Halloween 2026: September 30th

 

Predator: Badlands (2025)

By now, it's obvious that Dan Trachtenberg is a “Predator” fanboy. After “Prey” managed to reignite interest in the series, Disney basically gave him the keys to the alien big game hunter kingdom. He got to make a bigger budget sequel and a cartoon anthology spin-off, both of which continue to show how easily the “Predator” template can be combined with other story types. While allowing hardcore nerds to run an established franchise has had mixed results in the past, it seems to have worked out in this case. “Predator: Badlands” released last year to positive reviews and decent box office. While the internet outrage machine tried to brew some discontent around its increased role for female characters, it seems to me that fans mostly liked this one too. I saw it at the time and enjoyed myself but was too hung-over to write a proper review. While “Badlands” veers much more towards the science fiction and action side of the franchise's equation than horror, it's still got enough crazy monsters in it that I can bullshit its inclusion in the Halloween Horror-Fest Blog-a-thon. 

“Badlands” begins on the desolate home world of the mysterious warrior race. Dek is the youngest off-spring of a clan of Yautja warriors. Because this civilization abhors weakness, the runts of the litter are usually killed off. Dek's older brother, Kwei, spares him. Determined to prove his worth to the clan, Dek decides for his maiden hunt to track down a creature called the Kalisk. It resides on a highly dangerous planet known as Genna and is feared by even the mightiest hunters. Unfortunately, Dek's asshole dad arrives and kills Kwei, seconds after he sends his sibling off on this mission. After landing on Genna, Dek soon meets up with Thia, a humanoid android that has been cut in half. The two form an uneasy partnership, Dek eager to survive and claim his prize while Thia is curious about the alien. The quest to find and kill the Kaslisk is complicated by two things: Thia's “sister” is leading an expedition of evil Weyland-Yutani androids to exploit that planet's resources and they are right on the duo's tail. Secondly, the Kalisk proves harder to kill – and altogether more likable – than originally assumed. 

By now, Dan Trachtenberg's willingness to follow the lead of the old “Predator” comic books in his sequels are well established. “Prey” took the approach of dropping the alien hunter into a different time period and setting, which “Killer of Killers” than tripled-down on. That animated feature also brought the name “Yautja,” long used in the comics but never spoken on film before, into official canon. “Badlands” goes even further in this direction by doing something else the comics regularly did. It makes the monster the hero of the story. In fact, “Badlands” does more to expand the on-screen lore of the series than any prior installments. We see the Predator home world, learn its name, delve into the culture of this species, and hear a whole lot of its clicking, guttural language. Now, this brings with it certain gaps in logic that a whole library of comics and novels have happily filled up but a feature film doesn't have time to get into. How exactly does an alien civilization that bases its entire culture around manhood ritual style hunting trips, that cull the perceived “weakest” members of the family from the bloodline, ever survive long enough to achieve light-speed intergalactic travel? But don't think about it that hard. The point is, “Badlands” is the “Predator” series taking its own lore and history very seriously perhaps for the first actual time. 

While making the Predator the protagonist of the story is a new thing for the film series, “Badlands” still follows the established pattern of sticking this alien in a familiar genre framework. This time, it's an intergalactic take on a wilderness survival/coming-of-age story. Dek is a youth on the cusp of adulthood, eager to prove himself but inexperienced. He's thrust into the wild with few resources. He meets a girl and bonds with an animal. More specifically, this journey sees him rejecting the might-makes-right mentality he was raised in. He forges his own path, apart from what he's been taught. At times, I wonder if this makes the previously mysterious alien threat too familiar to the audience. Dek is by far the cuddliest Predator yet. He has a dry sense of humor. His status as the runt of the litter, so rejected by his family that his dad wants to kill him, makes him an immediate underdog the viewer can root for. The arc, of Thia's sunny disposition rubbing off on the gruff alien, is totally expected. Bud, the alien sidekick he gains, is clearly playing with the same “cute little alien” tropes as the Baby Yodas of the world. 

Despite the apparent hokiness of a lot of the familiar beats “Badlands” is utilizing, it all ends up working. Elle Fanning could play a role like this in her sleep, a Manic Android Dream Girl that is nevertheless extremely charming. (That she plays the character's evil twin also allows her a wider range.) How Dek slowly comes around to taking her advice is a natural, smooth way to show his development without belaboring the point too much. In other words, the viewer buys into the improbable link between these three unlikely characters. This is good, as the entire last act is dependent on caring about their interaction. While the right-wing types were fast to criticize this as a neutering of a bad-ass, classically masculine figure, rejecting your shitty parents in favor of your cooler, accepting friends and partner is a tale as old as time. 

As a sci-fi monster movie, “Badlands” is a lot of fun too. Genna is presented as a planet where everything can and will kill you. Even the grass is outfitted with razor sharp blades. The fauna is exotic, deadly, and aggressive. In execution, this amounts to the script setting up about a dozen beasts and death traps in the first act. All of this stuff comes back around for the finale, in a way that feels smooth and satisfying. The alien creatures on-display here are not especially novel. They follow the “Avatar” format of taking familiar Earth species and giving them a few extraterrestrial gimmicks. However, the way these set-ups interact with the familiar elements of the “Predator” franchise prove satisfying. The movie is CGI heavy, to the point of feeling nearly as animated as Trachtenberg's animated “Predator” movie. It's action sequences do not break any new ground, as far as mainstream blockbusters go. However, the fight choreography is strong throughout. There's a speed and precision to the combat that I enjoy. Not to mention a wacky sense of humor, present in an extended sequence involving Thia's lower body being separate from her top.

“Badlands” also lacks much of the harder gore that characterized the majority of “Predator” films before this. All of the bloodshed is alien-on-alien or alien-on-robot. Yes, that means this truly is the PG-13-ification of the franchise. However, I don't think that's so bad, at least not when the movie is as entertaining and smoothly constructed as this one. Dan Trachtenberg is clearly a talented guy, with a good handle on balancing satisfying fan expectations with an ability to construct entertaining set pieces. I don't want to see him making only “Predator” movies for the rest of his career but he's also clearly passionate about the series. I think “Prey” gave me a little more of what I want from a “Predator” movie but “Badlands” is doubtlessly a good time at the movies. [7/10]

 

 

The Shadowed Mind (1988)
 

Films made in Apartheid-era South Africa were, unsurprisingly, heavily scrutinized by the censors. Like everything else in the country, the industry was divided along racial, social lines. Any messages that could be perceived as critical of the government usually resulted in a ban. The same government also criminalized homosexuality, at least between men. Presumably, director Cedric Sundstrom and his crew were well aware that their 1988 film “The Shadowed Mind,” featuring openly gay and sympathetic characters, would not meet with federal approval. Sadly, an international audience would also be largely denied. The MPAA rated the picture NC-17, damning it to obscurity in the U.S., and its release didn't get far much anywhere else either. Severin put out a restored Blu-Ray of the film in 2022, its first time on disc ever, finally giving “The Shadowed Mind” the audience it was long denied. 

Stephanie arrives at an isolated, partially underground institute. The clinic is run by Dr. Dieter Hildesheimer and seeks to cure individuals with “sexual dysfunctions.” Stephanie, who has had a compulsion to show people her breasts since childhood, meets the other in-mates. There's a nymphomaniac, a victim of childhood abuse, a homosexual man, a fellow with serious arrested development and gender issues, and Paul. Paul is impotent but channels his sexual frustration into violent fantasies. He quickly becomes attracted to Stephanie, wondering if she's the girl to finally cure him. That's right around the time people start to be violently murdered around the facility. Dr. Hildesheimer covers up the deaths, to secure an in-coming grant, which only prolongs the actions of whoever the killer is. 

I don't know if clinics that specialize entirely in sexual hang-ups, and based out of partially underground warehouses, are a real thing. This is maybe the first clue that “The Shadowed Mind” is heading into surreal territory a  bit. The second clue is how the film looks. Cinematographer George Bartels and art director Ruth Strimling go all-in on making each shot as pretty and dreamy as possible. Each patients' individual rooms are full of flowing curtains, bright colors, artistic lighting, and significant props. The cast members are frequently positioned in wider shots like pieces of an art display. It's an extremely baroque style, every shot looking like it's out of a Duran Duran music video. It strays into the area of camp often, especially in the self-consciously erotic moments. A movie doesn't include a slow-mo, full frontal shower scene for its hunkiest actor without being a little ironic about it. However, I generally found “The Shadowed Mind” to be visually splendid. 

Obviously, such a grandiose visual approach is part of the film's thesis. “The Shadowed Mind” takes place in an underground facility because it takes place in the subconscious. Once the dead bodies start to pile up, that's why the professionals disguise the evidence. It's one more shameful, dark secret buried deep down within this place. Obviously, that territory is where the blurry area between sex and violence resides too. The murder scenes in the film, clearly giallo influenced, are no less stylized than the rest of the movie. The knife is stiletto-like in its length and, upon penetrating its victims, tends to leave a money shot of blood on the walls. The murder scenes often go hand-in-hand with sexual arousal, as if the knife being a symbolic dick couldn't be any more obvious. The overall archness of “The Shadowed Mind” certainly allows it to get away with stuff like this.

Like the giallo that clearly inspired it, “The Shadowed Mind” is also not a film that concerned with narrative coherence. The plotting is loose. This isn't much more than a series of character sketches piled atop each other, with the largely secondary thread of the murders tying them all together. Some of the sexual quirks based therapy sessions are more compelling than the others. Stephanie's fixation on flashing her boobs sure is curious. The sequence devoted to gender confusion, by the in-mate who is always carrying around a teddy bear, is probably the most sympathetically designed. However, the lady with repressed memories of childhood abuse is nothing but a sketch. As is the gay man lusting after Paul. In fact, Paul himself seems a bit undefined. If he's closeted, a psycho, a scared kid, or a horn-dog without an outlet seems to vary from scene-to-scene. In general, “The Shadowed Mind” can't seem to figure out if Stephanie or Paul is its protagonist. 

In other words, “The Shadowed Mind” is basically a giallo that's plotted like a slasher movie, all its quirky cast members existing primarily to be offed. That the movie received an NC-17 is especially laughable. There's two seconds of on-screen dong and I'm sure the love scenes exceed the allotted number of pelvic thrusts the pearl-clutchers at the MPAA tolerate. However, the sex scenes aren't truly any more graphic than a hundred other erotic thrillers that were deemed acceptable for wide commercial distribution. When exactly “The Shadowed Mind” was released state-side, I'm not sure. Some sources say 1993, a year after “Basic Instinct” flashed its crotch in multiplexes all over America. So this one getting harsher treatment than that once again displays the rating board's anti-queer bigotry. If given more of a proper release at the time, I'm certain “The Shadowed Mind” would've gained a cult following quickly. It's way too interesting, pretty, and amusing a motion picture not to, even if it's not as deep or perceptive as it wants to be. Sundstrom would go on to direct the third and fourth “American Ninjas,” which are also pretty gay but otherwise don't reflect the strong visual eye on display here. I would've liked to have seen more arty nonsense from him. [7/10]

 

TerrorVision: The Closet Monster

LifeTime was not, it may surprise you to hear this, always Television for Women. The channel was originally born out of a fusion of the Cable Health Network, which focused on health and medicine, and Daytime, a four-hour per day broadcast of “alternative programming for women.” What this meant is that, in its first four years, Lifetime featured a bunch of lame talk shows, medical documentaries, and re-runs. A new head of programming came aboard in 1988, eventually beginning the network's transformation into what it became. I guess there must have been a lot of dead air in-between shows and movies at that time though. Lifetime inexplicably debuted a horror anthology that year. “TerrorVision” was a super low budget collection of ten minute long short films, shot on video and designed to be nothing much but filler. It's probably the most obscure program I've yet written about but all the episodes are currently on Youtube, so let's give it a shot. 

Ethan is a kid who refuses to clean out his closet, much to his mother's annoyance. One night, while attempting to sleep, he hears strange noises coming from the closet. He announces to his parents that there's a monster living inside the alcove. Mom believes this is an excuse to avoid the chore but dad humors the kid, trying to encourage him to stand up to his imaginary monster. This does not resolve the issue, with Ethan eventually attacking his dad after mistaking him for the closet-dwelling creature. The boy is sent off to a therapist, leaving Mom alone in her son's bedroom, where she decides to personally investigate the closet situation.

“TerrorVision” is such a lo-fi production that I'm surprised it aired on a nationally broadcast station at all. The acting is mugging and awkward, especially from the lead child actor. His announcement of “there's a monster in my closet” is such a hypnotically bad line-reading. The musical score is composed of electronic burps. There's a neat enough first-person perspective shot of the boy going down the stairs but most of the framing is largely stationary and flat. There's potential in the narrative here, of a child not being believed by their parents when they should be. The moment when Ethan clubs his dad over the head with a bat, insisting he's killed the monster, feels like it's leading towards a meaningful twist. Instead, the story resolves itself by blandly revealing that the presented truth is, in fact, the truth. And to what end, other than a clumsy and ineffective attempt at a jump scare? Perhaps an utterly forgotten, ten minute long filler program was not designed to be probe to any degree. I guess the monster is kind of neat looking? [5/10]

Friday the 13th: The Series: Double Exposure
 

Sometimes, it has felt like the “Friday the 13th: The Series” writers had to get real creative to make that week's chosen Artifact of Doom into something that could murder a person. A tea cup or quilt does not strike most as threatening objects. While equally mundane, there's enough weird superstitions around photography that multiple films and TV episodes have been made about them. “Friday the 13th” still came up with a weird angle of their own. Newscaster Winston Knight has become a celebrity himself by reporting on a serial killer chopping people up in the area, the so-called Machete Murder. This is an example of the media creating the event and then reporting on it. Knight is in the possession of a magical Polaroid camera. When it snaps a photo of someone, it births a perfect physical copy of them, bound to do their bidding. Within twenty-four hours, the photograph must be burned – killing the double – or else the owner of the camera will perish instead. Knight has been using these duplicates to commit the killings he then reports on live, giving him an undebatable alibi. Ryan, currently enamored of a new girlfriend named Cathy, stumbles upon Knight's doppelganger committing a murder. This makes him, and his latest love, a target of the killer. 

It was only a matter of time. With both being low-budget horror TV shows, shot in Canada only a few years apart, “Friday the 13th: The Series” and “Forever Knight” were bound to share some cast members eventually. Three years before co-starring as the police pathologist in love with a vampire cop, Catherine Disher would appear here as “Cathy.” (And in an episode where another major character has the last name “Knight,” no less.) Despite the previous two episodes depicting Ryan breaking Amish because he loved a girl so much, he's already got himself a new girlfriend that he seems quite close to. Much like Nick Knight and Natalie Lambert, Ryan and Cathy's love is doomed. Ryan even makes the observation that the relationships on this show always seem to end badly. Disher is an appealing performer and actually has decent chemistry with John D. Le May, making me wish they didn't kill her off half-way through the episode. They are certainly a more believable couple than him and the Reverend's daughter. 

While it still doesn't have anything to do with Jason Voorhees, “Double Exposure” does feature people being murdered with a machete. This is actually not the freakiest horror content in this episode. Instead, the mechanics of the duplicating camera are quite slimy. When the photo is put in the developing dish, it bubbles and smokes, producing an embryonic human form that slowly takes on the features of its house. This logic is followed through in the climax, when one of the “dupes” gets a hand chopped off and bleeds only developing fluid instead. It's a weird, gnarly special effect and goes a long way to making this episode memorable. Winston Knight also makes for a decent villain, playing up our innate tendency to not trust new caster. There's also something to how his duplicate longs to be a full-fledged human being. Are the copies some sort of manifestation of the Jungian shadow, repressed needs seeking personhood? I doubt anyone writing the episode thought that deeply on it but it's an interesting idea. This is a good one. [7/10]

Halloween 2026: September 18th

Faces of Death (1978)
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Ruthless Father (2019)

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

The Mind Beyond: Stones

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

Halloween 2026: September 3rd

 

Primate (2025)

Having now inspired two separate horror movies, it looks like Travis is going to be the most influential non-human anthropoid of the 21st century. Sorry, Harambe. I apologize for being glib. The story of Sandra Herold, her chimpanzee “son,” and the friend of the family he left brutally deformed was a senseless tragedy all around. Unfortunately, it was also too fascinating and bizarre a tale not to demand our attention. A deeply mentally ill woman using an innocent wild animal as a surrogate for her lost loved ones, mistreating him when she thought she was loving him, the novelty of our almost but not quite human cousin living in such proximity to people: It all says a lot about human psychology, animal well-being, and the responsibility we have and most certainly do not have towards the natural world. Sadly, the moral far many more people took away from this incident is that a chimpanzee can and will totally fuck your shit up. The pendulum has perhaps swung too far in the other direction, from the public perceiving chimps as adorable pranksters to vicious murder machines. Surely not helping matters are motion pictures like “Primate,” literally turning an endangered species into a horror movie villain. While the animal lover in me has mixed feelings about this, the trash movie enthusiast cannot resist the allure of such ape-shit shenanigans. Be prepared for more puns like that through this review, something I'm definitely not going to apologize for. 

College student Lucy returns home to Hawaii with her best friend, Kate, and an additional guest, Hannah. They arrive at the scenic home of Lucy's parents, with its cliff-side swimming pool and large outdoor enclosure. Waiting for them are several family members: Kate's brother and Lucy's long time crush, Lucy's deaf-mute father who is also a famous novelist, her little sister Erin, and Ben. Ben is a chimpanzee, who has grown up with the girls. Lucy's late mother was a linguistics scientist and taught Ben to communicate a little, through sign language and a tablet with a press-button soundboard. The dad goes off to a book signing, leaving the kids and the ape alone. Unbeknownst to anyone, a rabid mongoose got into Ben's pin and bit him. The girls and Nick begin to have a party, even inviting some other guys over, but soon notice that Ben is acting strangely. After tearing a visiting veterinarian's face off, Ben begins to violently attack the people who considered him family. Soon, Lucy, Erin, and the others must defend themselves against a homicidal animal that is intelligent, extremely strong, and armed with a mouth full of pointed teeth and opposable thumbs. 

Likely the reason chimpanzee attacks on humans have gained so much notoriety in the last decade is because of their viciousness. Denser muscles and "fast twitch" fibers give chimps a brutal grip strength, meaning they can rip through flesh and crush bone with ease. When combined with their tendency to go for vulnerable areas like the fingers, faces, and genitals, the idea of a random chimp event has truly become the stuff of nightmares for many. This is something "Primate" exploits repeatedly. In the opening sequence, we see Ben yank someone into his cage, a standard horror movie opening... But the film goes the extra mile and then shows the ape tearing Rob Delaney's face off, all before the opening credits. Later, we see Ben bite a chunk out of someone's thigh, bash heads in, rip a jaw off, scalp a girl with his bare hands, and snap a finger like a Kitkat. The make-up artists, effects team, and sound designers truly earned their pay on this one. Each attack is wince-inducing and horrifying. The film seems to delight in the meatiness of the human body and how those multiple layers of skin, muscle, fat, and nerves can be twisted and torn. It has truly been a while since a mainstream horror movie made me groan this much.

“Primate” is directed by Johannes Roberts, whose “47 Meters Down” films gave him experience with stories of young women trapped in an isolated location with a blood-thirsty animal. “Primate” is a little less contrived than that one. Ben's rabies stems from a mongoose, with the clarification that Hawaii is a rabies free state but no explanation for where the infected mongoose came from! Mostly, the contrivances in the script here allow for the suspense to go up. The heroes isolated in the pool as they attempt to get around the insane monkey stalking the area produces a few moments of nicely drawn out tension. The best example occurs when Lucy is hiding in a closest, only a door and a layer of transparent plastic separating her from the agitated ape. Considering chimpanzees are naturally unpredictable creatures, Ben made all the more-so by his altered mental state and the audience's general uncertainty of what the animal is even seeing at any point. It's a sequence that builds nicely and ends with a suitably intense shock of the hairy beast smashing right through a glass window. Since the film establishes so early how dangerous this animal is, we are well aware of the stakes at play here. Combined with tight editing and frenzied cinematography, “Primate” frequently makes for a tense thrill ride. 

Roberts has cited "Cujo" as an influence and it's easy to see the connection there. Both films, after all, are about vulnerable characters trapped in a tight location by a rabid animal. While Roberts successfully emulates the intensity of Lewis Teague's classic, perhaps he should've studied that film a little harder in other regards. Ben the Chimp is a delightfully devious villain. He seems to taunt the girls as they float in the pool, by tapping the "Dead" button over and over again on his speech tablet. After an unsuccessful attempt to push the bananas bonobo off a cliff goes horribly wrong, Ben rises back up with victorious glee. He plays like a child with the dismembered parts of his victims. Probably the moment that most characterizes the ape as a convincing sociopath is when he reveals that he has the fob to unlock a car. All of that aligns with what the film is going for. Ben is brought to life through a clever combination of an actor in a detailed animatronic suit and CGI, which looks real enough to pass the sniff test but with enough uncanniness to add to the creature's fright factor. However, part of what made "Cujo" not just scary but effective was the equal anxiety and sympathy the film had for its titular terror. Cujo was a killer and a threat but he was also just a dog, sick and dying and not knowingly acting with any malice. "Primate" probably would've been a stronger movie if it offered the same agency to Ben, playing him not as evil but rather as a thinking, feeling creature driven by sickness and instinct to behave in this manner. 

Perhaps I'm the one making a mistake by expecting that level of depth from a movie like "Primate." It's a minor miracle that the film pulls off the level of suspense and shotgun-level jolts that it does. The core players are quickly introduced in the first act. There's some uneasiness between Lucy and Erin, the younger sister resenting the older for leaving home. Hannah seems to have invited herself on this vacation, causing some annoyance. Obviously, there's unspoken sexual tension between Lucy and her crush. I don't know why I bring any of this up because it is not important at all. Once the (ape)shit hits the fan, the meat bags in "Primate" become basically indistinguishable from each other. Any nuance the characters might have had totally vanishes as the heroines focus entirely on outsmarting the simian stalker and tending to the wounded. This is probably for the better. I hate it when horror movies insert petty drama between the cast in a survival situation. "Primate" runs a tight 89 minutes and it stays focused on the goal of maximum thrills and grimaces throughout, any unnecessary bickering cut out. Still, I would've liked to have been able to tell the girls apart by more than just their hair colors. By the time some drunken frat boys show up, it's clear that "Primate" is basically a slasher movie, as much about gory showmanship as anything else. 

And I love a good slasher movie, probably more than is considered healthy. The only performer in the film going for much nuance is Troy Kotsur as Lucy's father. He shows the impressive subtlety of expression and thoughtfulness that won him an Oscar for "CODA." This does not stop the movie from playing his disability for easy thrills though, the deaf man unaware of the horror just behind him. Which probably speaks to the limited variety of roles available to actors with disabilities. The Academy Award winner also punches a chimpanzee in the face not once but twice. Who am I to turn my nose up at such a blessing? Yes, "Primate" is undeniably junk food but it is such delicious junk food. I have too much respect for the technicians and artists at work here who made me gasp, groan, hoot, and scoot towards the edge of my seat multiple times throughout the film. Perhaps that speaks to the simian nature of all our brains. This monkey see that monkey do homicide and it makes him clap for more. This is, as far as research shows, the first of Johannes Roberts' movies to open in January but is so perfectly indicative of the simple pleasures of the "January horror movie" that I can't imagine it'll be the last. "Primate" is prime pulp and I loved it, flaws and all. [8/10]

The House on Straw Hill (1976)

Udo Kier was, to put it plainly, like no other. He was a performer gifted with huge reflective eyes that could glow with rage or lust or madness. He had an outrageous accent and an on-screen persona just as flamboyant. His unforgettable and extremely European screen presence led to repeated appearances in films by respected auteurs like Fassbinder, Wenders, von Trier, Herzog, Van Sant and Maddin. It also meant Kier – who passed away last November and worked right up until the end of his life – was in a lot of trash. Often, he was the most memorable thing about said trash. This is technically not the case with 1976's "The House on Straw Hill," alternatively known as "Trauma" or "Exposé." The film is most notable as a Video Nasty, one of the 72 titles banned in England during the eighties VHS boom after being declared a threat to moral decency. Much to the chagrin of Mary Whitehouse, I'm sure, "Straw Hill" was one of the few home-grown video nasties, exploitation filth made right there in England. While its "deemed obscene by the government" status has guaranteed this otherwise not-that-notable film a permanent place of notoriety in horror history, I'm watching it in remembrance of Kier's unhinged talent. 

Paul Martin is having trouble finishing the follow-up to his best selling debut novel. He is having frequent nightmares of blood and death. This leads to a break-up with his girlfriend Suzanne. Hoping to refocus on his work, he rents an isolated cottage out in the British countryside. By chance, he saves a woman named Linda from some local yokels. She is a stenographer and agrees to work as Paul's secretary, typing up his new novel as he dictates it. Sexual tension simmers between Paul and the unreceptive Linda. The hicks return to rape her in the field outside the home, resulting in her killing them both with a shotgun. The cottage's caretaker vanishes. Suzanne reappears and Linda seduces her. Paul's nightmares and visions intensify. Someone cuts the brakes on his car. Clearly, secrets and ulterior motives are afoot in the house on straw hill. 

"Straw Hill" was directed by James Kenelm Clarke. Mostly a composer and documentarian early in his career, he switched gears when he co-founded Norfolk International Pictures. It is for this company that he would make films with classy titles like "Let's Get Laid," "Hardcore," and "Sweet Virgin." Several of those flicks and this one co-star Fiona Richmond, billed as "Britain no. 1 sex symbol" on the posters. All of which is to say that "House on Straw Hill" is an irrepressibly horny motion picture, blurring the line between exploitation and softcore porn. Richmond is naked within the first five minutes. She spends most of the movie humping or getting humped and also gives Udo a blowie seemingly through his pants at one point. Linda Hayden's character is compelled to masturbate no less than four times throughout the film. Unsurprisingly, the sexual assault sequence is filmed more for titillation than terror. "Lesbian sex" and "anal rape" are among the film's keywords on IMDb. 

Whether the film succeeds as smut is a matter of opinion. Richmond and Hayden are nice to look at. Their girl-on-girl scene has a certain sweaty, sleazy heat to it and is probably the closest the movie comes to genuine eroticism. So I suppose "House on Straw Hill" will give interested wankers what they are after. Whether it functions well as a horror movie is more debatable. Udo's visions of a dead body in a bathtub, breaking glass and a bloody hand falling to the side, reoccur enough that they start to grow tedious. There are two sequences of people being knifed. One is a darkened stalking that ends with a slashed throat and the other is a "Psycho" inspired shower stabbing that ups the flesh and blood. Both would make passable moments in a mid-tier giallo. The montage of Udo's car careening out of control, intercut with the above mentioned lesbian tryst, is mildly well done. The free mixing of sex and a malevolent atmosphere does create a somewhat charming sense of sleaziness.

Mostly, this is a pretty dumb movie where not much actually happens. A key moment depends on a presumed slain character returning to life, a clear result of the filmmakers writing themselves into a corner. The runtime is largely a mix of skin scenes, bloody nightmares, the occasional murder, ominous foreshadowing, and Udo dictating his novel to Linda. Watching Kier ramble out tawdry prose while he grows ever-more wide-eyed certainly has entertainment value. The main joy present in "The House on Straw Hill" is watching Udo go crazy. He gives his character some intriguing quirks, like always wearing latex gloves when making love. Unfortunately, somebody made the unfathomable decision to dub over Kier's voice, denying us the chance to hear his insane German accent deliver such florid lines. I probably would have bumped this one up half a star if they simply kept the original audio.

Really, there's only one deeper idea in "The House On Straw Hill" that holds any sway at all. The script finally reveals what the plot is up to in the final scene. This is preambled by a moment where Martin is dictating the end of his novel to Linda, who begins to change every single word and line that he makes up. It's another tensely edited scene, showing that the people who made this movie actually did have some grasp on suspense and pacing. Furthermore, it raises an interesting question about true authorial intent. Every bestselling writer has an editor. How many eyeballs does a manuscript pass before on the way to being published? How many fingerprints are left on a finished book? The question of what degree a story actually belongs to someone – and who deserves credit for the telling – when so much collaboration is necessary in every field is an intriguing one. "Straw Hill" goes right back to being dumb, sleazy schlock right after that. Perhaps a presentation a little more focused on the push-and-pull within the creative process than buttocks and bewbs could have explored this idea more.

The "House on Straw Hill" title is clearly meant to recall both "Straw Dogs" and "Last House on the Left." There's some comparison there, what with the sexual violence occurring out in the scenic countryside and being bloody avenged. The image of Kier wearing a silk shirt while brandishing a shotgun made a few of the posters and obviously invokes Sam Peckinpah's controversial classic. At least this title accurately describes the film, as that house is indeed located on Straw Hill. "Trauma" is too vague to have a specific importance to this story. "Exposé" makes it sound more like a movie about journalism, though I guess plenty of things are exposed here. All of these details mark this as the film as the cheap, greasy rip-off it is. This is one of those movies that is probably objectively bad but whose stupid sleazeball atmosphere I unfortunately am somewhat charmed by. I bet this would play a lot better in a 42nd Street grindhouse than all digitally restored at home. R.I.P. Udo, overacting and groping some beautiful breasts is surely how you would want to be remembered. [6/10]

 

Wednesday: Woe is the Loneliest Number

Unburdened by having to set up the premise of the show, the second episode of “Wednesday” is slightly better than the first. But only slightly. This one leans into the “Harry Potter” influence much more blatantly. Christina Ricci teaches a class suspiciously similar to herbology, Wednesday's Gorgonian love interest generates a ghostly spider for her, while the second half of the episode basically revolves around the goth Tri-Wizard Cup. Otherwise, the plot continues to function in usual streaming television fashion. We've got half-a-dozen story threads, plates for the show to keep spinning in the air. The monster that seemingly killed Wednesday's attacker last time is nowhere to be seen. Neither is the kid's body, as he reappears. This might be the work of some sort of cover-up, the town sheriff remains suspicious, and his son remains obviously flirty with the title character. We get some more development on Wednesday's powers, the idea that there's some kind of prophecy around her arrival at the school, and her following in the footsteps of her mother despite her stated desire not to do so. Romantic entanglements and rivalries are also starting to form. I'm struggling to care about any of it. 

On one hand, there's a moment or two in “Woe Is the Loneliest Number” where I'm reminded that Tim Burton used to be a decent director. The practical sets and production design on display here are actually quite good. Gwendolyn Christie has a giant fire place shaped like a Medusa face with a gaping mouth in her office, which is cool. Sadly, every semi-compelling visual is bordered by some a moment full of badly composed CGI. This is most apparent during the boat race finale, which is unforgivably hideous in spots. Add to that the Netflix-mandated need to keep as much of the action in the center of the screen at all times, to make distribution into social media friendly clips easier, and you've got an hour of TV that feels like beige wallpaper. The term “slop” is overused by, truly, what else to do you call this kind of approach? 

On the other hand, this episode is slightly more tolerable than the debut. There are more nods to the original sixties sitcom here. Thing has a bigger role here and I like the clarification that he communicates via sign language. (Despite that being less funny than everyone in the family just instantly understanding him.) Wednesday has a stated preference for spiders and venomous insects as pets. Some plot reason I've already forgotten has her making friends with the nerdy kid who runs the beekeeping club, which is actually kind of cute. Wednesday has also inherited her mother's knowledge of carnivorous plants. Suggesting a series much truer in tone to that original show was possible, Jenna Ortega continues to excel at delivering absurdly morbid one-liners. I will also admit that Emma Myers as the upbeat, werewolf room mate is fairly adorable. Making Wednesday the Felix to a sunny, energetic Oscar is, again, hack shit but at least the cast compliment each other. The second half of the episode also features its female cast members wearing cat ears and skin-tight body suits, the kind of blatant fetishism I expect from anime but not big budget live action streaming nonsense. I guess Burton still had some of that “Batman Returns” kinkiness in his system after all. This is still aggressively mediocre television though. [5/10]

 

 

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Incident in a Small Jail

Once again, it's time for me to marvel at how “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” put extremely bleak, perverse stories on late fifties/early sixties American television and got away with it by having a portly, sardonic Englishman make corny jokes before and after them. Traveling salesman Leon Gorwald, while stopping over in a small town, jaywalks across a street. The deputy sheriff notices him and prepares to fine him. Leon tries to bribe his way out of a ticket, a stunt that pisses the cop off and gets Leon thrown into one of two jail cells back at the station. The actual sheriff and his deputy arrives shortly afterwards with grim news: A girl was found mutilated with a knife the other night and they're pretty sure they caught the guy who did it, some scumbag in a mechanic's overalls. As news travels around town about the death of the girl, a lynch mob begins to come together at the local bar. The three cops do what they can to maintain law and order but things soon get out of hand. And Leon Gorwald, some average guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, gets caught up in it. Or that's what seems to be happening at first. 

“Incident in a Small Jail” is another Henry Slesar penned episode, who also wrote the earlier highly regarded “Hitchcock Presents” installment, “The Right Kind of House.” Both these episode are utterly economic in their setting and story. They have limited settings and a small cast of characters, like a one-act play. Both stories introduces a situation that builds steadily but carefully in tension. At first “Incident in a Small Jail” feels like a brilliant encapsulation of a chain reaction. Leon Gorwald casually makes the decision to skip across a street, the butterfly flapping its wings that leads to the tidal wave of him being thrust into the center of an angry mob. The way each new complication is added to the scenario – the unrefined punk tossed into the cell next to him, some drunkards down the street deciding to go vigilante, one small cry for help at the exact wrong time – feels like a perfectly executed web of little bad moments adding up to ruin someone's life. From this perspective, the moral of “Incident in a Small Jail” seems to be “one minor misdeed can have ghastly consequences.” 

This theme, that we are all at the mercy of a chaotic and random universe, is already a fairly black pill to swallow. However, “Incident in a Small Jail” has an even bleaker idea up its sleeve. The episode is brilliantly cast. Myron Healey as the deputy sheriff is the exact kind of hard-ass you would expect to insist on following every minor law, instantly making you dislike him. John Fiedler plays Leon. As always, he's short and non-threatening in his avuncular baldness but that whiny and stammering voice, so perfect for Piglet, also makes him a little untrustworthy. He did try and bribe a cop after all. Should we trust this guy? Once future tough guy Richard Jaeckel appears as the killer, however, you are on the guy's side despite his weaselly quality. The stranger's violent acts are perfectly set-up by Crahan Denton as the sheriff. His weary delivery of the girl's mutilated body being worst than anything he saw in the war is fantastic. 

All of this grim, tightly-wound tension proceeds what seems like an unexpected happy ending... Before “Incident in a Small Jail” drops a pitch black twist, like a knife in the back. The final image of the episode must be one of the most chilling in all of the black-and-white era of American television. In other words, this friggin' rocks. Every time I watch “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” I find myself stunned to discover that, oh my god, television can actually be good. Why aren't all shows, to this day, tightly paced thirty minute packages of caustic noir goodness? [9/10]