the residuals to Sheila's past hits to himself, information Herbert uses to blackmail him into funding the actress' comeback vehicle. Devore secures Meg Peyton's actual wig for the production, wearing it and being as strikingly beautiful again as she once was. Filming goes off without a hitch and the movie is a hit. The director marries Sheila. Yet the men around her seem to keep dying mysteriously. First Max and then her new husband, both of them found with horrible scratches over their faces. Now, what could possibly be the link there, I wonder? 

“A Wig for Miss Devore” is about the fourth episode of “Thriller” I've seen that resolves around a cursed object. Several of those were written by Robert Bloch, while this one is based on a story from fellow Weird Tales graduate August Derlith. I suppose this speaks to the way the pulp writers of the forties and fifties placed classical gothic horror tropes in modern contexts. “A Wig for Miss Devore” has quite a contemporary context, taking place in the world of Hollywood. The story of an aging and somewhat delusional actress recalls both “Sunset Boulevard” and “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” The script doesn't seem to have much insight into the wages of fame or how the shallow film industry treats women though. The episode plays Sheila as both somewhat victimized by the men around her, like the scheming Max and the manipulative husband, while also having her be a femme fatale. (While also implying that she's not that talented, seemingly only known for her looks.) I suppose the idea is that revenge hardens the heart of everyone, even those with justifiable grievances. Or perhaps the story is simply speaking to the cut throat, ruthless nature of the motion picture business. A woman has to resort to witchcraft and murder if she hopes to claw her way back to the top, in an industry that discards any actress for the crime of simply getting a little older.

Trying to dig up too much deeper meaning here is difficult though. Instead, it's a pretty simple fable, of someone with an insatiable vanity that eventually proves to be their own undoing. Patricia Barry does give a fine performance in the titular role, striking the viewer at first as an airhead type before revealing her more calculating, vicious side. The men around her prove to be properly spineless or deceiving. I wish so much of the story's ironic pay-off wasn't shoved into its last minute. I've not read Derluth's story but this feels like an encapsulation of a longer tale. In my experience, what “Thriller” really excelled at was fantastic final shocks and a willingness to be surprisingly grim for the time. “A Wig for Miss Devore” does have a gory final image and, by the standards of 1962, it was probably fairly shocking. It's also not as good as the shock endings we got in “The Cheaters” or “The Hungry Glass.” However, there is a memorable image here. Whenever Miss Devore removes her wig, until the final minutes, all we see are aged, ghastly hands groping through the shadowy air. That's pretty cool. I do wish more episodes of this series had Boris Karloff doing both an intro and an outra, Hitchcock and Sterling style, cause I do enjoy his baroque monologues. [7/10]

 

 

Halloween 2025: September 6th

 

Final Destination (2000)

It started, as all things do, with an idea. Jeffrey Reddick heard the old urban legend about a woman telling her daughter not to get on a plane, a warning the girl heeds. The next day, the plane the girl was supposed to be on crashes, her mother's premonition having saved her life. (Or he saw "Sole Survivor," a 1984 horror flick inspired by the same story.) Reddick broke into Hollywood at fourteen, after sending his "A Nightmare on Elm Street" fanfic to New Line Cinema and badgering Rob Shaye about it after the script was rejected. At the time, he was trying to get into TV and thought this story could be the basis for an episode of "The X-Files." The spec script he wrote never made it to the "X-Files" writers' room but his friends at New Line read it and saw the potential for a good movie. Ironically, the script that was now called "Final Destination" ended up in the hands of James Wong and Glen Morgan, a duo best known for writing some of the freakier episodes of "The X-Files." Wong made his directorial debut with "Final Destination," which became a sleeper hit for New Line at the start of the new millennium. This would kick-off a new horror franchise for the House That Freddy Built. 

High school senior Alex Browning is preparing to leave on a class trip to Paris, his best friend Tod in tow. A small mechanical malfunction aboard the plane sets off a catastrophic chain reaction that ends with all the passengers dying in a massive explosion... Or so Alex sees in an apparent psychic vision. Once minor details from his promotion start to come true, Alex freaks out. He starts a fight with class bully Carter that results in the two of them – along with Tod, Carter's girlfriend, teacher Miss Lewton, Alex's crush Clear, and some random guy named Billy – getting thrown off the plane. Afterwards, they all witness the Boeing going up in a massive fireball, Alex's premonition having saved their lives. However, an eerie feeling continues to float over the survivors. Tod dies shortly afterwards in a bizarre bathroom accident, that is mistaken for a suicide. Alex becomes convinced that all of them were meant to die on that plane and now Death itself is claiming each of them, one by one. When Carter's girlfriend and their teacher die in similarly strange mishaps, Alex becomes obsessed with what the mortician William Bludworth calls "Death's design." He seeks to interrupt the preordained series of events and save Clear, Carter, and his own life before Death comes for them again.

In one roundabout way or another, most horror movies are about the fear of death. All of our lives are destined to end someday, an inescapable fate none of us can avoid or have much control over. "Final Destination" is a horror movie about this idea in a much more literal way than most. An unexplained intervention prevents Alex from dying in a horrible accident but this is only a brief reprieve, the inevitability of death sure to catch up with him eventually. Rather than get too existential about it, "Final Destination" takes this idea in the far sillier direction of death being a personified concept with a strict plan that gets extra creative and vindictive when his carefully constructed pattern is interrupted. Alex becomes an obsessive conspiracy theorist type, seeing secret codes and patterns in the random events around him that he interprets as further evidence of "Death's design." If only he can decipher this code – presented almost literally as a puzzle, after the accident that caused the plane explosion reveals the order everyone was originally destined to die in – maybe he can prevent these events from happening. That this conviction makes Alex, functionally, indistinct from a raving lunatic is probably the closest thing "Final Destination" has to a wider thematic point. We're all going to die, sooner or later, and trying to outrun that fate leads only to madness. Better to live your life without agonizing too much about how you're gonna die. Or at least, as Clear does, channel those anxieties into personal art pieces rather than become a schizophrenic who sees a malevolent force eager to act all around him. 

Rather than examine this idea from a philosophical direction, Wong and Morgan's film takes Alex's position. The script seems to operate from the perspective that death can be escaped, if only you read the clues right. Following that thought, "Final Destination" is a film littered with subconscious warnings about the characters' ultimate fate. The opening credits look over the model airplanes in Alex's bedroom, hinting at the soon-to-come crash. Before Miss Lewton is killed by an improbably falling butcher knife, a stained glass window over her shoulder depicts a sword floating above her head. A speeding bus or flying piece of shrapnel are preceded by reflections in windows or flashes of lights, signs that these events are forthcoming. Wong and his team are clearly seeking to create an ominous feeling, in hopes that the viewer will feel as paranoid as Alex does, surrounded by a sense that a horrible accident could claim your life at any minute. Which, I suppose, is indeed a possibility. These frequent visual reminders are paired with a melodramatic score from Shirley Walker – a composer best known for her work in the also exaggerated superhero genre – and a generally credulous tone throughout. 

It's a bit overblown and more than a little bit silly, which is probably why an undercurrent of absurdity runs through "Final Destination." The film takes everything that happens very seriously despite it all being quite ridiculous, the dissonance creating a subtext of campy anticipation. I think Wong and company are in on the joke too. That the violent accidents in "Final Destination" happen as the result of elaborate chain reactions, a spontaneous Rube Goldberg machine that leads to somebody's grisly death, feels like a punchline to a steadily built-up joke. This is especially true for the series of unlikely events that result in a cord wrapping around a neck or a knife driven into a chest by a falling chair, combinations of such unlikeliness that you kind of have to laugh at them. When Kristen Cloke gets creamed by a randomly speeding bus or Sean William Scott is decapitated, it plays out like a physical gag. That "Final Destination" is only one step removed from a Raimian "splatstick" gore comedy doesn't prevent it from generating a grim tension in a few sequences. Most notably the opening plane crash, which piles misfortunes atop each other in a suitably out-of-control fashion that makes the viewer feel as caught up in this disaster as the characters. Or a mildly tense set piece of a car stopped on train tracks, which captures a little bit of that same panicked sensation. 

The minute it's revealed that a character has the last name of Hitchcock, it's clear "Final Destination" is one of those movies that sprinkles in homages to horror history. Miss Lewton's first name is Val, about as blatant a reference as you can get. Browning, Chaney, Dreyer, Weine, Murnau and Schreck are the other familiar names tossed around. Despite these shout-outs to the classic era, "Final Destination" focusing on elaborate death scenes makes it more like a slasher film. This is also evident in the "Dawson's Creek"-ready cast of photogenic young actors. The performances range from vacant to silly. Bright-eyed Devon Sawa as Alex gets increasingly sweaty as the material gets broader. Kerr Smith as Carter is a blustering cartoonish bully, while Sean William Scott is playing a slightly only less silly version of his “American Pie” character. Ali Larter, as Clear, and Kerr Smith as Carter, as Tod, are mostly stiff and unconvincing. The character remain archetypal in their simplicity, as they typically do in a slasher, though the movie at least gets points for not being as outwardly dismissive towards them as a lot of similar films are. Tony Todd's character exists to deliver some exposition but Todd was such an artist with screen presence that he makes the goofy dialogue sound sinister and impressive. 

By the way, “Final Destination'” origins as an “X-Files” spec script is still evident. The FBI agents floating around the margins of the story seem to suspect Alex might be a serial killer offing his friends or a terrorist who blew up the plane. The two have a scene, talking about whether the predictions of the future could exists, that you could easily slot Mulder and Scully into. It's not hard to imagine a version of this story with the investigator as the protagonists. Ending with a blunt cut-to-black that also operates as a pay-off to a sick joke, “Final Destination” takes the viewer out with a twisted smile on their face. It squanders a lot of potential with a shallow approach to its own ideas but remains a reasonably entertaining genre experience. Considering “Final Destination” came out during a time when slick “Scream” rip-offs made up a lot of the genre, the movie surely must've felt like a fresh approach at the time. It holds up fairly well. [7/10]

 

 

Meatcleaver Massacre (1977)

When future right-wing talk radio host and life-long hack Michael Medved named Edward D. Wood Jr. the “Worst Director of All Time” in 1980, he plucked the name out of obscurity and insured the filmmaker an undying cult following. Ed Wood doesn't merely have fans, he has devotees. I mean that almost literally, as Wood is at the center of a highly sarcastic but legally recognized religion. Wood archivists genuinely exist and they've unearthed lost works of his with some regularity. For example: It was long rumored that Wood had some involvement with 1976 trash-slasher “Meatcleaver Massacre” but, in 2022, cinematographer Roy H. Wagner confirmed that ol' Eddie boy basically directed the whole movie. That would make it the last Ed Wood movie, as he died three years later. First released as “Hollywood Meatcleaver Massacre,” the distributor later stitched on an introduction Christopher Lee had filmed for a totally unrelated project and chopped the “Hollywood” off the title. Now this utter obscurity is available on spiffy special edition Blu-Rays, both cuts bundled together and all cleaned up and full of special features. If only Ed had lived to seen it...

Professor Cantrell gives a lecture to his class about a Gaelic demon named Morak, said to be summoned to deliver bloody vengeance against those that have wronged another. Among Cantrell's class is Mason, an anti-social burn-out. That night, he meets up with his friends – long-haired hippy Sean, mechanic Dirk, sleaze ball Phil – and the group decides to pay Professor Cantrell a visit. Donning masks and wielding knives, they break into the man's house and brutally stab his wife and daughter to death. Contrell is left in a coma. From his hospital bed, his thoughts call out to Morak. Soon, Mason and his friends begin to experience bizarre hallucinations and nightmares. A demonic force is closing in and picking them off one by one. A police detective, who uncovered a triangular patch of cloth from Dirk's jacket at the crime scene, investigates.

In the same social media post where he confirmed that Wood directed most of the movie, Roy Wagner also revealed that shooting occurred over a four day period. This is evident, as the movie's narrative often operates as if it was made up along the way. We never learn anything about any of the character, all of them existing as thinly defined entities. Why Mason hates his college professor so much, or why he's such a belligerent psychopath in general, is never discussed. His friends seem to go along with the murderous plan on a whim. The plot, as it is, operates in an extremely simple, A-to-B fashion. This assholes kill a guy's family, he summons a demon to avenge them, and then they all die in supernatural ways. Despite that simplicity, “Meatcleaver Massacre” pads its slim 77 minute run time with lots of people walking around, hanging out in dingy apartments, or existing in various places of business. If you expect that subplot about the detective or the one guy's girlfriend working in a rub-and-tug massage parlor to amount to anything, you are definitely watching the wrong movie. 

Not that such a slapped-together production, with a paper-thin plot and non-existent characters, would be atypical for an Edward D. Wood Jr. movie. However, the director often paired his zero budget production values and nonsensical scripts with bizarre dialogue and a spunky, do-it-yourself flow. “Meatcleaver Massacre” mostly lacks these qualities, perhaps owing to Wood being a last minute replacement and a barely functioning alcoholic at the time. Occasionally, however, a bit of that old Wood-ian weirdness emerges. Such as in a hilarious sequence where Dirk seems to seriously consider slashing his wrist with a straight razor before glancing at his watch and shouting, “I'm gonna be late for work!” Or a customer in that sleazy sex shop being either a priest or a man posing as a priest. Another highly quotable line is a doctor in a mental institute looking in at a cackling patient and declaring “This is my first nut!” Before Morak takes out each guy, they have strange nightmares or visions. One of which involves wandering through a misty funeral home and a dead body wrapped in a white sheet on a beach. The long-haired hippy is taken out after wandering into the desert, the scene cut in such a matter that it looks like he's been killed by the leaves of an agave plant. So that's pretty funny. 

If “Meatcleaver Massacre” can be said to have any merits when taken as a stand-alone artifact, it is in the same way a lot of exploitation movies are: As an accidental time capsule of its time and place. There is a sequence, where Phil is walking down Sunset Avenue. The most famous landmark he passes is the Roxy Theater, which is advertising a late night screening of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” He also passes a lot of much sleazier venues and shops, showing pornography of varying degrees. Yes, “Meatcleaver Massacre” does have a little bit of that super greasy and washed-out atmosphere you find in extremely low budget and nasty grindhouse flicks of the time. There was definitely a Manson family influence on the home invasion premise, which was almost a decade out of date by the late seventies. However, the scraggly, long-haired, and polyestered actors – all of whom appear to be strung-out on one type of substance or another – does generate that seventies sense of nihilism. That the idealism of the sixties had failed and drugs and hedonism were all we got left with.  

This is interesting but not enough to make up for “Meatcleaver Massacre” mostly being a total nothing-burger of a movie. The close-ups of the weird-ass paintings seen throughout are fun. When Morak kills a guy with a car hood latch, that was mildly entertaining. However, the “Meatcleaver Massacre” experience is mostly summed up by the Christopher Lee bookends. Lee intoning grimly about pseudo-mystical mumbo-jumbo for six minutes sounds fun, like “In Search Of...” if it was hosted by Dracula and not Spock. In actuality though, the Lee sequences are flatly shot and rather monotonous. If you give Wood credit for the movie, you can smell the boozy fumes coming off the entire project. The other people behind the film were screenwriter Keith Burns, whose only other credit is a TV clip-show about Ernie Kovacs. The second credited writer is Ray Atherton. He mostly worked as a producer with credits like “F.A.R.T. The Movie,” video tapes collecting violent accident footage, and a documentary about L.A. queer culture starring a physically disabled tap dancer that later spawned an internet meme. Oh, he also played the guy who gets killed with the TV in “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.” All of which implies that the behind-the-scenes details of “Meatcleaver Massacre” – no one is massacred with a meat cleaver, by the way – are more interesting than the actual movie itself. [4/10]

Thriller: The Incredible Doktor Markesan

Boris Karloff hosted every episode of “Thriller,” of course, but he appeared as a character in the stories themselves a handful of times as well. Of these five appearances within “Thriller's” narratives, “The Incredible Doktor Markesan” is easily the best regarded. First Darren Dick York stars as Fred, a perpetually broke young man. Alongside his young wife, Molly, he drives to the estate of his rich uncle, Konrad. Konrad Markesan was a notable professor at the local college at one point and Fred and Molly hope he can help them find work, or at least provide them with a place to stay for a while. When the two arrive at the home, they find it dilapidated and slowly being consumed by the swamp around it. The house appears empty at first and, when Konrad finally does appear, his behavior is strange and his appearance is sickly. He allows the couple to stay in the home but under one condition: They must not roam around the house at night. He locks them into their bedroom every day at sundown to insure this. However, Molly and Fred are both curious about what's going on with Uncle Konrad. They soon break their promise to him and uncover that the old man has been performing unnatural experiments. Oh yeah, and that him and his work colleagues – also seen lurking around the house – have been dead for ten years. 

“Thriller” was a series that often succeeded in bringing a classic horror atmosphere to the small screen. “The Incredible Doktor Markesan” excels in this regard and it's not surprising once you read that it was directed by Robert Florey. That's the same guy who directed “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” among the foggiest of Universal's mist-strewn classic monster movies. Florey worked in almost every genre over his long career but was especially good at the macabre stuff. “The Incredible Doktor Markesan” is awash with smoky fog. The climax features an old family crypt, reeking with age and clouded in darkness. The setting is primarily a crumbling old mansion, filled with shadows and dust. When Karloff first appears the title character, it's with waxy flesh and massive bags under his eyes. He's the first of a handful of similarly sunken-eyed ghouls that show up. This classically spooky ambiance is supported by moody cinematography that often adopts askew or stylized camera angles and a score that layers on the quivering strings and shrill shrieks. Karloff, meanwhile, is at his most sinister as an ancient old man that moves between utterly zombified and surprisingly threatening.

That “The Incredible Doktor Markesan” has such incredible atmosphere makes up for a story that is fairly predictable. The episode is adapted from a script by frequent Lovecraft colleague August Derleth. While there's no cosmic horrors about in this one, the premise of a younger man discovering a disturbing family secret created through profane scientific experiments isn't that far off from something Howard Phillips might have written. The reveal that his uncle is an undead ghoul of some sort isn't that shocking and it takes Fred entirely too long to figure that out. In general, the episode is a bit heavy on the young couple bickering. 

However, there is something appealing about the classic set-up here, the “Bluebeard”-esque promise of comfort and security as long as someone simply doesn't explore further. The exact motivations of Markesan's experiments aren't revealed until the very end and remain a bit vague then too. The script works best when suggesting something weird and disturbing going on. Such as when Molly gets a glimpse of the old man forcing the other zombies to exhaustively repeat a speech praising him. Someone catching a glimpse of a weird, forbidden ritual that they don't understand but clearly realize they should not be seeing is a trope that almost always gives me the willies. Like most of the “Thriller” episodes I've seen, this does lead up to a properly chilling and surprisingly grim ending, which sends the viewer out on a fittingly creepy note. Doesn't hit quite as hard as “The Cheaters” or “The Hungry Glass” but still a nicely spooky hour of television. [7/10]

 

 

The Addams Family: Gomez, the People's Choice

An early season one episode of “The Addams Family” was entitled “Gomez, the Politician” but was actually about the patriarch of the eccentric family canvasing for another politician altogether. The idea was revisited with “Gomez, the People's Choice.” Upon receiving the tax bill for their home, Gomez and Morticia are disgusted to see their stately manor is only worth 84 dollars. They head to the mayor's office to demand to pay more, only for the glad-handing politician to offer to lower their bill instead. Gomez is outraged and, upon seeing his political rant, Morticia talks him into running for mayor. His bizarre ideas prove surprisingly appealing to the public and his campaign starts to gain steam. So much so that Gomez becomes too distracted by his new career to pay proper attention to his wife. Morticia and the rest of the family conspire to undo Gomez' latest ambitions. 

See, this is why the Addams Family are perhaps the only good millionaires: Not only do they pay their taxes, they demand to pay more than they owe! I can't imagine Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg ever trying to get into politics on that platform. As you'd probably expect, “The Addams Family” was not a series made for serious political commentary. Gomez' campaign is built entirely on nonsensical slogans. He spews a bunch of cliches and has Whizzo – the family super-computer introduced in “The Addams Family Splurges" – spit out topics for him to rant on. That's a surprisingly relevant message in our post-truth era, when a far less charming billionaire lunatic spouting completely inane bullshit somehow swindled his way into the White House twice. The Trump parallels become far more obvious in the second half. When Morticia and the others start attempting to sabotage Gomez' career with one scandal after another, his opponent realizes this will only make more popular with voters and immediately concedes. Very ahead of its time, that observation was. 

The middle stretch of this episode does feel a little limp. The beginning – of the family all engaged in their wacky hobbies before the tax bill ruins their day – is a solid gag. The last third features some really funny bits. Morticia rattling off a series of French phrases that go unnoticed by her husband, consumed in his political rhetoric, and getting increasingly aghast at what is happening is a wonderful moment. As is Morticia's attempt to portrayed a battered wife, which falls apart the minute her husband starts kissing her arm, turning her cries of anguish into ones of ecstasy. See, the wacky relationships between these character is why I love this show! That same sequence features a good joke about Uncle Fester pretending to be an escaped criminal. I also like the reveal concerning where the Addams got the signatures needed to approve his political run. Needed more silliness like that and less scenes of Whizzo the computer blowing confetti and shooting steam. (Especially not when there's a suitably funny series of gags about smoking earlier in the episode.) [6/10]

Halloween 2025: September 2nd

 

The Monkey (2025)

How does an otherwise mundane object acquire a sinister reputation? The earliest ads for a toy inspired by the organ grinder's monkey are from 1932, advertising a product from Louis Marx & Co. Starting in the fifties, Japanese companies would begin to produce mechanical toys depicting a small ape that banged cymbals. The most iconic example was made by Daishin and sold as the Musical Jolly Chimp. The primate wore a yellow vest and striped pants, banged its cymbals, bopped its head, bulged its eyes, flared its lips, and screeched. While that sounds innocent, these toys were a frequent source of terror for people who grew up with them. The sudden noise of the cymbals, the jerky mechanical movements, the deranged facial expression and obnoxious sounds combined to create an uncanny, startling appearance. In the decades since, such toy monkeys have often appeared in pop culture, almost always as an ironic source of fear. They've pop up in video games, an especially freaky example appeared on the "Monkey Shines" poster, and Disney used it as a minor antagonist in "Toy Story 3." 

An obscure 1984 horror movie called "The Devil's Gift" made such a monkey into a demonic force of evil. (The film was later recycled as a segment in the anthology feature, "Merlin's Magical Shop of Mystical Wonders," which was mocked on one of the last episodes of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" to debut on the Sci-Fi Channel.) However, "The Devil's Gift" lifted its premise from a 1980 short story by Stephen King called "The Monkey," providing the cover image for King's collection, "Skeleton Crew." Which is how this old toy worked its way into my childhood nightmares. Frank Darabont wrote a script for a feature adaptation of "The Monkey" in 2007 but it wasn't until earlier this year that the foreboding chimp finally appeared in theaters. As director Osgood Perkins' follow-up to "Longlegs," and given a similarly clever advertising campaign, "The Monkey" received a good deal of hype and opened to solid box office back in February.

Twin brothers Hal and Bill Shelburn were raised by their single mother. While going through their absentee father's possessions, they discover a drum playing mechanical toy monkey. The monkey banging its drum seems to trigger horrible accidental deaths. While mad at Bill, Hal cranks the monkey's key and hopes it'll target his brother's. Instead, their mother dies of a freak embolism. Attempts to destroy the monkey are unsuccessful and the boys decide locking it in a box and tossing it down a well is their best bet. Years later, an adult Hal remains distant from his brother and his own son, Petey. During what was supposed to be his final weekend with Petey, before surrendering custody of the boy to his mom and step-dad, horribly fatal accidents begin to happen around Hal. The monkey has returned and it's banging its drum more often than before. Attempts to locate the cursed toy leads Hal back to his now reclusive brother. 

Why those old chattering monkey toys unsettled so many people seems partially based in their tendency to go off unexpectedly. King's story largely used that randomness as a symbol of the chaotic nature of life and death. Perkins' film jumps off from that point. The monkey – its cymbals traded out for a drum due to some Disney copyright screw job – doesn't merely foretell bad luck, as in the text. Instead, its drumming always sets off a chain reaction that causes horribly violent fatalities. You never know who the malevolent magic of the monkey will strike, only that death will surely follow its drumbeats. Its arm raised above its head is very much like the sword of mortality hanging over all of us. We've all got a limited amount of time on this globe, with no say in when the end might come. Not all of us are going out peacefully in our sleep but in tears and blood and random accidents. "The Monkey" was sold with the astute tagline "Everybody dies and that's fucked-up." Indeed it is. Perkins' film finds a potent stand-in for the ever-unpredictable, and often cruel, finger of fate in the teeth-baring toy simian. The jolly music and lifted lips of the Monkey seem to mock us, taking joy in engineering horribly elaborate outcomes for any person unlucky enough to be hit by its bad juju. It can't be destroyed. It can't be reasoned with. It can only be delayed. 

Oz Perkins' screen icon dad died of AIDS while still publicly denying his homosexuality. His mother was on American Airlines Flight 11 the day it was hijacked and crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. If anybody knows about how fucked-up fate can be, it's him. If “Longlegs” found chills in the tension that arises from the secrets parents keep from their kids, “The Monkey” digs through the debris of childhood trauma. Theo James as Hal – excellent audio-book voice, by the way – narrates much of the film, providing us with a reflective tone to begin with. The childhood sequences are set in 1999 and include plenty of visual signifiers of the time. Such as a Goosebumps poster, hip hugger jeans, and CRT TVs. The toy monkey itself, of course, hearkens back to an older time. When the boys are adopted by their aunt and uncle, we see facial hair and clothing fashions that recall the seventies. While the modern scenes feature air buds and smart phones, the dingy motels, a bus full of retro cheerleaders, and “Halloween Ends'” Corey with a Ramones haircut continues a feeling of unmoored time. When combined with a story swimming with childhood resentment and long-buried feelings, “The Monkey” feels like digging through the past in search of some sort of answer to the random chaos of the universe. 

From its somber and reflective subject matter, you might get the impression that “The Monkey” is a pretty serious horror movie. This was apparently the tone of Frank Darabont's first script. When Perkins rewrote it, however, “The Monkey” became an extended act of gallows' humor. The death scenes go for outrageous gore comedy, the first scene featuring an unspooling length of intestines and the movie only getting wilder from there. “The Monkey” clearly delights in elaborate undoings of the body, weaponizing unlikely objects and impaling, melting, and flattening human flesh. In fact, “The Monkey” bends towards cartoonish splat-stick almost immediately. People explode like water balloons, tossing limbs and blood in an exaggerated downpour.

Much like in the better “Final Destination” flicks, “The Monkey” engineers its elaborate death scenes like vicious Rube Goldberg machines, often deriving a sick sort of amused anticipation. Sometimes the intention is to make you cringe, sometimes laughs are the only objective. Either way, Osgood Perkins' trademark style that he's built up over his last four features is still present. Nico Aguitar takes over the cinematography but maintains the deep fields of vision, wide frames, and precisely placed set dressing of “Longlegs” and “Gretel & Hansel.” Such a tightly controlled visuals work great for creating an unsettling feeling of dread. What about for comedy though? Well, it mostly works but sometimes – during the wackier beats, most notably during a visual gag in the last scene – feels a bit awkward. A few fantasy or dream sequences are inserted, placing the monkey's face in unexpected places, which are probably the scenes in the film that struck me as most off-balanced. 

Still, “The Monkey” is a good time at the movies for horror nerds like me. Perkins' script captures King's authorial voice, using specific language and odd turns-of-phrase to good effect. Theo James makes for a compellingly anxious lead, while Tatiana Maslany brings some heartfelt pathos to the ill-fated mother. In the most recent wave of King adaptations to release over the last few years, I'd put this one way above “The Boogeyman” or the “Pet Sematary” remake. We're talking a solid, mid-level “Silver Bullet,” “Cat's Eye” flick here. Lastly, I suppose the titular toy primate is suitably creepy. I don't like his toothy smile. It makes me uncomfortable. [7/10]

The Sorcerers (1967)

In 1968, via the fictional proxy of Byron Orlok in the film “Targets,” Boris Karloff observed that the modern day horrors and social upheaval of the late sixties made the kind of so-called scary movies he used to star in totally irrelevant. It was meaningful commentary on a world that seemed like it had changed an awful lot in not an especially long amount of time. Despite this statement, Boris Karloff actually had an extremely good sixties. In the last decade of his life, the star would re-emerge as a respected elder statesmen of the genre who was sought out by up-and-coming filmmakers like Roger Corman, Mario Bava, and the aforementioned Peter Bogdanovich. Another such example was Michael Reeves. In-between his debut with Barbara Steele and the iconic “Witchfinder General” with Vincent Price, Reeves would direct Karloff in “The Sorcerers.” In its own way, the film comments on the rapidly changing times as much as “Targets” did the next year. 

Marcus Monserrat is an elderly scientist who has sought out the psychological and medical uses of hypnotism. Alongside his wife, Estelle, he is about to launch his most groundbreaking research yet. Dr. Monserrat heads into a common bar and meets Matt Roscoe. Matt is a young man bored of London's night life and in search of new experiences. The old man promises him one. Roscoe is taken back to his lab and exposed to a bizarre test. The experiment establishes a hypnotic link between Monserat and the younger man, enabling the former to psychically control the latter from afar. Marcus wants to keep the procedure as scientific as possible but Estelle – who discovers she can share the psychic link by touching her husband's hand – has other ideas in plan. She uses the younger man's body to act out her repressed impulses. It's not long before, by seeing through someone else's eyes and willing him to act, that Estelle develops a taste for murder. Dr. Monserrat does what he can to stop his wife before she's totally out of control.

Notoriously, Michael Reeves would die far too young, after completing his third motion picture. However, over his short filmography, he did show some interesting reoccurring themes. “Witchfinder General” saw a tyrannical older man using his position of power to abuse those lower on the social ladder than him with impunity. In “The She-Beast,” the spirit of an ancient witch would possess a younger woman. “The Sorcerers,” meanwhile, is also about the older generation literally taking control of someone younger than them. While the Monserrats insists that their reputation has been ruined by his highly publicized past failures, they still seem to live a fairly comfortable life. Roscoe is someone plucked randomly, after the two scheming old people decide any younger person would do for their purposes. In its own way, this is a clear depiction of the generational divide that was all too evident in 1967, of an older generation desperate to maintain control over youths that were deemed wild and unruly. 

“The Sorcerers” makes this gap apparent in other ways. The title brings a story of witchcraft and ancient rites to mind. This stands in contrast with a story that very much set in the modern day. Though ostensibly presented as a scientific experiment, the Monserrats' powers are indistinguishable from magic or any other supernatural ability. Despite that, the film makes multiple attempts to represents its modern day setting. The process that puts Roscoe under the doctor's control is a psychedelic light show of swirling, wild colors. The film takes place in the swingin' rock clubs of the time and the gritty back allies of the modern city. It's easy to see “The Sorcerers” as a condemnation of the wild in the streets youths of the sixties. However, that the young man is forced to kill at the sadistic impulses of an old woman reveals the truth: It's not that society has abandoned any sense of morality. These tendencies to violate ethical codes have always existed within mankind and our only brought out by a change of circumstances. Roscoe is kind of an asshole but he's not a bad guy. Estelle realizing she can abandon all restrictions and run amok in another human's body reveals her as a much more insidious threat. 

The original screenplay for “The Sorcerers” was written by John Burke, a prolific writer of short horror stories and film and TV novelizations. Supposedly, his script was greatly rewritten by Reeves, to the point that Burke would only receive a story credit. Among the changes made, reportedly, were done on-set to make Boris Karloff's character more sympathetic. The film repeatedly implies that Dr. Moserrat does get some pleasure out of taking over the mind and body of a younger man. The contrast between his fragile old body and the virile young Roscoe is too obvious. His wife takes it way further, becoming the Lady MacBeth in this story and eventually making her husband a prisoner in their home. It's hard to find Karloff sympathetic, playing a rather Dr. Frankenstein-ian role of a scientist who looses control of his own creation. Making his wife the film's villain might've been a weird sexist move and it might still be. Luckily, Catherine Lacey makes Estelle into a deliciously depraved character. She shows so much long-buried venom coming to the surface as she's given a chance to unleash her darker desires. It is an at-times chilling portrayal of an unchecked id set loose to act out its worst tendencies.

Much like “The She-Beasts,” “The Sorcerers” still feels quite rough around the edges. The story is a bit shapeless at times. Roscoe and his young friends are never given much personality or depth. Especially since he spends most of the movie as a literal cipher for somebody else's wants. His day job at an antique shop – amusingly called The Glory Hole – feels like an afterthought. There's more scenes of a slightly off-note singer grooving and crooning in the clubs than I'd think necessary. There's some tacky crash-zooms. Mostly, the film feels held back by an inability – either a creative choice or the pressure of censorship – to get nastier. The idea of infirm old people invading the mind of a young man, let loose to fuck and kill however they want, can never be as fully explored as the material demands. Still, “The Sorcerers” is an interesting one. Karloff is as sturdy as ever, Lacey is fiery and unforgettable. The film is overflowing with ideas, some better utilized than others. The ending struck me as abrupt but leads into a haunting final image. It's a real shame Reeves died so young, as he was clearly only beginning to come into his own as an interesting filmmaker. As it is, “The Sorcerers” is definitely a unique and interesting snapshot of the horror genre in transition. [7/10]

Tales of Tomorrow: Frankenstein

In August of 1951, “Tales of Tomorrow” debuted on ABC. It was the first science fiction anthology series to air on American television and was, like many such programs at the time, broadcast live. The series adapted contemporary sci-fi writers like Arthur C. Clarke, Theodore Sturgeon, Philip Wylie, Lewis Padgett, and Fredric Brown. The show delved into classics sometimes too, condensing “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” or Wells' “The Crystal Egg” to a half-hour runtime. One such episode was a version of “Frankenstein.” The show grabbed Lon Chaney Jr. to play the reanimated corpse which probably seemed like a great idea... But this was Chaney in the twilight of his career, when he often showed up to set sloppy drunk. Supposedly, he was so sloshed while starring in “Tales of Tomorrow” that he mistook the live broadcast for a dress rehearsal. When scripted to smash some furniture, he is said to have gently placed it down instead and mumbled “Save for later.” I first read this trivia as a kid – probably in the Crestwood Monsters books or something by Daniel Cohen – and it always sounded a bit far-fetched to me. This particular episode of “Tales of Tomorrow” survives and can be easily found online, meaning it's time for me to see if there's any truth to this oft-told tale. 

This iteration of “Frankenstein” has little to do with Mary Shelley's novel. Set in the modern day, this time Baron Frankenstein is depicted as operating out of a castle on an obscure island. He talks passionately about creating artificial life, which spooks his fiance Elizabeth, her dad, and her little brother. That's because the Baron has already assembled his creation, bringing the stitched-together being to life with a jolt of electricity. The hideously ugly monster breaks out of confinement, frightening the servants and child before throttling the butler's wife to death. Horrified by his own creation, Frankenstein sets out to destroy the beast. However, the only thing that can stop Frankenstein's monster is the same thing that brought it to life: A bolt of lightning. 

To sate anybody's curiosity: Yes, ol' Lon does pick up a chair and a table, shakes them as if he's about to throw them, before slowly putting them back. I didn't catch him mouthing anything about smashing the furniture later, so I'll say this urban legend is only mostly true. I can't say if Chaney was actually drunk. He spends the entire episode thrusting his hands out, scowling, screeching and grumbling. It's not his proudest moment but it's also a totally serviceable take on the Frankenstein monster. Despite the extremely abbreviated take on the material, I do like that the script repeatedly emphasizes that the creature is an innocent rejected by the world for reasons he has no control over. A scene where he encounters the little boy in the middle of a spirited playtime, the kid quickly comparing the monster to the ugly invisible enemies he's fighting off, illustrates that nicely. Chaney was excellent at making his monsters equally pitiable and threatening and we get a little bit of that here, despite the rushed execution of the material. 

The limitations of live television are fairly evident. The entire story is confined to the castle set. When Chaney tumbled through a window and into the lake below, all the falling and splashing occurs totally off-screen. Shoving the doctor's entire arc – of being obsessed with making life, being horrified by his creation and promising to destroy it – into a half-hour feels very rushed. Seven years before hosting “One Step Beyond,” John Newland appeared here as the doctor and does what he can for the limited material. The episode makes decent use of its shadowy setting. I do like the shot of Chaney reaching his hands out towards the camera. However, “Tales of Tomorrow's” take on “Frankenstein” is fairly stagey and abbreviated. I'm glad I was able to finally watch this notorious bit of horror history but it's not that notable outside of Chaney's lack of sobriety. [6/10]

 

The Addams Family: My Fair Cousin Itt

I had a reasonably kooky, creepy time with “The Addams Family” last September so I'm back with season two. The fan favorite extended family member/vocal hairpiece is back in “my Fair Cousin Itt.” For Wednesday's upcoming birthday party, Gomez has written a play full of the required amount of tragedy and intrigue with starring roles for members of the family. Noticing that Itt's self-esteem is a bit low lately, the decision is made to give him the leading role. A director is recruited in the form of snooty professional Erich von Bissell, who is reluctant to accept until he sees the wad of cash Gomez is offering. Von Bissell insists he can't work with Cousin Itt's chattering voice, prompting Morticia to give the walking wig some elocution training. This works too well, as Itt develops a deep baritone and a pretentious actor's attitude along with it.

“My Fair Cousin itt” is perhaps not the most structurally sound episode of “The Addams Family.” The direction of the plot changes several time. Initially, it seems that Uncle Fester and Lurch being jealous of Itt getting the lead role – and plotting to lock him up somehow – is going to be the main gag of the episode. Once von Bissell enters, the direction shifts to a more typical episode set-up. Namely, an outsider being continuously freaked out by the Addams Family. The stiff, egotistical and broke Von Bissell would certainly be a fine foil for Gomez and the gang. He abruptly exits the episode half-way through, at which point the focus turns towards Itt remaking himself into a star of the stage with an inflated perception of himself. That's kind of a lot of premises to cram into one half-hour.

Not that I didn't enjoy “My Fair Cousin Itt.” The gags come fast and frequently. A reoccurring bit about Gomez balancing a succession of unlikely objects on his chin opens the episode before returning at the end in an amusing manner. Ted Kassidy gets some good moments, especially when a surprised Lurch is asked to repeat his mumbled response. The amusement factor in the usually jibbering Cousin Itt speaking with an expressive, theatrical baritone is limited. However, I did like it when he entered a scene on the back of a sheep dog. It's weird that Wednesday motivates the entire plot of this episode but is only in one scene herself though. [7/10]