Halloween 2026: September 28th

 

Kraken (2025)
Кракен

In my previous post, I wrote about a very specific type of motion picture: A giant monster movie, from a European country that you don't usually associate with giant monster movies, that is both about and entitled “Kraken,” which received a North American digital release within the last year. Today, I am also writing about a giant monster movie, from a European country that you don't usually associate with giant monster movies, that is both about and entitled “Kraken,” and received a North American digital release within the last year. Yes, by some improbable coincidence, about a year before Norway's big budget “Kraken” movie came out, the Russian film industry would also release a big budget “Kraken” movie. I actually mistook this film for the Norwegian one when the title first popped up on streaming. Upon realizing we had dueling Euro-Trash “Kraken” blockbusters, I knew I had to watch both. This “Kraken” was directed by Nikolai Lebedev, who previously directed what was the most expensive Russian movie at the time as well as a home-grown disaster flick. Once again, it's clear that filmmakers across the Atlantic are trying to create their own Hollywood-style spectacle. 

Near the North Pole, a Swedish geology team is performing tests with explosive charges. The experiments seem to have awoken something. Researchers Julia and Oskar barely escape their compound as it is pulled under the ice. A Russian submarine carrying a top-secret weapon, led by Captain Alexander Voronin, responds to their emergency signal. That is before the sub also goes dark. A second sub is launched to find and destroy the device the other ship was carrying. This mission is led by another Captain Voronin, Viktor, Alexander's little brother. Due to the personal nature of the mission, an Admiral Olshansky is also dispatched to keep an eye on Viktor. While the vessel is rescuing Julia and Oskar, they detect something large and hostile on their radar. Yes, it is the Kraken of legend. The beast is real and it is angry, destroying an oil rig right before the submarine's sensors. Despite the danger, Viktor continues on the mission to locate the missing sub, in the unlikely hope that his brother might still be alive. 

While the two “Krakens” might be easily confused at a glance, they do take very different approaches to the premise. Pål Øie's "Kraken" follows the structure of a standard monster movie, with mysterious sightings and disappearance leading up to the giant beastie's attack. Lebedev's film is much more of a military thriller. There are so many scenes of guys within the cramped interiors of a submarine, rushing from one monitor to another, shouting orders at each other. I would say such sequences occupy the majority of "Kraken's" two hour and fourteen minute runtime. I've heard that big budget Russian movies these days tend to be pro-military agitprop. (Which is not too surprising, considering the current political direction of the nation. I know the U.S. military only assists Hollywood productions if they have approval over the script and I imagine the situation is similar in Russia right now.) The film amusingly features almost no female characters, as it is largely absorbed in the world of serious uniformed guys doing serious military business. Occasionally, the claustrophobic nature of submarining is used for a novel – never suspenseful but interesting – moment. Such as when a smaller, research sub is deployed to explore a deep sea graveyard of sunken ships. However, "Kraken" proves disappointingly stately and dry in its focus on militaristic authority. A lot of this motion picture is devoted to Russian seaman tersely talking and arguing among themselves about what they may or may not be doing at any given moment. 

The presentation is almost suffocating in its stiffness. The musical score is largely composed of classical sounding compositions, heavy and ominous, that maintain the impression you are watching a march-like presentation. The film cannot be critical of the military in any way, which would disrupt its purpose as propaganda. A little bit of conflict arises between Viktor and Olshansky, over who is more worthy to lead the mission. Viktor is, of course, the best soldier for this job, which makes any tension between him and the other officer ineffective. Realizing that's a dead end, the script often focuses on the relationship between the Voronin brothers. Viktor has often felt in the shadow of his big brother, who has also been absent for most of his life. It feels like entirely inessential melodrama, inserted to give the story some depth but not well-formed enough to actually compel in any way. Furthering the purpose of the film, this being a family affair for Viktor makes him a better officer. Serving Glorious Mother Russia is in his blood. 

All the droll submarine shenanigans and maudlin brotherly conflict raises a big question: Isn't this a movie about a giant sea monster? We are nearly an hour into the movie before the enormous tentacles of the Kraken slither on-screen. While I would say the quality of CGI here trails behind the Norwegian production a bit. A scene featuring a pod of whales has the shakiest effects. The big-ass cephalopod still looks neat. A sequence where it destroys an oil rig is the best in the film. When emphasizing the huge eyes or scale of the beast, "Kraken" almost becomes an effective kaiju movie. Unfortunately, this takes up a small percentage of the film. You can tell that "Kraken" is not so concerned with the kraken, as it continues on for a bit after the monster is defeated. You would think a leviathan squid destroying huge structures and chasing the submarine would be dramatic enough. Instead, the film tries to drive tension from its characters, from the inter-officer conflict and concerns over whether the researchers can be trusted or not, but the characters are too one-note that to work at all.

The result is a film that is largely inert. The pacing is glacial, the script so consumed by the stakes of its military arguments and standard arc for the brothers that the movie rarely feels like it's moving. Why isn't a movie called "Kraken" more about a kraken reeking havoc? I guess that would, once again, conflict with the movie's purpose to make the Russian Navy look professional and powerful. At least Michael Bay movies and "Top Gun" have scenes of the U.S. military doing cool shit or explosions or something. "Kraken" is too stately and confined for that. I am always reluctant to declare a movie "boring," as this criticism usually points towards an unwillingness to engage with a film on its own level. But, damn, "Kraken" is fucking boring. About five minutes of the tentacled giant looking threatening or dragging something under the water does not justify how hard I was fighting sleep through this one. If this is any indication, Nikolai Lebedev and his team and presumably government overseers have a lot to learn about making an extended advertisement for the Russian military entertaining, much less a thrilling or fun giant monster movie. [4/10]

Terror-Creatures from the Grave (1965)
5 tombe per un medium

Recently, I was listening to an interview with prolific film journalist, author, interviewer, historian, life-long monster kid and all-around character David Del Valle. Mr. Del Valle is also a former agent and long time friend of Barbara Steele. Among the Dame Steele stories Del Valle shared was an anecdote about how she briefly dated J. Michael Muro, the director of "Street Trash," and was horrified by the script for that film. He capped the tidbit off by saying she is "such a snob." The evidence seems to bear this out. Among her on-and-off reluctance to discuss her horror films over the years, we also have the recollection of filmmaker Massimo Pupillo. He directed Babs in "Terror-Creatures from the Grave" and claims Steele was a total diva on-set, until he berated her before the entire cast and crew.  Well, whatever actually happened and whether Mr. Pupillo was justified in his rant, Steele never let her frustration with her career ever show on-screen. "Terror-Creatures from the Grave," "5 tombe per un medium" in the original Italian, is another gothic chiller that the star brought her particular presence to, totally professionally. 

Attorney Albert Kovac is summoned to the small town of Breggoville, to the estate of Jeronimus Hauff. Upon arriving at the glowering mansion, he learns that Hauff actually died one year ago under mysterious circumstances. Breggoville was the site of a hideous plague centuries before, supposedly intentionally spread by five warlocks. Jeronimus was obsessed with the legend and amassed a wide collection of artifacts related to the tale. His widow, Clio, has little positive to say about her deceased husband. She is among the five people, stipulated in Jeronimus' will, to be present as his body is relocated a year after his death. Anthony stays behind to get to the bottom of this. (Also because he's been charmed by Corrine, Hauff's beautiful daughter.) A curse on the land is often spoken of and people begin to die mysteriously around the mansion, causing suspicion that Jeronimus has returned from the grave to seek revenge on those who wronged him in life. 

Owing to all of them imitating Bava's "Black Sunday," any sixties Italian horror flick with Steele can be counted on for some voluptuous ambiance. This is the sole horror credit of cinematographer Carlo Di Palma, better known for photographing films by Antonioni and Woody Allen. I'm guessing he'd prefer classier fare too but, like Miss Steele, any reluctance is not apparent in the work itself. “Terror-Creatures from the Grave” looks great. Many of the courtyards and cemeteries are thick with fog along the ground. The castle is decorated with shadows, often crossing the performer's faces. Di Palma's camera work brings along some of that Bava-esque smooth camera movements and stylized angles. A shot staring up out of an empty grave is a highlight, as is a moment when some tomb lids slide off on their own. 

“Terror-Creatures” is also notable for being a little bloodier and sexier than Steele's other Italian gothics. The central image of the film are the five hands of the plague spreaders, cleaved off and mummified and now displayed on a wall. The specific of what this disease was are never mentioned but it seems to leave great, weeping wounds on the face and body. The opening scene lingers the effects of a horse stepping on a man's face. Another memorable moment has a man in a wheel chair creatively taking his own life, which goes so far as to feature some unspooling intestines in the aftermath. This film also features, for the perverts in the audience, the closest Barbara Steele ever came to actual nudity, via a bath scene. This is shortly followed up with what is surely one of her more extended sex scenes as well, though nothing much is shown. I mention this because I am a thorough reviewer, of course. 

Steele actually doesn't have nearly as much to do in the film as would've benefited her icy stare and otherworldly presence. As the bitchy widower of a clearly dickish man, she does get to queen it up nicely in a few scenes. Her character is, in easily the most obvious reveal in the film, partially responsible for her husband's death as a result of her lascivious affair being discovered. This is in contrast to Mirella Maravidi as the daughter, who is such a naive innocent that she borders on the childish at times. It's a clear example of the Madonna/Whore dichotomy, the hero running off with the sweet, virginal lass while the shrewish, unfaithful older woman is punished for her crimes. To be fair, most of the characters in “Terror-Creatures” aren't that likable or fleshed-out. Walter Brandi, as Albert, spends most of the film denying anything supernatural is happening. This is supported by a very bored sounding voice-over. 

For a while, I was wondering if “Terror-Creatures” would end up pulling a gaslighting style plot. Perhaps Jeronimus only faked his death as a predecessor to flushing out his enemies and philandering wife? The uncertainty over his exact fate, as in a scene where someone seems to see him sitting in a chair before he vanishes, pairs with a detective storyline that suggests such an ending. Instead, the film does bend towards witchcraft and some actually creatures from the grave  eventually. How terrifying they are is debatable. In fact, the evil spirits never appear on-screen, operating only as ghostly voices and invisible forces. Perhaps that is why the film ups the flesh and blood, to compensate for the lack of actual monsters. 

 

Despite being mid-tier Steele, owing to the drippy lead, mediocre script, and fewer freakies, I still enjoyed myself with “Terror-Creatures.” What can I say, I'm a slut for some black-and-white gothic atmosphere. Another amusing element of the film is that, the opening credits make the claim that it's based on an Edgar Allan Poe story. I guess, if you squint, you can see traces of “Masque of the Red Death” or “Fall of the House of Usher” here, with the emphasis on the plague and the story of a guy traveling to a far-away, doomed abode. At least “Castle of Blood” actually made Poe a character in its story to justify putting his name in the credits. All in all, there's enough shadowy ambiance, one or two spooky moments, and enough moments of Steele glaring with those saucer eyes of her to justify the 83 minutes I spent watching it. Snob or not, nobody could glare like her! [7/10]

 

Unsolved Mysteries: Season 1, Episode 11

The Satanic Panic of the eighties and early nineties remains a topic of fascination for a lot of people. Partially because, in retrospect, it is so laughably obvious as an example of mass hysteria. Also because it never really ended, the exact same rhetoric that was used to accuse daycare center owners of summoning Satanic Chuck Norris in the eighties now simply shift to whatever target of scorn the right-wing is mad at this week. (Usually immigrants and queer people.) Programs like “Unsolved Mysteries” probably deserve some of the blame. For stoking fears around the utterly unfounded belief that Satanic cults were roaming American small towns. Or that harmless hobbies, like heavy metal or horror movies, came with diabolic influence. The show was making that connection as early as its first season. 

The third segment concerns the death of Kurt McFall, a seventeen year old kid from Simi Valley, California. Kurt had been getting into Dungeons and Dragon, medieval reenactment, and pagan religion. While staying at a friend’s house, he allegedly went out into the middle of the night, saying he couldn’t sleep and was overheated. The next morning, his body was found dead at the bottom of an ocean-side cliff. He had not drowned and had died from impact trauma. The implication seems to be that he fell to his death. His father, Tom, claims he got a phone call earlier that night. Saying that Kurt had become involved in a Satanic cult, that he “knew too much,” and was trying to escape the group. He also found some edgy drawings and witchy knickknacks in the boy’s room. This is basically the entire basis of Mr. McFall’s belief that his son was murdered. “Unsolved Mysteries” does track down an unidentified speaker, a supposed friend of Kurt’s that was in this cult with him, but that’s it. 

In other words, this “Unsolved Mysteries” segment does a good job of illustrating how the Satanic Panic worked in many cases. I don’t believe Tom McFall was acting with any malice when he made these claims. He says that the beer bottles around Kurt’s car must have been planted, as his son didn’t drink. Because teenagers are always honest with their parents about their alcohol in-take. He finds some gory pictures in his son’s room alarming, when that sounds like pretty normal behavior for nerdy teen boys to me. He tries to paint the pagan circle the kid was involved with as sinister, when they just look like dorky guys taking on Welsh names and doing some vintage prayers. The unexpected death of your child, at such a young age, is an awful burden for any parent. A random accident leading to his boy’s premature end is a chaotic, shitty bit of happenstance. In his grief, Tom McFall looked for patterns to explain his loss. He landed on the, by then well publicized, trend of D&D and devil-worshiping luring young men into sinister territories. As for that phone call the dad claims he received? Or the testimonial of the friend? Who is to say but it is easy to imagine that, while reeling from the loss of your child or friend, your mind can convince itself all sorts of memories happened. 

The unreliable quality of memory and parents, perhaps, not knowing their kids as well as they hoped are reoccurring trends in this episode. The first segment concerns a seventeen year old girl, secretly dating an older man who had gotten her pregnant, being involved with the murder of a co-worker.  The second follows a man locked up for a robbery, despite numerous witnesses that he was at home during that time. A cop claiming he saw the guy roughly right after the robbery occurred and the testimonial of someone who had never met the man before convinced the jury. Meanwhile, a cop in the first case believes that the teenage girl, groomed and manipulated by a dirt bag, is just as guilty of murder as her partner. Kind of makes the police look bad, ya know! Anyway, this “Unsolved Mystery” is an interesting time capsule more than anything else. Though there are some good shots of Robert Stack wandering spooky woods in a trench coat. [6/10]

Friday the 13th: The Series: The Quilt of Hathor
 

For some reason I have not been able to decipher, basic cable programing became fascinated with the Amish sometime last decade. Increasingly bullshitty reality shows would soon spawn trashy TV movies with hilarious titles like “Amish Stud” and “Stalked by My Amish Boyfriend.” So-called Amishsploitation is not an altogether recent phenomenon. Genre films and television periodically remember that we've got whole communities of weird, quasi-agrarian, religious cults in this country. Like Wes Craven's “Deadly Blessing” before it, “Friday the 13th: The Series” doesn't actually call its clearly Amish-coded group by that name. Instead, “The Quilt of Hathor” is set among the Pentitites. Micki and Ryan arrive in the village looking for a cursed quilt, which allows the holder to murder others through their dreams. A woman named Effie Stokes is using the quilt to bump off any woman that expresses romantic interest in the village's leader, Josiah Grange. As the duo are snooping around the town, Ryan starts to fall in love with Laura, Josiah's daughter. 

Amishsploitation tends to focus on the most outwardly unusual aspects of Amish society. Ya know, the horse and buggies and hats and black clothes and barn raising and old-timey speaks and all that. This ignores the actual sinister thing about communities like this: All the child abuse and a culture designed to silence anyone who speaks up about it. “The Quilt of Hathor” almost hints at this. The very first scene has Josiah attempting to court a barely legal young woman. Rather than comment on the sketchiness of the community leader deciding the teenage girl should be his bride, this is merely a set-up for the episode's Villain of the Week. Effie Stokes, identified as “plain” and ignored by Grange, uses the titular Cursed Artifact to murder her romantic rivals. This happens with startlingly frequency, as Josiah happily moves onto who ever is next in line after his last would-be spouse dies mysteriously. This unwittingly paints the man as either incredibly stupid or unforgivably evil. Considering the same town outright acknowledges that they arrange marriage for kids as young as eight, I'm leaning more towards the latter.

Of course, “Friday the 13th” wasn't that kind of show. Instead, it simply uses the setting for novelty. Micki and Ryan go “undercover” in the community but barely try at all. It's about five minutes after meeting her that Ryan falls for Laura, beginning to court her immediately. This makes his cliffhanger providing declaration of love hard to swallow. We expect this guy to abandon his modern lifestyle for the Pentitite way when he can't be bother to observe any of the rules up to that point? Micki is upset by the announcement and, inevitably, it plays as a romantic rejection. She insists that she's only upset because she doesn't want to hunt down all these evil doodads with just Jack to help. However, her argument turns towards cries of “but what about all the time we've spent together?” very quickly. These two cousins should go ahead and kiss already. I'm sure the Amish are okay with that too.

As for the horror elements, they are quite silly. Perhaps the show writers realized that “evil quilt” is not the best logline for a story. Having deadly nightmares occur when someone hugs the quilt is a decent work-around, that also blatantly recalls the “Nightmare on Elm Street” series. We've got no Freddy Krueger here, only reoccurring dreams set in a vaguely French Revolution era palace. I guess that's what an Amish lifer would imagine as decadent and corrupt. I did kind of like the scenes devoted to Laura's assigned future husband trying repeatedly to kill Ryan. A scene where he's throwing a pitchfork around is mildly suspenseful. The resolution to this rivalry involves an “American Gladiator” style fight over an open fire, which is certainly something to see. Silly episode but not without its moments. [6/10]

Halloween 2025: October 7th

47 Meters Down (2017)

Nobody is going to make a better shark movie than “Jaws” but that hasn't stopped people from trying. In fact, shark thrillers are so commonplace that nearly every variation on the premise has been tried. Most of these sharks-ploitation flicks get chummed out onto DVD or video-on-demand, unnoticed by any but the most devoted fish fans. This was nearly the fate of “47 Meters Down.” The Weinsteins gobbled the movie up and intended to dump it on disc with the generic title “In the Deep.” (No doubt the re-titling was a result of Bob insisting that stupid Americans wouldn't know what a meter was and that “154.2 Feet Down” is a shitty title.) A week before the intended release, the movie was fished out of obscurity by a new distributor. I'm reviewing the movie now as part of my Horror Around the World journey. This is more than a bit of a cheat. The director is English, the producer is French, many of the names behind and in front of the camera were American. However, it was shot and co-produced in the Dominican Republic, making it another rare horror flick to come out of the Caribbean. Close enough for me. 

Adventurous Kate has convinced her more reserved sister Lisa to go on vacation with her in Mexico. This comes at a time when Lisa is especially vulnerable, having gotten unexpectedly dumped by her long-time boyfriend. The sisters meet two guys, Javier and Louis, in a bar. The men convince the women to go on an adventure the next day: They know a guy who owns a boat and claim they regularly go cage diving with his equipment, to observe the local great white shark population. Upon seeing the janky quality of the boat, Lisa is reluctant but Kate convinces her to go. After a few scenic moments under the waves and getting up-close with the huge fish, everything goes wrong. The wench breaks. The cage is sunk meters below. The sisters can communicate via the radio in their helmets but are outside the range of the boat. Their oxygen supply is limited. The depths are dangerous. The certainty of help arriving is not great. And, of course, there are the sharks. The sharks are very hungry.

I first became aware of Johannes Roberts thanks to his 2010 film, the unfortunately entitled “F.” (Released in the U.S. with the only slightly less bad title “The Expelled.”) That movie wasn't very good but it did prove that Roberts had a knack for creating well-orchestrated scare sequences. That's a skill he'd refine with future films, like “The Strangers: Prey at Night” and his “V/H/S/99” segment. Roberts wrote “47 Meters Down” too, so proud of it he put his name above the title. And he does good work here too. The camera work is often intimate, focused on the actress' faces as they struggle in the cages or swim through the depths. Smartly, the audience usually only sees what's visible in the limited amount of light they have. This makes it very easy for those sharks to sneak up. Once the predators are in frame, the film emphasizes the power, size, and speed of these animals. “47 Meters Down” gets a lot of mileage out of sharks naturally being terrifying and its heroines being quite literally out of their element. 

It is a good thing that “47 Meters Down” is so strong as a technical exercise. As a screenplay, it's rather preposterous. While discussing “247°F” recently, I was discussing the pitfalls of the confined space premise. This movie doesn't make as many unlikely contrivances as that one. Cage diving, when surrounded by sharks, is already a scenario with a degree of danger to it. The idea that something could go wrong doesn't seem improbable. However, once again, how do you get a whole movie out of people sitting in a cage underwater? The girls are repeatedly warned not to leave the cage. The script comes up with one excuse after another to have them do so anyway. Once they run out of air, the story is over, right? And there's not much of a movie here if the leads can't talk to each other? Trying to set up events so specifically that these elements don't impede the story does push the suspension of disbelief. That's only to make the story possible. To get this already dire scenario to escalate makes more wacky shit has to go down. By the time an errand spear gun or fake-out climax occurs, Roberts' screenplay is starting to push pass its luck.

The silliness of the material almost becomes part of the charm, in truth. The viewer can't help but wonder what bullshit excuse will come along to overcome this next narrative road block. A greater problem ultimately faces “47 Meters Down.” Claire Holt and Mandy Moore star as Kate and Lisa. Both give totally serviceable performances, convincing in their physicality and panicking well enough. The two banter nicely enough in the more light-hearted scenes. Roberts is smart enough to forego any melodrama between the two of them. “47 Meters Down” never resorts to bickering between its leads. Unfortunately, it doesn't think up anything else for substance either. Lisa's arc, of overcoming the heartache of being dumped and trying not to be such a closed-off person, is extremely thin stuff. Kate, meanwhile, doesn't even have that much depth to her. “47 Meters Down” surely would've been a tenser thriller if the viewer was more invested in the main characters.

Maybe that doesn't matter so much. Maybe the viewer is meant to simply put themselves in this same situation, to wonder how they'd do if stuck in a cage under water and surrounded by ravenous sharks. Perhaps that kind of what-if thinking doesn't work on me, a person who would absolutely never be out on the water in the first place. Much less under it. I've seen too many shark movies for that! I'm not going in the ocean! Simply as a delivery system for Great White Shark related thrills, “47 Meters Down” does its job. Roberts is skilled enough to get more out of this premise than a weaker filmmaker could. He also knows when to cut it off, the movie not overstaying its welcome. The special effects are strong too, better than your usual direct-to-video sharks-ploitation flick. Putting the movie in theaters was a smart move. It grossed sixty-two million. Roberts came back for a sequel and another follow-up is currently awaiting release. Apparently some DVDs with the title “In the Deep” did make it out there though, becoming collector's items of some value. Not much Dominican color though but I did have a reasonably entertaining time with this one. [6/10]

Warlock III: End of the Innocence (1999)

Look at the poster art for "Warlock III: End of the Innocence." It is, somehow, perfectly representative of the time and place from which it emerged. The release of "Scream" in 1996 revitalized the horror genre by emphasizing a hip youthfulness that, I guess, somebody felt it had been lacking. That meant a succession of movie posters that put the young, photogenic faces of its cast right up there, front and center. Despite cashing in on the title of a cult classic from a prior era in horror, "Warlock III" does exactly that. Paradoxically, the edgy fashion of the actors on-display, their brooding faces, and the pseudo-poetic subtitle suggest a film desperate to appeal to the alternative and goth subcultures of the late nineties, people opposed to the shiny, pretty aesthetic of the mainstream. Notably not among those faces is Julian Sands, the star of the previous "Warlock" films, whose particular screen presence was a big factor in the franchise's success up to that point. All of these elements seem to tell the viewer that TriMark's attempt to revive "Warlock" six years after the last one wanted to appeal to a massive audience but also a niche subculture but not fans of the previous movies this one is ostensibly a sequel to. Seems very counterproductive to me but I guess I'm not a Hollywood marketing guy. 

I say ostensibly because, yes, "The End of the Innocence" shares no connection to either of the previous "Warlock" movies, aside from featuring a blonde British guy in black killing people with magic. Our protagonist is Kris, a college art student. Adopted as a child, she has no knowledge of her true parentage. When she receives news of inheriting a secluded house in the countryside, she takes it as a chance to uncover more information about her birth parents. She goes alone and discovers a dilapidated and isolated home, beginning to have strange dreams and visions of a little girl with a doll. Her boyfriend Michael arrives unannounced and brings their friends with him: The wiccan Robin, the pining Jerry, and the kinky couple Scott and Lisa. All of them are unaware that, some three hundred years earlier, an evil warlock named Philip Covington lived in this home. He attempted to sacrifice a child – seemingly Kris' ancestor – but was imprisoned in the home's walls. Now he is free again. He uses dark magic to convince Kris' friends, one by one, to surrender her to him so that he can make the girl the mother of a child from Hell. 

It is not only the poster design that pinpoints “Warlock III's” existence to the late nineties. Director Eric Freiser's few previous credits include some weird sounding sci-fi short film with Steven Weber and writing the straight-to-TV sequel to “Midnight Run.” He does not show a distinct visual style of his own. Instead, “The End of the Innocence” generally emulates the edgy, heavy metal music video style images popular at that time. The settings are usually underlit, grimy and dank, with lots of green tinting. Many split-second cuts occur, to supposedly scary shit in similarly dismal locations. I hope you think images of little girls in raggedy white dresses, holding an old doll, is the pinnacle of horror, because this movie does. These cuts are often accompanied by the sound effect of an eagle screeching, a quirk the movie abuses so frequently that it becomes hilarious. As if removing any doubt in the viewer mind that “Warlock III” wants desperately to look like a Marilyn Manson music video, the film has a generally overbearing soundtrack. It's mostly uninspired alt-pop more in the Soul Asylum tradition than industrial metal. 

The script for “The End of the Innocence,” by Freiser and TriMark producer Bruce Eisen in his sole writing credit, is quite confusing. The exact connection between Kris and the little girl we keep seeing flashbacks of is never quite defined. How it is known the house is in her name when she doesn't know who her real parents are especially baffles me. I was never quite sure why exactly the Warlock had to corrupt Kris' friends, convincing them to willingly give up on her, for his magical ritual to work. On a more brass tacts level, the story doesn't work entirely because we do not care if Kris' friends sell her out to evil to escape eternal torment. Each one of them are so obnoxiously one-note. Thier kinky sex life is only thing defining Scott and Lisa. Jerry's crush on Kris and fondness of music is brought up a lot but never actually amounts to anything. The how and why of Michael's attachment to Kris is never shown to us. Trying to build actual tension of the dynamic between characters we don't care about, with so little depth to them, leads to a movie without much tension. 

The first “Warlock' displayed a lot of creativity in how it re-fashioned vintage folklore about witches into an action/horror thriller. The second at least had a nutty imagination to it, in engineering gruesome and wacky special effects scenes. Sadly, the third film seriously lacks much any imagination at all. Compared to the road trip structure of the first two, sealing this “Warlock” entirely within a spooky old mansion – classical a horror movie setting though that may be – is disappointing. Unfortunately, said spooky house is mostly composed of nondescript hallways and generic dingy basement. The sequel cannot deliver the goods as a simple slasher movie either. There is one “Warlock”-style death scene, where the wizard turns a girl to glass before shattering her with some underwhelming CGI effects. Other than that, he doesn't do much besides set people on fire, rip throats out, make some one old or rotting, or just stick people in S&M torture chambers. Lame shit, man. 

Subbing in for Julian Sands is Bruce Payne. He's not bad. Payne has played bad guys a lot and can bring a certain degree of villainous charm, dark charisma, or brute force intimidation to the part. He looks good in black leather while gazing wickedly from the darkness. He simply doesn't bring the hint of chaotic glee that Julian Sands had. In fact, this Warlock seems to be having a fairly miserable time. “Hellraiser's” Ashley Laurence co-stars as Kris and she's merely serviceable in the part. Her presence draws inevitable comparisons to all the shitty “Hellraiser” sequels that came out in the nineties. I suppose we should be thankful that the Warlock didn't become like Pinhead, forced to strut his way through increasingly dire direct-to-video slop. There have been a few other attempts to expand this franchise – a Sega Genesis video game to tie-in with part two, a four issue comic book inexplicably published in 2009 – but otherwise this one successfully killed the franchise. [4/10]

Alien: Earth: Emergence

“Alien: Earth” starts to develop an actual sense of movement in its seventh episode but only a little. Disturbed by the brain-hacking that was done to Nibs and the apparent death of Isaac/Toodles, Wendy decides to round up a couple of the other Lost Boys and flee the island with her brother. I only say a “couple” because Slightly and Curly are involved in another subplot, seemingly forgotten by our heroine. They drag the face-hugged body of Arthur out into the jungle, walk around with him under false pretenses, and then gawk in horror as a creature bursts from his chest. This does not please Morrow and the Yutani team of commandos that have landed on the island. They end up getting captured by Prodigy's forces, who now have the new Chestburster in their possession. Good for them too, because Wendy just let the other Xenomorph out of its cage. It's okay, for her anyway, because the alien seems to obey her commands. Meanwhile, Boy Kavalier gets excited about a sheep. 

I hate to say something dramatic like “This episode of television broke me” but... At the very least, I think “Emergence” has successfully broke any interest I have in “Alien: Earth.” After six hours of watching the show spin its various wheels, we are starting to get some level of pay-off. Unfortunately, more must always be left for the next hour, to insure that streaming service subscribers remain ready to tune in next time. Thus, Morrow's entire scheme to manipulate Slightly into getting a Facehugger to impregnate someone and to sneak the invetro Xenomorph off the island amounts to the a big fat bunch of nothing. The hyper-confident cyborg mercenary immediately gets taken capture. This could have been avoided if the gestation period of the Xenomorphs, once they are inside a person, followed any sort of logical schedule. Instead, the aliens only burst out when the plot deems it dramatic enough, meaning some bad timing screws over the scheme the villain has been building up for almost the entire season. 

Much of the clusterfuckery that ensues in “Emergence” could have been avoided if the characters in this show did not routinely trust important decisions to children and idiots. Despite repeatedly telling us how brilliant the hybrids are, the Lost Boys have mostly acted like dumb-ass kids. After Toodles' inglamorous death last episode, this installment sees Slightly reduced to tears, Nibs have a complete psychological breakdown into anti-social behavior, and Wendy reaching what seems to be her rebellious teenage years early. Perhaps putting the minds of dying ten years old in super robot bodies was a bad idea! The obvious implication is that Boy Kavalier is, like all super-rich lords of industry and wannabe scientist, a complete fucking moron. When he discovers that the eyeball parasite can do complex math, his reaction is that they most put the creature into a human being next. His stern British man-servant stares at him in response, well aware that this Muskian man-child is seemingly preparing an insidious alien take-over. This is why insane Roman emperors got stabbed by their guards all the time.

This is, one assumes, meant to operate as commentary on the very stupid cyberpunk future we are actually living in. However, as I previously stated, simply pointing out that billionaire tech lords are all impulsive, entitled, idiotic children does not qualify as commentary to me anymore. Truthfully, though, I'm not upset. Because I don't care. Because I hate Boy Kavalier and his slumpy-eyed super-sheep. I hate Nibs. More accurately, I had no feelings about her at all until she started screaming, jumping, and tearing people's jaws off. Most of all, I hate that Wendy now has a pet xenomorph. She signals to it with in its own language, the beast attacking at her command and bowing its dome towards her. It is, in my opinion, all very silly and far too self-important in its ambitions to be accepted as camp. “Emergence” suggests two things to me. That this season's arc was made up as it went along. And that the people involved in writing this show were not interested in, nor especially respectful of, the same elements of the “Alien” franchise that I am. [4/10]

Beyond Belief: Kirby / Dust / Malibu Cop / A Joyful Noise / The Hooded Chair

I have enough nostalgia for “Beyond Belief? Fact or Fiction” to give it a second look this year. Once again, Jonathan Frakes presents five short stories, some of them being entirely fictional and some of them being extremely loosely based on true event. “Kirby” is named for the animatronic gorilla a special effects technician has built for an upcoming film. The producer treats Kirby and his creator poorly, resulting in the robot gorilla taking revenge when the man comes to the studio by himself. “Dust” follows a pair of college students who spot an attractive woman trying to break into a house. They decide to help her enter only to learn, the next day, that the home is abandoned. “Malibu Cop” sees a police detective investigating a murder on the beach he lives on. “A Joyful Noise” concerns a church choir group who all suffer unexpected delays on the way to practice, the same day the building happens to burn down. “The Hooded Chair” is about a rich collector buying a chair said to bring death to anyone who sits in it, a curse he soon discovers is real. 

“Beyond Belief?” is a show that essentially knee-capped itself with its own premise. By squeezing five stories into each episode, it necessitated each segment had to be short, extremely simple, and straight to the point. This led to most scenarios feeling like re-tellings of old urban legends and ghost tales, setting up a situation right away before immediately subverting it. This is very true of “Dust,” essentially a variation on the Vanishing Hitchhiker premise. The minute the two guys – one of which is played by the wacky room mate from the college seasons of "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" – spot the strange acting lady, you know she's a ghost. At least the way this is revealed, via their foot steps appearing in the dust on the floor, is mildly meat. “A Joyful Noise” plays out like something your mom would re-post on Facebook, a faux-inspirational and reportedly true event that proves that God is good and the universe is magical or something. Pretty lame but at least the actors, playing broad stereotypes of church-going black folks, are having fun.

Such an obvious “shot, chaser” construction to the stories makes a premise like “Malibu Cop” entirely unworkable. The second the sleazy cop mentions that he's had trouble sleeping, the audience puts two and two together. That leaves only two segments in this installment that kind of worked for me. “Kirby” is notable for being directed by Alec Gillis and featuring Tom Woodruff Jr. as the robot gorilla. One imagines that the veteran creature effects team probably have dealt with asshole producers who pushed them around like this. The characters are as one-note as can be, with the puppeteer being an innocent little angel and the producer a total jerk. However, an animatronic gorilla on the prowl does give this segment some novelty. As for “The Hooded Chair,” it's also extremely one-note and corny. Most obviously in the twist ending about the famous historical figure the chair is connected to. However, at least it has the kind of arrogant protagonist that deserves to be humbled by a magical object. The chair is pretty creepy looking too, as far as chairs go. [6/10]

Halloween 2025: September 23rd

 

Night of Dark Shadows (1971)

“House of Dark Shadows” did alright at the box office, well enough for MGM to green-light a sequel. The soap opera it had spun off from, meanwhile, experienced a steep decline in popularity shortly after the film's release. Some attribute this to an unpopular story line, that saw Barnabas Collins falling under the sway of off-screen elder gods called the Leviathans. Others blame the movie's success for the show falling off. The idea being that parents took their kids to see the “Dark Shadows” movie, were scandalized by the bloody content, and then forbid their children from watching the show. Whatever the reason, “Dark Shadows” would air its final episode on April 2nd of 1971, the series abruptly wrapping up all its lingering story lines with a hastily recorded voice-over narration. This did not stop production on a follow-up to “House of Dark Shadows.” Dan Curtis originally wanted to do a direct sequel but Jonathan Frid, fearful of typecasting, decided he wasn't going to play Barnabas any more. The decision was made to center the sequel, then entitled “Curse of Dark Shadows,” around the show's other male lead, the young and handsome Quentin Collins. The result was a film that did mediocre business and seemed to disappoint fans, who got a largely stand-alone story with loose connections to the series. But, hey, I watched the first one so might as well give “Night of Dark Shadows” a shot too.

Modernist painter Quentin Collins and his wife, Tracy, arrive at his stately family manor, Collinswood. The sprawling mansion, which Quentin has recently inherited, is oddly empty. Save for eerie housekeeper Carlotta and stuttering groundskeeper Gerald. Quentin and Tracy's friends, Alex and Claire, move onto the grounds and inform them of the residence's long history of haunting. In the tower room, Quentin discovers a portrait of a blonde woman from a hundred years prior. It was painted by his ancestor, Charles Collins, and is of his mistress, Angelique. (His brother's wife.) After the infidelity was discovered, Angelique was convicted of witchcraft and hanged from a tree before the mansion, her body left to rot. Charles, meanwhile, was entombed alive. It's not long afterwards that Quentin begins to act strangely, isolating himself in the tower and becoming aggressive towards Tracy. The couple soon realize they are the victims of ghosts, witchcraft, and a century old conspiracy of reincarnation. 

How much “Night of the Dark Shadows” connects to the series is a question I can't truly answer. However, the film does have more than a few things in common with “Burnt Offerings,” the haunted house movie Dan Curtis would direct four years later. In both, an unassuming married couple move into an aged, isolated mansion. In both, the spirit of a prior inhabitant begins to possess and effect the behavior of the current residents. Both movies also feature scenes where the male lead attempts to drown someone he loves in a swimming pool. “Night of Dark Shadows” doesn't have an old woman hiding in an upstairs bedroom but an elevated location, the tower studio in this case, is also the source of the haunting here. The parallels are probably coincidental, as “Burnt Offerings” was based on a novel that wasn't published until 1973. However, it is intriguing that Curtis would be attracted to these themes again. The connection between the two films can probably best be explained by Curtis obviously being a fan of New England set ghost stories and creepy, sprawling manors. 

 

A primary idea in both “Night of Dark Shadows” and “Burnt Offerings” is the question of how well we know – or are capable of knowing – the people we love. David Selby and Kate Jackson, as Quentin and Tracy, have an easy-going chemistry that seems genuine. Their romance is establish with scenes of gentle flirting and happy co-existing. When Quentin suddenly turns violent, it's a shock to his wife. In an earlier scene, the husband is happy to cuddle in bed. After his personality shift, he demands sex from her and nearly assaults her. She makes excuse for his suddenly violent behavior at first but eventually she has to flee to a friend's house. It reads a lot like a woman realizing the man she thought she could trust is actually an abusive piece of shit. It's a powerful idea to root a horror story in. Though a supernatural cause is behind this abrupt change in the movie, in real life, people lie and manipulate and slowly reveal their true colors only after some time has passed.

Like all ghost stories, “Night of Dark Shadows” is also a tale about how the past is much more alive than it seems. Quentin's ancestor was a cad, an adulterer with no honor for his family who dabbled in witchcraft. His descendant is a laid-back, modern man. However, the sexism of the past is not that far gone. (Though the main antagonistic ghost being a sexually vivacious woman certainly muddles any attempts at a gender theory-informed reading.) In “Night of Dark Shadows,” the history of the location is heavily whispered about. Carlotta, the housekeeper, is always talking about the backstory of the family. Literal ghosts linger around,  reminding the living of the tragic events that happened here. The ghosts taking possession of Quentin and others is the most literal form of the mistakes of the recent past echoing into our present lives. A logical story to tell when your location is an old house, Lyndhurst Mansion in the Hudson River Valley providing both the exteriors and interiors of Collinswood this time. 

Whether “Night of Dark Shadows” can assemble these potent ideas and bitchin' location into a satisfying motion picture is a matter of opinion. The film has a sleepy, relaxed pace that is further emphasized by a melodic but sparse piano score. Lots of the story is composed of folks simply talking to each other and hanging out in the house. The backstory of Angelique's death is explained via an extended expository monologue and some not exactly natural seeming voice-over. The predictable but otherwise effective ending crashes into on-screen text, which is an awkward device. The role the housekeeper and groundskeeper play in what happens feels a little like a narrative ass-pull. There's also some pretty cheesy special effects, during an attempt nocturnal visitation from Angelique's ghost. However, for all its flaws, “Night of Dark Shadows” does have some brooding gothic atmosphere that attracts me immediately, its slowly evolving story pulling me in. 

The weird short-cuts in the plotting and narrative gaps are easily explained. Curtis' original cut of the movie was over two hours long. The studio asked him to cut the runtime down to a little over ninety minutes, supposedly giving Curits all of 24 hours to complete the task. The missing footage has been located but a restoration of the director's intended vision has yet to emerge. Maybe that version would've been better received in 1971. With the show canceled and the second movie considered a disappointment, the “Dark Shadows” franchise was more-or-less over. A rebooted version of the show, with an entirely new cast, started in 1991. Fans liked it but it was often pre-empted because of news coverage of the Gulf War, ultimately being canceled after only twelve episodes. A pilot for another remake was produced in 2004 but never went to series. Of course, there was the Tim Burton movie in 2012, which was not well liked by anyone. The hardcore “Dark Shadows” devotees – a shrinking but still very much alive community – has had to rely on audio dramas, dramatic readings, novels, and comics to see the original story continued. Which I guess is more than a lot of other cult classics get. While those hoping for more vampire action are sure to be disappointed, and it's nowhere near as scary as “Burnt Offerings,” “Night of Dark Shadows” is a decent haunted house story if you can get on its groove. [7/10]

 

The Girl in the Yellow Jumper (2020)

Here in America, we take a lot of shit for granted. When “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction” came out in the nineties, it didn't only launch Quentin Tarantino into Hollywood's stratosphere. It also made his particular approach – stylized dialogue, non-linear narratives, neo-noir gangland plotting, extensive references and influence from seventies exploitation films – an immediately imitative style. Tarantino wannabes were still popping up in the new millennium, though the wave had mostly burnt itself out by then. However, clearly, the “Kill Bill” scribe's influence is still being felt. Not only in Hollywood either. In 2018, Ugandan filmmaker Loukman Ali would shoot a low-budget project that fused the crime thriller, gory horror, dialogue-driven mystery, and some extremely evident influence from Tarantino. While most Uganda films don't receive much attention abroad, “The Girl in the Yellow Jumper” wound up on Netflix and has won some international notice.

An off-duty officer named Patrick is driving an old man, hand-cuffed in his back seat, to the nearest police station many miles away. Patrick is investigating the Cigarette Butt Killer, a serial murderer who has been slaughtering whole families, putting a cigarette out on their bodies, and always leaving one witness alive. Patrick believes the old man to be such a witness. While driving down an isolated road, he spots a man hitchhiking. He wears a yellow hoodie, has a bandaged right hand, and seems disheveled. He introduces himself as Jim. After some conversation, Patrick goads Jim into telling him his story. He says he's a newspaper cartoonist who was kidnapped by two women in yellow hoodies, extremist Christians who took offense to a cartoon he published. They tortured him, cut off several of his fingers, and attempted to bury him alive. Jim managed to escape, killing one assailant and damaging the others' car. This is what the man tells the cop anyway. The bloody truth will be revealed soon enough. 

More than once, I've heard aspiring filmmakers say the ideal premise for a first feature is two guys, sitting in a room, talking. Movies are hard to make, taking a lot of money, people, and time. A set-up that limits the numbers of warm bodies and locations necessary makes a project more achievable, in theory anyway. “The Girl in the Yellow Jumper” obeys this rule, for a while. Most of its runtime is devoted to two guys, sitting in a car, talking. The hard part is making such a microscopic premise interesting. Loukman Ali and his team succeed by following another rule, inherent in the noir genre: Nobody can be trusted. From the minute “Jim” appears, you wonder what his story is. His injured hand and visibly shaken state implies something happened to him. The story he tells is elaborate and hard to believe. At the same time, the man who picked him up seems kind of shifty too. For a supposed police officer, he has a busted up phone and a shitty car. He seems weirdly unaware of current pop culture, not knowing who Jim Carry or Bobi Wine are but throwing out references to “Diff'rent Strokes” and Brenda Fassie. That's odd, right? And what is up with the old guy in the back seat, who never speaks, never has his story explained, and is prone to coughing fits? How does this connect with the serial killer mentioned in the first scene? Does it? In other words, “The Girl in the Yellow Jumper” makes up for a lack of resources by being intriguing. The viewer has questions immediately and is willing to stick around to see if they are answered. 

Another element that keeps you hooked is that the conversations these two guys have are interesting. Both men are prone to going on digressions. Patrick tells an anecdote about an old woman, a band of robberies, and a thunderstorm. This presents the idea that someone innocent looking can be dangerous. That increases the tension in the car, as you wonder who is the scorpion and who is the frog here. I bring that fable up because a television broadcast, early in the film, mentions it to during his own meandering conversation. The most obvious ode to Tarantino comes during “Girl in the Yellow Jumper's” most colorful moments. That would be when a passing mention of the Ugandan version of the playground game people my age unfortunately called Chinese jump rope segues into an animated presentation on the rules. Later, another animated interlude explains why being shot in the kneecaps is especially painful. These moments are presented by an man in a lab coat with a deep voice, making them feel like official proclamations. Oh, did I mention that “The Girl in the Yellow Jumper” claims to be based on a true story? Which it reminds us of during an outrageous moment? It all captures the feeling of a talk between two friends, full of asides and digressions. The film has that same peppy energy and rhythmic flow to it. 

Which is to say that “The Girl in the Yellow Jumper” is easy and fun to watch, drawing the viewer in quickly and making us wonder where all of this is going. Sometimes, films like this can grab your attention before fumbling the reveals. Luckily, Ali has some tricks up his sleeve to make this game of misdirection worth it. The last third kicks off with a hell of twist, cleverly revealed, that flips what we thought was true before on its head. This precedes more narrative swerves before the end. Now, some of these surprises work better than others. The bloody climax is probably the most easily predictable event in the film, the film unable to ultimately catch all the balls it throws up in the air. However, Ali's script does a good job on paying off on many of the small, specific details set-up earlier. The position of a bag, a phone access code mentioned, a door that doesn't open right away: All of these are seemingly trivial details that end up being important lately. I enjoy a film that rewards you for paying attention like that. 

What holds the film together is a strong cast and a confident visual style. Michael Wawuyo Jr. as Jim and Maurice Kirya as Patrick are watchable leads, who deliver their dialogue with specificity and realistic vigor. The cinematography, from Naizi Nasser, makes great use of the warm, earthy colors of the Ugandan countryside. Orange sunlight and grimy, industrial settings creates a particular feeling. The opening, in which Jim is abducted by the title character, is stylishly shot and cut, building to a proper climax. When Jim describes the torture he endured, the resulting sequence feels like one of the better “Saw” rip-offs I've seen. It's tense, draws attention to the physical pain the character is in, but also doesn't annoy or repel the viewer. The editing, also from Ali, is tight and fast-paced. This comes in handy when the film bends towards being an action movie at times. Peppered in there are memorable moments of stillness, such as an owl roosting on a branch or a comical billboard. Truthfully, only some crappy looking digital squibs and muzzle flashes point to the limited money the filmmakers had. “The Girl in the Yellow Jumper” looks pretty damn good.

The film is good enough that I can overlook its biggest mistake: A jumper refers to a style of garment, usually cut in a dress shape, that is without sleeves or a collar and is held up over the shoulders by two straps. In England and other parts of the world, the word refers to what we Yanks call a sweater. The young lady central to this motion picture's plot wears neither a jumper nor a sweater. Instead, she has a hoodie on, a noticeably sleeved and collared top with an adjustable hood and large pockets. It is yellow though, I can't complain about that. Seriously though, “The Girl in the Yellow Jumper” is a fun, thrilling, tight flick that captures your attention and keeps it throughout. The script keeps you guessing and is smart enough not to reveal everything either. The cast is strong. The visuals are great. Loukman Ali has continued to work with Netflix, on an anthology series retelling African folktales. I'll have to check that out. He's clearly got the stuff, his influences evident but not beholden to them and delivered with a proper jolt of adrenaline. [7/10]

 

The Hitchhiker: Face to Face

HBO had been around since 1972 and had been broadcasting original programming since 1974. However, 1983 is when the premium network would truly start to invest in scripted programs. That year, they debuted "Philip Marlow, Private Eye," "Not Necessarily the News," "Fraggle Rock," and "The Hitchhiker." The latter most series is the one that really focused on how this wasn't TV, it was HBO. A typical example is "Face to Face," from the second season. It concerns Dr. Christopher Hamilton, an L.A. plastic surgeon so renowned that he's had multiple write-ups in People Magazine. He is well aware of his status, using it to sleep with any woman he desires. His skills attract the attention of Nina, a trans-woman eager to undergo plastic surgery to soften her harsh facial features. Dr. Hamilton spends the night before the surgery having cocaine-fueled sex with a movie star, being thoroughly hungover the next day. This leads to him horribly botching Nina's surgery, leaving her deformed. Presumably to avoid any malpractice demands, the doctor decides to flee to Paris shortly afterwards.... When a comely flight stewardess catches his eye. 

"Face to Face" is mostly a standard morality tale, of an asshole getting his just desserts for his hubris and selfish behavior.  Dr. Hamilton melodramatically introduces himself as a "sculptor of the flesh," comparing himself to both an artist and God in short order. He looks at every face and sees something to improve, deeming himself the arbiter of all beauty. Naturally, pride cometh before the fall and the story bends towards a properly ironic punishment for his ego and womanizing. Like many stories of this type, "Face to Face" criticizes these hedonistic habits while happily showcasing the villain protagonist's bad behavior. He sleeps with a pretty blonde assistant surgeon and later snorts some lines off Sybil Danning's boobs. With a soundtrack mostly composed of sultry saxophones, "Face to Face" is happy to play up the lurid details. The slow-motion close-ups of Danning in red lingerie thoroughly moves this into the "erotic thriller" subgenre. It is a bit of a surprise that Dr. Hamilton is played by an aging Robert Vaughn. Not exactly a sex symbol by 1984, which is probably part of the point but the script doesn't truly comment on it. It is surprising to see an actor of Vaughn's relative standing engage in such sleazy antics. Perhaps a chance to nuzzle the lauded bosoms of the August 1983 Playboy cover girl was too much to resist even for the Man from U.N.C.L.E. 

Inside this otherwise standard tale of flesh and blood is a shockingly sympathetic portrayal of a trans-woman. Now, "Face to Face" is not that ahead of its time. Nina is played by a cis actress, "Videodrome's" Sonja Smits. The camera lingers on her feminine features before depicting people being visibly repulsed by her rugged face. This societal monsterdom is taken further after the disfiguring surgery. While Nina is the avenging angel in the last act, the script still plays into the destructive stereotype of trans-women as deceptive figures out to “trick” hetero men. Despite hardly being inclusive, the script does give Nina a moving monologue halfway through. In it, she describes having lived her life knowing that her body didn't match her soul. How her parents and friends rejected her after she came out, how fetishists pursue her, how society at large rejects her, how eager she is to finally look in the mirror and see herself. Terms like gender dysphoria or gender-affirming care were as far away from the mainstream as possible in 1984 but this episode still reflects them fairly accurately. If nothing else, Nina is ultimately depicted as the story's hero, a queer figure striking back at the sexist, ragingly masculine authority figures that tell people like her how to live her life. That makes “Face to Face” both a pretty sleazy, silly, and disposable half-hour and also way more thoughtful than you'd expect. A strange dynamic but a welcomed one. [7/10]

 

The Addams Family: Morticia the Decorator

 

The matriarch of the Addams Family adds to her growing list of professions with “Morticia, the Decorator.” The sight of Fester polishing his head prompts her interest in the National Beautification Program. She decides to take up interior design as a passion. Gomez asks their next door neighbor, insurance agent Joe Digby, to insure their art collection. The outrageous offer of a million dollars gets Joe's attention. His wife, however, is terrified of the Addams. Through a series of misunderstandings, involving the trading back and forth of a stuffed vulture and a Sheraton sideboard, the Digbys end up getting volunteered to be the showcase home for Morticia's new passion. Of course, the vanilla Digbys find this whole situation quite traumatic. More shenanigans ensue as they attempt to wiggle out of the agreement without offending the Addams' sensibilities. 

As far as my recollection goes, the Digbys are at least the third next door neighbors the Addams have gone through over the course of the series. “Morticia, the Decorator” does provide an explanation that is, in retrospect, rather obvious: Gomez and the gang have a bad habit of literally scaring them off. The Digbys have only been around for three weeks, according to their conversation here. This presents a rather amusing visual, of the Addams' desolate yard and gothic mansion being smack-dab in the middle of an otherwise typical suburb. That contrast does lead to some amusing gags here. Such as Morticia transforming the Digby's garden into a literal desert, which is revealed through a good ol' fashion Gilligan Flip. 

However, the show returning once again to the worn-out set-up of the normies getting freaked out by the Addams means this is mostly a fairly standard episode. Eddie Quillan, making his fourth appearance on “The Addams Family” as his fourth character, gets a funny reaction when Gomez drops that million dollar offer. The oddly named Jeff Donnell – who you probably don't remember as Aunt May from the misbegotten seventies live-action “Spider-Man” series – has much more expected reactions as his wife. Having said that, there are a few decent gags here. Morticia busting out a vulture imitation without warning got me to chuckle, as did her reaction to what she finds in the vulture cage. Gomez' art collection and his wife's suggestions for the color scheme of the Digbys' home got me to chuckle too. Otherwise, about as middle of the road of an episode of “The Addams Family” as you could find. [5/10]