Halloween 2026: Preamble

 

Halloween is always special. This is something I have believed for as long as I can remember. A very early memory of mine is of one of those kids board books, of trick-or-treators going about their October 31st ritual. I can recall thumbing through those extra thick pages over and over again, before I even really knew how to read, simply fascinated by the imagery. The morbid heart was always within me, drawing me towards monsters and shadows and candy corn and cheap plastic vampire fangs.

 

Halloween is always special but it is extra special this year. For, through a confluence of events that would seem improbable if not for the clear indication that they did in fact happen, I am getting married this October. Yes, this morbid heart of mine found another. One that understands the way I see the world and shares many of my pains, hopes, fears, and dreams. Sorry if I become insufferable at any point this season but I am in love. I am irreversibly infected with how much I adore this person and constantly astonished at how much she adores me. The Halloween season means maybe as much to my intended as it does to me, which is part of why we are a good match. This is also why we have decided that the start of October – which was already our anniversary, through a nice fluke of fate – is the date we are going to tie the knot. We both like this time of year more than most and it seemed the ideal day for us to make this on-going relationship thingy we've had for a bit into an actual binding legal status. 

Not to gush too much about the woman I love here but... At one point, as we were banding about ideas for our ceremony, she asked me if we could incorporate a slight Frankenstein theme into the decorations and so forth. I didn't suggest that! It was all her idea! Somehow, I have not only found a person who wants to marry me but also likes creaky old monster movies and gothic literature and bullshit like that enough to incorporate them subtly into our big day. Let me tell ya, that was one of many moments with where I realized how extraordinarily lucky I am to have them in my life. She's drawn little key chains of the two of us as the monster and the bride to give to guests! How adorable is that and also how the hell did I convince this spectacular human being to love me?

 

Alright, alright, I'll stop. You fine people probably don't want to read about the point where my self-loathing and my love for my almost-wife intersect. The point is, yes, I am going to be extra busy this September and October. Will that effect the Halloween Horror-fest Blog-a-thon? I mean, probably. My watching and writing schedule kind of went off-the-rails before the end of last October and I was only engaged then. Now that I've got actual places to go, people to transport and lodge, and a wife to marry and cherish forever, my time will definitely be occupied more-so this year than in ones past. It's entirely possible that I've simply reached the point in my life where writing in-depth reviews of two movies and two TV show episodes every day of September and October isn't practical or feasible anymore. 

I'm still going to try though. Yes, I've got a shit ton of stuff I wanna watch and write about this year. Hey, did you know they made a new “Killer Tomatoes” movie this year? Holy shit, what a perfect oppretunity to write about that particular cinematic endeavor! Hmmm, I've reviewed almost every film series or release represented in the old Movie Maniacs toyline except for a few exceptions. Maybe I should include those titles in my marathon this year, to satisfy an extremely obscure and random element of my autistic fixations? Am I also going to try and watch fifty horror movies from fifty different countries again, despite not really succeeding at doing that last year either? Yeah, because that's just what I do now, I guess. Oh yeah, I've got a line-up of classic and recent anthology shows and a few other vaguely spooky programs to occupy myself with as well. 

Ya know, nobody is reading these words. Blogging is a barely extant hobby these days and Blogspot continues to persist probably because nobody at Google notices they haven't deleted it or incorporated it into some other application already. I started doing this because I wanted to, way back when social media was an extremely different landscape than it is today, and now I continue to do it because I want to. Because it makes me happy. Will the person who is going to be my spouse soon find my obsession with watching and writing about a bunch of mostly old horror movies every September and October as important as I do? Well, I guess those are the kind of questions that you get answered to when you finally shack up with somebody! 

 

Anyway, yeah, that's the plan. If I miss a day or get a little behind, so be it. Halloween is about having fun! I think watching horror movies and TV shows is also fun! So I shall attempt to balance doing this alongside publicly declaring my love to the person I adore the most. If another human is indeed reading these words, thanks for caring enough to stop by and partake of some vintage horror fan shenanigans with me. 

And thus: Journey with me down to the cemetery and pantomime a danse macabre or two.  Let us do the Monster Mash. Perform the Time Warp with me umptenthly. The mortals among us who have withstood the Thriller in the past are called upon to withstand it again. Boys and girls and them/theys of every age, you clearly do like something strange. Ain't you afraid of no ghosts as well? I know I am. The spooky, scary season is upon us and I have more reasons than usual to celebrate. The Autumn Country calls to me once more and I have a bride to accompany me this time. She's not stitched together from pieces of corpses either, at least I don't think so. And so soft gusts of love and memory beat at the heart reproachfully. The lights that burn for those who die were flickering low but let them now flare high. For it is the haunting Hallowe'en!

 

Does the Academy Fear Horror?

When I heard the nominations for the 2026 Academy Awards being announced earlier this year, one main thought occurred to me. Wow, this has been a very good year for horror movies. A bloody vampire film leads the field with sixteen nominations. A new version of “Frankenstein” scored 9 nods, including for Best Picture. The most memorable horror villain of the past year is now a Best Supporting Actress nominee. A really gross Norwegian flick sneaked into the Best Makeup category. Hell, with this perspective in mind, a movie as weird, twisted, and violent as “Bugonia” arguable classifies as well. Everyone says the Academy doesn't like horror and it's a point of continued irritation for a big monster fan like myself. Is this changing?

That prompts another question: Has it ever been true? Historically speaking, has the Academy regularly shown a bias against the genre? Well, what do you define as a horror movie? Is “Gaslight” a horror movie? Would you categorize science fiction films with strong degrees of peril, such as “Jurassic Park” or “Terminator 2,” as intending to horrify the audience and not merely thrill them? When there's significant bodily mutation in a motion picture, such as “RoboCop” or “Men in Black,” you would expect people to be horrified by that. What do you do with films about the making of horror films, such as “Gods and Monsters” or “Ed Wood?” Do those count? What about comedies with gruesome monsters or grisly ghost in them, your “Ghostbusters” and “Beetlejuices?” Does Anton Chigurh being an unstoppable, seemingly mythic killer push the Best Picture winner into the disreputable classification of horror?

Usually according to the critics and press agents that write about the Oscars, none of them count. They are “psychological thrillers.” A film where Anthony Hopkins eats a guy's face transcends the icky label that defines near-pornographic trash like “Friday the 13th,” naturally. A giant shark eating people or a humanoid fish creature with claws and fangs are enough to classify some pictures as horror but not, if you listen to some folks, “Jaws” or “The Shape of Water.” That's been the old line for years and years. I had hoped, such a promising Fangoria-friendly nomination slate, would show that these attitudes have changed. But I've already seen one prominent publication referring to “Sinners” as a “supernatural thriller,” so I guess not.

Nevertheless, despite the tendency of Academy voters to not want to acknowledge even the horror films they like as being such, facts don't lie. Let us look at the brass tacks numbers to determine whether it is true that the Academy doesn't like horror movies. Across the entire history of the Academy Awards, roughly 5240 movies that have been nominated. Pulling from that list, I managed to dig up about 165 or so nominees that fall within the boundaries of the horror genre or are, at least, horror adjacent. The first of which was 1931's “Svengali,” nominated for its cinematography and art direction. All together, 165 out of 5240 adds up to 3.13%. Compared that to the most respectable of genres, the drama, which ranks at 51.09%. 2677 or so movies. The comedy, also said to be rarely recognized by the Academy, makes up 25.21 percent of the entire body of nominations. 

 

Of the genres of motion picture recognized by the Letterboxd algorithm, only two rank lower in representation among the Academy: At the bottom is the TV movie, with 0.26%. Yes, despite made-for-television programming traditionally residing outside the AMPAS' area of consideration, about 14 of them have still received nominations. The next least represented genre by percentage truly surprised me: At 2.67% (a measly 140 titles) is the western. You're telling me the most populist style of filmmaking for the first fifty or so decades of filmmaking has gotten fewer overall Oscar nominations than the disreputable movies with the zombies and hacked-up teenagers in them? One can presumably attribute this to westerns being made a lot less frequently in the modern age than they once more. 

If you do a little more math, the real difference makes itself apparent. Out of the 140 westerns to be nominated for an Oscar, 71 have won an award. Compare that to the horror genre's slate of nominees, even when casting a wide net as I have done, of 164 nominees producing only 46 winners. The most obvious disparity of all is this: Four Westerns have won best picture, assuming you count “No Country for Old Men” as a western. (The others are 1931's “Cimarron,” “Dances with Wolves,” and “Unforgiven.) While the only horror movie to ever achieve that honor is “The Silence of the Lambs.” Which, famously, was seemingly re-categorized as a “thriller” the minute it became one of the year's best reviewed movies. 

 

Yes, the question of why horror flicks get less recognition while the western gets more, despite having similar sample sizes, is one of respectability. The western is Americana, rooted in our country's collective mythology and testament to the ideas the nation was built on. Horror is about uglier emotions, of fear and disgust and dread. Not so glamorous, ya know? Once you start looking at the facts through this lens, the Academy's occasional acknowledgment of genre cinema can't help but seem begrudging. After all, the first time a horror movie won an Oscar was in 1932, when Fredric March won Best Actor for “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde...” An award he had to share with Wallace Beery in “The Champ,” an actor of such limited range that it would later become a joke in “Barton Fink.” I know that's surely only a coincidence but... Dang, sticks in your teeth, ya know? 

I suppose this is an inevitable sign of how we nerdy nerds into fantastical stories are ultimately insecure about our love for this kind of storytelling. Who gives a shit if horror movies don't win Oscars? Why would a Monster-Mania convention goer spare a minute's thought on the pretentious business of industry award show hypocrisy? But we want our bullshit to be taken as seriously as everyone else's bullshit! It's a contradiction I have no good answer for. Everyone knows the Oscars don't actually matter. Horror will still be a beloved and obsessed over style of storytelling fifty years from now, when “CODA” and “Green Book” have become otherwise forgotten. 

I don't think the high chance of “Sinners” winning Best Picture this year represents any actual shift in the Academy's tastes, not any more than “Get Out” winning Best Original Screenplay nine years ago or “The Substance” cracking the top categories last year. The truth is that American taste-makers and the industry they surround themselves with have this difficult to dismiss fixation on realism. Anything that veers away from that commitment to reality and into the dream-like or otherworldly is more likely to be dismissed. Even within the medium of film, an inherently dream-like and otherworldly experience. Nevertheless, I'll continue to be irked by it and complain about it at length, because this is what I've chosen to do with my life. 

Halloween 2025: Premable

2025 has been a year of interesting firsts for me, on a personal level. Hey, did I tell you guys that I got engaged? Or that I attended my first convention as a vendor, being on the other side of the dealer's room for once? (Not that this stopped me from buying more one-sheets and action figures that I didn't need.) Hey, I broke my arm and had to have surgery on it back in March. That was a new experience for me too. Through all this change and upheaval in my life – mostly good, I'll clarify – there was a little thought in the back of my head. 

“How is this going to effect my Halloween?”

Yes, even when I've got a lot going on, the Autumn Country is never far from my mind. When the pumpkins and skeletons and ghosts and witches start to pop up in stores, in the middle of summer now, I always feel like a little kid again. If only for a second or two. Perhaps that is why Halloween has such a special place in my heart. It reconnects me with my childhood in a way that simply no other time of year does. Ya know, to be a kid is to be afraid a lot. You are new to the world. There is much you don't understand. Maybe Halloween is a way to embrace that fear. To learn not to be afraid by becoming friends with the monster under the bed, to quote an anecdote from Guillermo del Toro. 

As I've recounted, oh, at least fourteen times before, the Halloween Horrorfest Blog-a-Thon has long been my favorite way to celebrate the latter months of the year. I guess it's silly. Who reads blogs in 2025? Almost nobody, if Google's analytics are correct. Like all hobbyist, I do it for the love of the game. Watching and writing about a bunch of creepy or spooky old movies and TV shows – maybe a few newer ones too – makes me happy. It makes me able to pretend that I'm a real film critic, that gold star job title I used to want to have that basically doesn't exist anymore. We're all film critics now, with our own platforms on various social media avenues. Will my back log of thousands of movie reviews ever count for anything? Probably not. I just like it. 

Anyway, I digress. Back to the topic at hand: Grim grinning gourds, clattering bones, howling wolves. Since expanding my seasonal coverage to two months last year, it's opened up more time for me to do this stupid shit. Plenty of familiar faces, a number of recent releases, many more old ones, and plenty of off-beat choices will be covered in these digital pages in the days and weeks to come. If one person reads these words, it'll have all been worth it. 

 

One of my goals with the Blog-a-Thon every year is to fill gaps in my genre movie knowledge. In 2025, I'm doing this a little more literally than usual. Since horror is a landscape littered with long-running franchises, some of us have probably seen some installments in an obscure series here or there but not all of them. Well, after consulting my very long list of shit I've seen, I discovered several off-beat long-runners that I never bothered watching more of. "Final Destination" got a new movie this year and I want to pay tribute to Tony Todd, so I'll be catching up with all of those. After sitting on the shelf for a while, that "Witchboard" remake finally cam out. I've only ever seen the original so might as watch the two sequels as well. I read Dean Koontz' "Watchers" a few years back and – at the risk of exposing myself as a horror lit fraud – I actually loved it. I watched the first adaptation a while ago but have never seen the three sequels, so that's on the agenda. Once I started looking at obscure series that I've left unrun, I started finding more and quickly my schedule for September and October started to fill out. 

That would probably be enough for most but, me always overdoing it, I'm throwing in another massive project designed to expand my education. During last year's Halloween Blog-a-Thon, I decided to travel through as many foreign countries as possible via the horror movies they have produced. I ended up hitting over forty different cultures, which was cool and all... But we all know fifty is the milestone number to aspire too! Thus, I'm doing a second Horror Around the World theme this fall. The last one was great fun and I'll be returning to a number of cinematic frontiers I've previously visited while including far more I've not yet explored. Besides, I'm not super happy with the state of my own country right now so maybe I'll find another one more charming...

 

As stuffed as that makes my two months, I can't have a Blog-a-Thon without a bunch of TV shows too. Spooky sitcoms have become a reoccurring feature around here, so naturally I'm going to continue with the original "Addams Family." 2025 apparently marks the seventh year I've been doing what I call the Anthologies Anthology: Watching a single episode from a wide selection of old, and some newer, horror and science fiction anthology shows. Every time I do this, I discover some overlooked program that is surprisingly good and my line-up is as wide and diverse as always. I'm highly skeptical of "Alien: Earth," somehow the first attempt to serialize that particular franchise of intergalactic fear, but I suppose I would be a "bad fan" if I didn't at least give it a try.

I don't have any other Halloween festivities planned for the next nine weeks. I'm a middle-aged man now. I have responsibilities and such. Watching upwards of a hundred or more movies and TV shows in a two month period, writing reviews of all of them, is time intensive. I have often found myself wondering when I'll no longer have the time to pursue this silly hobby of mine. It's hard for me to give it up, truth be told. Even when I've thought about doing it, ringing in the harvest, marking the change of the season, establishing yearly continuity by doing the same thing every year: It is important to me. Holidays are important, in that sense. I think so anyway. 

 

Maybe Halloween is the most important. Like the leaves falling from the tree, crumbled up and dried out, to the dust we shall all return. We can run from the inevitable. Like Michael Myers, ambling along at a relaxed pace, it'll catch up with us eventually. Instead, we can embrace it a little. Mock it, in turn. Paint our faces skeletal white. Prop fangs into our mouths or masks on our face. We take a little power back from the Reaper that way but it's all in good fun, because he's got our number regardless. Perhaps, by acknowledging that end, we can escape it in a way. Nothing ever ends. The sun will burn on. The planet will spin. The seasons will come and go and come again. So let's have a party. There's a full moon in the sky. It's the hour of the wolf and I don't want to die. Yes, we die. We are the dead and I love dead. Let us be ghosts for the next two months, in defiance and in celebration and in remembrance. The keys to the cemetery gates jangle in my hands. Ring the bells, drink the wine, and hold the lanterns high. That spells Halloween, baby. 

Halloween 2024: Preamble

 

What is happening now was always destined to happen. 

It must have been 2007 or so when, perusing the personal website of a fanfic writer I had a weird fixation on, that I stumbled across a website run by a fellow calling himself Kernunrex. At the time, he ran a little blog on which he would write about movies. This usually took the form of two series: Chronocinethon, where he would watch and write about every movie a director made and the Six Weeks of Halloween. In other words: I owe this random dad of two from Michigan my entire internet blogging career. He inspired me to finally start formulating my thoughts about movies into semi-coherent reviews.

Eventually, Kernunrex would turn his blog strictly seasonal, focusing only on the Six Weeks of Halloween in the month and a half leading up to the greatest horror holiday of them all. It's been nearly ten since we've last seen hide nor hair of this man. However, the Six Weeks of Halloween – watching and writing about as many horror movies and TV shows as possible during the aforementioned time period – is a tradition I have clung to fiercely in all that time. I say this every year but this silly blogging project – which, as far as I can tell, only one other person on the internet does anymore – has become a central part of my seasonal activities. Truthfully, it might be the main way I celebrate a time of year that I don't simply love but gets me feeling philosophical and spiritual in all sorts of pretentious ways. 

Times change, however. Life evolves. We sometimes lose track of beloved hobbies as responsibilities and demands grow. This, I have no doubt, is why the inventor of the Six Weeks vanished off the internet. It is why most of the people I followed online nearly two decades ago aren't doing much in cyberspace anymore. It's the reason why I haven't updated my blog much this year. And so, the time has come for me to formally announce that I am no longer partaking in the Six Weeks of Halloween...

...that's because I'm devoting two whole months to it instead. 

Yeah, so, seventeen years ago, Halloween somehow wasn't as big a business as it is today. Maybe it's because of retail stores sneaking holiday decorations in sooner and sooner in the year. To the point that Halloween feels like it starts in July some times. Maybe it's because, all of us living in more insulated online enclaves these days, have intensified all of our passions. It is thoroughly understood that Halloween isn't merely one day anymore. It is, in fact, a lifestyle. Many people live in the Halloween mood all year round. People are so passionate about sharing their love of all things spooky and scary that it was unanimously decided some time ago that one month wasn't enough time to contain our celebration of the season. 

This made my rebellious decision to tack two extra weeks on to the month of October seem hopelessly passé now. For years, I've been wondering if I had the time and energy to devote all of September and October to my Halloween Horrorfest Blog-a-Than. This nagging sense that I was not giving it my all as a Halloween Nerd during this most holy of times was unavoidable. Well, we are finding out if I can truly make a two month long run of it this year. This change was inevitable and only my insistence on clinging to tradition has kept me from doing it sooner. The Six Weeks of Halloween are dead. Long live the Nine Weeks of Halloween. 

Obviously, I wouldn't be heading into two whole months of horror binge-eating without a plan. As always, I've got plenty of ideas. For the last few years, I've been subjecting myself to one of those horror franchises that have had weirdly long runs despite nobody talking about them much. In previous years, this meant toiling through all the "Amityville Horror" sequels, the "Paranormal Activity" series, and the "Wrong Turn" and "Pumpkinhead" follow-ups nobody asked for. In 2024, I am finally crossing the horror fandom Rubicon by watching what is likely the first such series most fans of a certain age think of: Yes, I am watching all of the "Children of the Corn" movies. Oh yeah, get ready for some hardcorn cornography this September! 

Since I'm throwing caution to the wind and turning all of September into a horror marathon too, I've got room for another theme I've always wanted to handle: A tour of the world via horror movies. In other words, I'm going to watch macabre and grotesque films from as many different countries as I can. Some of these places, like Italy or Japan, have been regular destinations for me over the years. Chances are good I'll be making multiple stops in those locations. Others will be my first trip there, broadening my cinematic palette by sampling a horror picture from a country I've never done a cinematic journey to before. I've currently got forty different countries on my list to explore right now. I might try and sneak a few more in before All Hallows Eve arrives too... Either way, I'm planning on hitting as many continents and geographical regions as I can. Gonna be reading a lot of subtitles soon!

Other themes abound. I can't tell you what about the current state of the world has this on my mind but I've decided to revisit that topic that haunted the nightmares of every child of the eighties: Nuclear annihilation! Does that count as horror? I'm saying it does. Society crumbling in the wake of a nuke detonating over our country sounds pretty damn horrifying to me! I've got a ton of other shit on the docket too. Some newer releases, lots of old and familiar faces, a round-up of episodes from a bunch of different anthology shows. After completing “The Munsters” last October, it seems only natural to start watching the original “Addams Family” television series as well. Plus the latest seasons of "Creepshow" and "Chucky." Maybe some short films too. I'm going hog wild this year, I tells ya! Who knows what weird shit I'll get into. 

As I am on the precipice of going full-on horror crazy for 61 straight days, I suppose the most important question to ask is... Why? Why is this important to me? Why do I carry on like this every year for an ever-dwindling audience of readers? First and foremost, I like it. I think about it all year round, always mentally tinkering with what my Halloween watchlist will consist of. Most of all though, Halloween makes me feel alive. That is somewhat ironic, considering this holiday is meant to celebrate the dead. Maybe that's why I'm like this. I feel more kinship with the ghosts and ghouls, the zombies a-moldering in their graves, more than I do among the living. Is there just something bent with me? A glitch in my programming that causes my heart to sing when the fog rises and the nights get cold and the black bats fly o'er the full moon? 

I don't know. I've been trying to answer the question of what exactly the hell is wrong with me my entire life. I've long since learned to embrace it, rather than fight it. I belong to the witches on their broomsticks, the howling in the night, to the bubbling cauldrons and grinning gourds and candied corns. I belong to them and they belong to me. The high lords of the harvest dance in my heart. The Autumn Country flows in my blood, even after a vampire sucks it all out. I am a child of the night. I am a devil. I am a ghost. I am every creepy-crawly, wet and warm thing lurking under a rock. We all are, this time of year. Hallowe'en unites us all in the rot, in the macabre longing for the tomb. If we can not laugh and dance and shriek triumphantly in the face of the call of the void, how do we know we are even alive? 

Fall back, Apep. Sing, Osiris! Oh Lord Samhain, we answer your call. The Great Pumpkin and Halloween Jack and Scary Godmother await in the courtyard. He Who Walks Behind the Rows stalks the fields once more. Let the ritual begin! Hallowe'en is upon us NOW. 

OSCARS 2024: Nominations and Predictions

January is a miserable fucking month. It's painfully cold outside. We've had a shit load of snow this year. Moreover, I just always feel so directionless at the start of the year. It's hard to motivate yourself when everything that gets you excited feels months away. 

Ah, but there is a guiding light in these frozen days. It's Oscars Death Race season, baby! Yes, it is that time of year when I try to watch and review all of the films nominated for the Academy Awards before the ceremony airs. Over the last four years, I've managed to watch everything the Academy recognized. Last year, I wrote full length reviews of 45 of the 54 nominees, a personal best for me. Where will I land this year? I won't know for sure until I'm facing down March 10th. 

Before I really get into the weeds though, it is tradition for me to throw out my predictions for who will win the best awards. As usual, most of these guesses are based on gut-feelings and buzz, as I've only seen a handful of the nominees as of this writing. I'm usually wrong about a bunch of these, largely because hype and excitement can shift wildly over the next two months. Yet it's all part of the fun. So let's get started with...

BEST PICTURE:

2023's film landscape was dominated by one phrase: Barbenheimer! Yes, the meme that became a cultural phenomenon was unavoidable all throughout last year. Amazingly, the idea of seeing a somber biopic about the atomic bomb back-to-back with a hot pink blockbuster based on a toy for little girls actually caught on beyond goofballs on TikTok and the bickering nerds of Film Twitter. "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" both became enormous hits, audiences turning out for two opposing movies releasing on the same weekend. 

And now this race between Christopher Nolan's grim meditation on nuclear war and Greta Gerwig's bubblegum, feminist pop odyssey has gone all the way to the Oscars. Yes, both films are nominated in the top category of the year. While "Oppenheimer" is the current favorite to win, the fact that "Barbie," ostensibly a children's movie based on a doll synonymous with plastic brainlessness, got a Best Picture nomination would've been unprecedented back when the movie was announced years back. 

I expect these two films will continue to be what people mostly talk about this year but, of course, eight other movies are nominated for Best Picture. Martin Scorsese's late career renaissance continues with "Killers of the Flower Moon," the kind of serious and politically relevant film that would've been a lock for Best Picture in a year without a buzz-generating double feature. Similarly, a cultural satire like "American Fiction" is the sort of insightful filmmaking, about race and society, that would reflect nicely on the Academy and the American film industry if it won Best Picture. Again, it won't but, as they say, it's an honor to be nominated.

Then again, the Academy's taste can be hard to predict. "The Holdovers" is from critically acclaimed director Alexander Payne, true, and was beloved by the press. Yet, in another year, it wouldn't have been unusual for a smaller scale movie like that to be overlooked. From everything I've read about it, "Poor Things" is an aggressively weird experiment from art house oddball Yorgos Lanthimos, inspired by one of the most frequently adapted horror novels. Yet the Academy loved it, giving the film eleven nominees, including a plum spot in Best Picture. I guess the voters have really warmed up to Lanthimos' particular tone after the success of "The Favourite."

In the days before the Best Picture field was expanded, it's easy to imagine all of the above getting nominated. With a wider category now, a few smaller films also sneaked in. Indie fave "Past Lives" didn't get too much attention but the voters liked it enough for it to slip into Best Picture. "Anatomy of a Fall" seems to be the foreign language darling this year, breaking out of the International Film bubble to garner several high-profile nods. Jonathan Glazer's "The Zone of Interest" has been widely acclaimed but it was a question if its chilly, confrontational tone would hold Academy voters' attention. Ultimately, it defied expectations and did score a nomination in Best Picture.

This leaves the most Oscar bait-y of this year's Oscar bait. Bradley Cooper's "Maestro" seems to be the designated "villain movie" of this year's awards season. In-between Cooper's solipsistic campaign for himself and the mixed reception of the movie itself, "Maestro" was the movie serious cinephiles were worried would squeeze out more worthy works. Well, a "Maestro" sweep seems unlikely but the Leonard Bernstein biopic did grab seven nominations, including Best Picture. 

OFFICIAL PREDICTION:

"Oppenheimer"

 

BEST ACTOR: 

Bradley Cooper has basically followed every step in the guide book to win himself an Oscar for "Maestro." That includes an extensive physical transformation to pay a real life person and bragging about all the training he underwent for the role. I'll admit, to see such a calculated and – let's face it, kind of sweaty – campaign mostly been unsuccessful has been satisfying. Cooper got his Best Actor nomination and, I don't know, I guess he still has a chance at winning. 

But it seems likely that he'll be defeated once again. Mostly because two performances have been dominating the conversation. Cillian Murphy's turn as J. Robert Oppenheimer is a strong contender for performance of the year. It's certainly the strongest work Murphy has ever done in his storied career. Yet a real black horse candidate has emerged. Paul Giamatti in "The Holdovers" has picked up several notable wins along the journey to the Academy Awards. Giamatti is a beloved performer, a delightful presence in anything. A real narrative has emerged of "Wow, it sure would be cool if Paul Giamatti won an Oscar." Will that hold true to March 10th? I'm rooting for him, at the very least.

Rounding out the category is Jeffrey Wright in "American Fiction" and Colman Domingo for "Rustin." The former was long predicted and it's certainly great to see a reliable performer like Wright get an Oscar nod. The latter seems to be a case of "The movie isn't much to write about but we sure do like this guy," as the civil rights biopic was otherwise overlooked. 

OFFICIAL PREDICTION:

I have a very strong vision in my third eye of Giamatti winning this but it seems to me that Cillian Murphy in "Oppenheimer" is still the safe bet right now. 

BEST ACTRESS:

Most of the conversation around Best Actress this morning has had less to do with who got nominated and more to do with an omission. "Barbie" was one of the big success stories of the year so the doll herself, Margot Robbie, getting left out is surprising. I guess it's still hard for performances in comedies to connect with Academy voters, even when it's the most talked about movie of the year. It seems to me that Robbie's spot was stolen by Annette Benning in "Nyad," a more typical example of Oscar baiting material. 

Otherwise, almost every Best Actress award this past year has gone to one of two performances. The Academy clearly adores Emma Stone, with her part in "Poor Things" being her fourth Oscar nomination in the last decade. She's scooped up a few wins but Lily Gladstone in "Killers of the Flower Moon" has been almost unstoppable. Look at this list of wins she's got. It seems probable that she'll add an Oscar to that list real soon. 

In a year when two standout roles overshadow everything else, the rest of the nominees are easy to overlook. Carey Mulligan generally is accepted to be the best thing in "Maestro." I have no doubt she'll get a gold statue some day but not this year. Meanwhile, Sandra Huller in "Anatomy of a Fall" was probably always a lock for a nom but a win was never very likely. 

OFFICIAL PREDICTION:

Lily Gladstone for "Killers of the Flower Moon."

SUPPORTING ACTOR:

How does one define a "supporting" role? Is every role aside from the lead considered supporting or do some films split equal time between different protagonists? I probably would've nominated Ryan Gosling in "Barbie" for Leading, since he shared equal billing with Margot Robbie, but the studio probably figured he had better Oscar odds in the Supporting Actor category. Gosling stole the show in that film and there's probably some version of events out there where he wins... 

Yet Robert Downey Jr. seems the most likely winner here. After working his way back to superstar status from a troubled past, Downey winning an Oscar would be the proper climax to his story. It doesn't hurt that his performance in "Oppenheimer" is genuinely fantastic. 

The only real challenger to Downey is another Bob. Robert DeNiro has phoned it in through so many mediocre, paychecks roles. Yet, when paired with the right material, he still knows how to bring it. As the pure manifestation of the banality of evil in "Killers of the Flower Moon," DeNiro was chilling. A late career honor for the film would be surprising but not unwelcomed. 

Sterling K. Brown for "American Fiction" and Mark Ruffalo for "Poor Things" rounds out the category. I like both of those, so good for them. But I don't think they have much of a chance to win, unless the tide seriously changes over the next month.

OFFICIAL PREDICTION:

Robert Downey Jr. for "Oppenheimer"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

There was some writing about how America Ferrera got passed over at the Globes for "Barbie." Ferrera is likable but she had the position in that film of blankly laying the script's themes out in a lengthy monologue. I found that heavy-handed. Apparently such tactics are not bothersome to the Academy, as they did give Ferrera a Supporting nod. I guess subtly is overrated. 

Yet this is not a narrative that seems likely to win an Oscar. Instead, let us consider Da'vine Joy Randolph in "The Holdovers." Not many people had heard of Randolph before this film. She's best known for appearing on television, on stage, and in forgettable comedies. Yet she's blown the critics away in Payne's film. Who doesn't love that, when a relative unknown emerges into stardom on-screen? 

The rest of the Supporting Actress seemed locked-in months ago. We all love Jodie Foster and Emily Blunt and both did fine work in "Oppenheimer" and "Nyad." Both got nominated more out of momentum for those films in general than anything else though, if you ask me. Danielle Brooks won praise in-stage in the musical adaptation of "The Color Purple" and now continues that streak with the film adaptation. While that trajectory has led to an Oscar before, this particular film doesn't seem to have the buzz necessary to pull that off. 

OFFICIAL PREDICTION:

Da'vine Joy Randolph for "The Holdovers."

BEST DIRECTOR:

As much as the Academy enjoyed "Barbie," its two most prominent stars got left out. Yes, in addition to Margot Robbie not making the cut in Best Actress, Greta Gerwig was overlooked in Best Director. Honestly, that one really caught me off-guard, since the Academy has proven themselves to be fans of Gerwig before. Instead, AMPAS gave Justine Triet a nomination for "Anatomy of a Fall," presumably in order to keep cultural critics from accusing them of being sexist again. 

Luckily for those folks, the Academy can still be criticized only for nominating white folks for Best Director this year. Cord Jefferson, for "American Fiction," got passed over probably in favor of Jonathan Glazer for "Zone of Interest." Maybe the Academy liked that one more than I expected. 

If Glazer is a cultishly adored artist finally getting some recognition from the Oscars, the same can perhaps be said for Christopher Nolan. Of course, Nolan has been nominated before, including a Best Director slot for "Dunkirk." Yet, to the film-bros raised on "The Dark Knight" and "Memento," the Academy seems to have been reluctant to give Nolan a major win. Well, it seems this is finally Chris' year. The Academy loves Yorgos and "Poor Things" in particular. Scorsese is a total legend, who probably should have more Oscar than he already does, and "Killers of the Flower Moon" is an important work. 

Yet neither seem to provide a serious threat to Nolan in this category. I think Best Director is his to lose. 

OFFICIAL PREDICTION:

Christopher Nolan for "Oppenheimer."

BEST WRITING:

I never know what to predict in the Best Screenplay categories because what the hell does the Academy even mean by that? Does that mean the screenplay that is the sharpest, the wittiest? The most surprising? The best paced and structured? So many parts go into making a movie, that it's well-known that a good script can be ruined by bad directing, acting, or any other factors. Unless we actually have the shooting script in our hands, how can we even judge which screenplay is the “best?”

Maybe, as a writer, I'm simply too close to this subject to really be able to understand it. Cause, it seems to me, the Academy almost always just nominates the movie they liked in all the other categories in this one. Was “Maestro's” writing so stunning that it deserved a Best Original Screenplay nomination? If anything, the Original and Adapted Screenplay honors should exist to highlight films perhaps overlooked in the bigger categories. Of this batch of noms, only “May December” and “Past Lives” strikes me as an example of this, since they didn't earn too many other mentions. 

As for who is going to win... Hell if I know. My most cynical side wants to say the Academy will give “American Fiction” Best Adapted Screenplay because it's literally about a writer and has the word “fiction” in its title. Yet, since Greta Gerwig got passed over for a chance at Best Director, it wouldn't shock me if she gets Best Adapted Screenplay. Or maybe “Oppenheimer” will just prove to be too overwhelming a juggernaut with voters to defeat. Meanwhile, in Original Screenplay, I can see the Academy leaning towards the satire of “Anatomy of a Fall” or the gentle observational dramedy of “The Holdovers.” But I'm almost definitely wrong.

OFFICIAL PREDICTION:

“Anatomy of a Fall” and “Barbie,” I guess.

BEST MUSIC:

Nominating Diane Warren in Best Song every year really has become some sort of unavoidable running joke with the Academy. This year, the vaguely Latin-infused, generic pop song she wrote for the Flamin' Hot Cheetos biopic – which is even more bullshit than your typical biopic – got nominated. This one rhymes "you" with "you" multiple times. But it could have been worst. At least I don't have to watch "80 for Brady."

Anyway, Warren has no shot at winning because the Oscar will almost assuredly go to one of the two nominated songs from "Barbie." "I'm Just Ken" is the obvious crowd-pleaser and showstopper but I wouldn't be shocked if the voters deem Billie Ellish's ballad "What Was I Made For" more worthy of a win. I like both songs and would be fine with either winning. 

"Wahzhazhe (A Song of My People)" really isn't my genre but at least it guarantees the Best Song slate this year has variety. The most cynical part of my brain wagers that the Academy would have felt excessive guilt if they didn't nominate the Native American tribal song from the movie about Native Americans being killed. It would be hilarious if the broadcast still did all the songs in a medley, like in the old days, and we got six minutes of traditional Indigenous music in the middle of all these flashy pop songs. "It Never Went Away," from random Netflix doc "American Symphony," is kind of pretty. I'm a sucker for simple, piano driven melodies. 

Of the Original Score nominees, the most unexpected entry is John Williams' score for "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." One expects Williams got the slot because this officially makes the industry legend the most nominated currently living person in the Academy's history. This is his 54th nomination! I don't think the "Dial of Destiny" is especially note-worthy but I'm never going to turn my nose up at the "Indiana Jones" theme. 

The late Robbie Robertson's blues and roots rock infused score for "Killers of the Flower Moon" is fantastic, equal parts somber, suspenseful, and gritty. It's my favorite of the nominated soundtracks. However, I fully expect the emotional bombast of Ludwig Goransson's "Oppenheimer" score to win. It's a good score, especially the more stirring parts. I just like Robertson's work more. 

Laura Karpman's "American Fiction" score is pleasant and jazzy. Even if its main theme sounds a little too much like incidental music for an eighties sitcom for my taste. Jerskin Fendrix's "Poor Things" score is, by far, the quirkiest of the nominees. Multiple parts of this soundtrack sound like they could be from totally different movies. I gotta admire the bold swings it takes though and found myself loving its warbling, discordant weirdness by the time I finished listening to the whole thing. 

OTHER FILM CATEGORIES

A nomination was all but guaranteed but it still feels like a pleasant surprise that "The Boy and the Haron" got recognized in Best Animated Feature. I guess I'm still caught off-guard when the Academy acknowledges anime, even if this is Hayao Miyazaki we are talking about here. More exciting, it actually has a good shot at winning the Oscar. Even if the Academy's tendency to just vote for whatever Pixar put out or what their kids liked might throw things in favor of "Elemental" or "Across the Spider-Verse." At least they ignored Disney's big misfire last year, making room for smaller films like "Nimora" or "Robot Dreams."

Usually, there's a title in the documentary category that got a lot of critical attention. This year, there is no obvious frontrunner in Best Documentary Feature. Will the streaming accessibility of "Bobi Wine: The People's President" lead to Oscar gold, or will we see a repeat of sorts of last year's win with "20 Days in Mariupol?" 

I have little familiarity with the short nominees as of this writing. Yet "War is Over" sounds like the most heavy-handed and preachiest of the animated shorts, so I'm going to assume it'll win.

MISC:

For decades, Toho's "Godzilla" movies were synonymous with cheesy and unconvincing effects. At least among the mainstream American critical establishment. Now, the King of the Monsters is finally an Oscar nominee, with "Godzilla Minus One" earning a nod in Best Visual Effects. Even better, it seems to be the frontrunner in the category at this moment. The narrative of a (probably ridiculously overworked) smaller effects team pulling off such impressive work on a fraction of the budget big Hollywood films like "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" or "Napoleon" had might be too irresistible for the Academy. Either way, the way the team reacted to the news of the nomination is absolutely delightful. (I would've liked to have seen "Minus One" make it into Editing or Sound as well but let's not ask for too much here.) Also, I did not expect the Academy to remember "The Creator" enough to give it any nominations, much less two. 

Unfortunately, the Make-Up category is unbearably lame this year. There's not a single cool nomination this year, the entire category taken up by boring realistic make-up work from "Golda" or "Oppenheimer." You're really telling me that Bradley Cooper's big, fake nose in "Maestro" deserved a nomination over an entire planet of gorgeously realized animal humanoids in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" or the beautifully grotesque ghouls of "Talk to Me?" Once again, realism remains frustratingly valued over imagination and the Academy shows little respect for genre work. I guess "Poor Things" is horror adjacent, so I'm rooting for it here. 

The complete lock-out for "Asteroid City" in Best Cinematography or Production Design is a travesty but, unfortunately, a fully expected one. At least "El Conde" getting recognized in the latter category was a nice surprise. Ya know, I've never seen a single "Mission: Impossible" movie before. I guess I'll have to watch the entire series before getting to "Dead Reckoning Part One," which showed up in Sound and Visual Effects. Anyway, I fully expect "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" to sweep most of the technical categories. 

The ceremony doesn't air until March 10th, which should give me plenty of time to catch up with everything before the results are revealed. Ya know, assuming I don't put off most of it until the week before like I almost always do. Jimmy Kimmel is hosting again which is... Fine. Whatever, who cares about the host. Last year's ceremony was a big improvement over the trash fire that was 2022, so let's hope things continue to swing upward. Let's get this Oscar Death Race on the move, folks! 

Halloween 2023: Preamble

 

Earlier this year, some renovations where being done in my home. After taking a picture frame in a storage room off the wall, a sleeping bat was discovered. At first, I was worried the little guy was dead. Instead, I quickly realized he was just hibernating. I laid the fellow on the ground outside, before giving him some water. A few hours later, he had flapped his little wings and flown away. All throughout the summer, my little Spooky dog demands her first walk of the day around five A.M. This turned out to be an excellent time of day to see a bat, and the family of friends he's seemingly made, flap around my home. In many cultures, a house bat is considered good luck. If nothing else, they eat mosquitoes and other pests. Me being the kind of person I am, I immediately gave the little guy the nickname of Hector the House Bat. May long he reign. 

I bring this up because it's a good metaphor for the way the Halloween season is never far from my mind, no matter what time of year it is. As long as I have bats in my belfry, the autumnal days of creepy frights and warm hearths will never be out of reach. Halloween lives in my heart, alongside all the spiders and dead things and, yes, bats that flap around the creaky old cemetery that exists where my rib cage should be. Too often, especially when it's sweltering outside and life is getting me down (as it often did in the last year) that creepy feeling inside is what gets me through. 

Well, we made it. The Autumn Country is here. Store shelves are packed full of decorations and candy. In fact, it's been that way since late July. When I was a kid – I say from my on-high position as a decaying nineties kid – you were lucky to find any Halloween goods haunting store shelves before September. Things sure have changed since then, when skeletons and tombstones pack big box stores of all types during the dog days of summer. Honestly, starting my Halloween Horror-Fest Blog-a-Thon on September 18th feels like a relic of this more conservative time. I know it's just capitalism pushing everything forward, to make way for three whole months of Christmas shopping. Even now, stores are filling up with Santa schlock. But I like to think it's a good example of the world at large embracing the spookiest time of year. Everyone knows Halloween is awesome now. Everyone wants to own a twelve foot tall skeleton these days. 

Still, the first time I spot a ghost-shaped pitcher or an enormous scarecrow or felt pumpkins or bottle stoppers shaped like Edgar Allen Poe's head, I do get giddy. A delightful little shiver runs up my spine and I feel like a kid again. The same is true when I'm munching down on a bowl of the first new Monster Cereal introduced in my lifetime. (Carmella Creeper is very tasty, by the way.) It's how I feel when I stalk stores and random locations for any sort of spooky accessories. In the wise words of Matt from Dinosaur Dracula, the greatest gift of the Halloween season is that it turns the simplest acts into a celebration. 

That is probably why I'm still doing the Blog-a-thon after all these years, even though nobody reads blogs anymore and devoting only six weeks to the holiday seems tame in 2023. The only reason I haven't made the jump to two whole months is I'm not sure it would be feasible for me. The small handful of regular readers I have these days – sorry for taking four months off in the middle of the year, I was busy having a nervous breakdown – probably know that I pack the next forty-three full of as much spooky bullshit as possible. I'm going to be living the Halloween life style 24/7 for the next six weeks. It makes me happy. I wouldn't have it any other way. 

In some ways, as I look at my watch list for this six weeks, it seems a little more relaxed than in past years. I only plan on watch my way through two film franchises this year. That would be Full Moon's vampire saga “Subspecies,” which finally had a new entry after a break of two and a half decades earlier this year. After seeing a ton of people cosplay as Art the Clown at Monster-Mania back in August, I decided it's finally time I sit down and see if these “Terrifier” movies even remotely live up to the hype. I've been quite skeptical of them, to be honest. (Because I'm an obsessive compulsive completist, I'll also be watching the two “All Hallows Eve” anthology films that “Terrifier” spun-off from originally.) 

Don't think this means I'm going to be watching less, overall, than I normally do. I have a big-ass list of titles I hope to explore this year. Many familiar faces, classic stars, and directors that I enjoy will be making their expected appearances over the next six weeks. As always, I use this time to catch up with some new releases I've meant to see throughout the year. Naturally, I will be journeying to my local theater to see some hot new releases this Halloween season as well. I've got a large number of TV shows to cover too. I plan on finally watching the first season of Guillermo del Toro's Netflix anthology series, “Cabinet of Curiosities,” as well as continuing with the second season of the “Chucky” TV show. As I've done for the last few years, I also plan on including a number of selected episodes from a number of classic, obscure, forgotten, and more recent horror anthology shows. That's become a yearly tradition I really look forward too. There will be a couple of short films too.

See, that feels like a lot when I list it all out like that. As I write this preamble, I find myself asking the same question I ask at the start of every Halloween Horror-Fest Blog-A-Thon: Why do I do this? It's not like a ton of people read these reviews. I put far more work into them than is really justified. The Six Weeks of Halloween tradition has been almost totally forgotten, save for one other fellow traveler. At this point, I do it because I have to. Watching and writing about a shit ton of horror movies and TV shows, old and new, loved and despised, familiar and unseen, is how I honor this season. It's become my own tradition, part of the season, even more-so than carving pumpkins, bingeing on candy, or nailing black cats to people's doors.

I can get very pretentious and philosophical when writing about why this is important to me. I do it every year. I don't put much faith in the existence of ghosts or spirits, or even in any sort of afterlife. Yet, during the Halloween season, I am a believer. I can feel the spirits of the dead move through me. They stir in my heart and soul, every time I see a dead leaf flutter down to the ground. Every time I pass a colorful or morbid costume. And, yes, every time I watch a crappy old horror movie or a modern day shocker. If Halloween is about honoring the dead, celebrating the harvest, opening the door from one season to the next, then this is how I celebrate. I perform these cycles, every September and October, because they mark this time on the calendar as special. As my ancestors did, in their way. As my descendants will do, in their own way. 

This is why Halloween, and all the ways we celebrate it, is important. It connects us with our past, with the mysterious corners of the world. It allows all of us, no matter how skeptical or reasonable, to indulge in the fantastique for a little bit. It allows the ghosts and goblins, the witches and warlocks, to spirit us away to another world where anything is possible. The Celts believed that the dead walked among us during this time and I can't help but believe that too. They live in us through the stories we tell, the traditions we embrace, and the monsters we become. 

Alright, enough words. It's orange and black time. Time for ghoulishly grinning pumpkins, full moons, screeching black cats, cool October nights, skeletons dancing in cemeteries, and ghosts clanking their chains. It is time, once again, now and forever, for Halloween. Throw open the gates. Hail, hail, hail. I can smell the Autumn Country now. I am home. Let's party.