Watched on Saturday January 4, 2025.

Watched on Friday January 3, 2025.

Still my choice of Linklater's best film. Slightly soured this time by the realization that scumbag Alex Jones has a part. I hope his royalties have been garnished.

Louise Brooks is really bringing a new, naturalistic type of acting to this movie. It's like listening to the first crooner, in a band full of acoustic cylinder recording artists.

Pre-code before "Pre-code," this tale of a woman who tries to make her way as a kept woman, then a bride to an abusive sugar daddy, then a fugitive from the law, and finally a doomed street-walker, is precisely the kind of film that The Story of Temple Drake is implicitly arguing against, just a few years later. The marketing material and even the title for Pandora's Box salaciously sells the story of a woman whose beauty seeds discord wherever she goes ... from today's perspective, of course, it's the story of a sequence of horrible men and what they do to her, whether well-meaning or not.

For someone on the lam from the law, she waited WAY too long to change her hairstyle.

Watched on Tuesday December 31, 2024.

Watched on Tuesday December 31, 2024.

Watched on Sunday December 29, 2024.

Watched on Saturday December 28, 2024.

Watched on Friday December 27, 2024.

Watched on Friday December 27, 2024.

Watched again as part of THE HAUNTED SEASON on Shudder

Watched on Tuesday December 24, 2024.

Watched on Monday December 23, 2024.

Watched on Monday December 23, 2024.

Should be required viewing for every Internet edgelord. Hitchcock reaching from the grave to speak directly to brain-rotted Trumpist America.

Watched on Saturday December 21, 2024.

Watched on Saturday December 21, 2024.

Watched on Saturday December 21, 2024.

Watched on Friday December 20, 2024.

Watched on Thursday December 19, 2024.

Watched on Wednesday December 18, 2024.

Watched on Monday December 16, 2024.

Watched on Monday December 16, 2024.

Watched on Sunday December 15, 2024.

Watched on Sunday December 15, 2024.

This review may contain spoilers.

FLOW is fantastic. It's told as a myth, so take my advice and stop trying to figure out what's "really" happening or why early on*, and just settle in for the ride. The somewhat dated-looking CGI gave me pause when I first saw clips of this, but it doesn't dim the power of the story here at ALL. Really fun.

*Which is not to say I don't HAVE a guess as to what's "really" happening: The moon has been knocked into a long-period eccentric orbit with a MUCH lower perigee than it has now. This causes long-period extreme tides. Humans are probably still on Earth, but they had to abandon the temperate and tropical zones, and they live near the poles. No, this doesn't explain what happened to the bird.

Watched on Friday December 13, 2024.

Watched on Friday December 13, 2024.

I still don't know what we're doing here, but this was a well-made and compelling series. It has room to breathe, and for the most part uses it well. Wish they'd used their time as well in THE BATMAN.

This was a re-watch, because we've been watching THE PENGUIN and wanted to refresh our memory. This is only 2 years old and I barely remembered a thing. Yet I have nothing specific to complain about it except the length, and that it represents several trips too many to the grim 'n' gritty well for this character. Other than that it's pretty good! Raised my rating a star this time.

Pattinson's Batman is kind of a tool but you can see why. Some of the needle drops (Nirvana) annoyed me the first time I saw this. Now I kinda see what they're doing and I'm OK with it.

The ending is where this shines: Bruce's realization that his whole I AM VENGEANCE shtick wasn't going to work for him anymore, at the end of the film, got past me on the first watch. Now I think it's cool how it implies THIS Batman might become a sunnier one, later.

Bale is still the best movie Batman, on the whole. But this is a lot better than THE DARK KNIGHT RISES.

Watched on Tuesday December 10, 2024.

Watched on Tuesday December 10, 2024.

Watched on Monday December 9, 2024.

I adore the Archers' films, and I dig Hoffmann's stories. Sadly, I also deeply lack an appreciation for opera, and lord knows I've tried (Grendel, The Magic Flute, The Black Rider, and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg if that counts). So this was a bit of an epic struggle for me. The filming, staging, and color are absolutely magnificent. But the story was somewhat opaque when each line is repeated three or four times, and by the end I've forgotten what the beginning is about. Plot points get buried in tortured translation, so you're not quite sure what the role of the courtesan is. But then at the end there's that incandescently wonderful dissolve between the florally embroidered stage curtain and the top-down interior shot of the tavern. Damn it Powell & Pressburger, you've got me onboard again!

I'll watch this again with Scorsese's commentary, because that has been helpful before in helping me gain an appreciation.

This seems a very mannered and restrained movie from Lubitsch, doesn't it? I'm used to the Lubitsch of TO BE OR NOT TO BE, or DESIGN FOR LIVING. This was much less madcap, less daring, almost 50s in feel. Still very enjoyable.

An amusing bit: Don Ameche in age makeup at the beginning and the end looks exactly like Don Ameche. When he first appears without that makeup in the film, he looks *nothing* like the Ameche I know. He looks like Billy Zane. Two points: 1) It's amazing how powerfully we construct the image of these actors in our head based on when in their career we first encounter them (TRADING PLACES, in my case). 2) This is a credit to the people that worked on the aging makeup. They did a terrific job.

I know the Coen Bros. don't do sequels, but I'm just saying, the little Lebowski would be 26 years old now.

Watched on Tuesday December 3, 2024.

Watched on Monday December 2, 2024.

Watched on Sunday December 1, 2024.

I don't know too much about the deep past of either side of my family. I feel like this movie was a key to unlocking some of the mysteries of the midwestern Lutheran side. Not in its details, but in its world- and character-building. Really great film, I'm sorry it took me this long to get around to it. Thanks to the American Cinematheque for showing it in 35mm!

Watched on Saturday November 30, 2024.

Fascinating to see a whole movie about the details of cargo transportation that was made BEFORE containerization. This is fun. Ida Lupino really chews up the scenery, and it's terrific!

The original short has a lot of the fun of the feature film's first third, without the rape subplot/jokes. Thus, I really liked it. Seat-of-the-pants filmmaking.

Watched on Monday November 25, 2024.

Watched on Sunday November 24, 2024.

Watched on Saturday November 23, 2024.

Watched on Friday November 22, 2024.

I mean, the guy is all over my Facebook feed, so eventually I was always going to just watch the whole special. It’s pretty good!

Watched on Friday November 22, 2024.

Absolutely incredible looking. Peak trance cinema, but still teaches you all about Gaudi's work. The opportunity to just SEE so much of his amazing structures, without any dialogue or narration to get in the way, was initially frustrating but eventually welcome and freeing. I'll be watching this again.

You would think Warner Archive would publish this list somewhere, but I sure can't find it. I pored over the show notes from Warner-affiliated podcast THE EXTRAS and assembled this list of everything I could find that got released in 2024. If I have time, I'll append Amazon links in the notes. I don't know why I do this. Some kind of curatorial urge.

• Cabin in the Sky
• A Day at the Races
• Joe's Apartment
• Faithless
• The Prince and the Pauper
• Rover Dangerfield
• The Good, the Bad and Huckleberry Hound
• The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones
• Rockin' with Judy Jetson
• Scooby-Doo! and the Reluctant Werewolf

...plus 62 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

All my challenges since 2020 have relied heavily on streaming. Enough! Time to watch some of these discs filling my shelves! Every week, I will pick a feature film on disc that I have never seen.* I have to watch it on the media I own, so for example I watched Week 1's selection (LEGEND) on a 1990s DVD, refusing to scamper online to find it in 4K. Also, I'll pick each film the week I watch it, instead of front-loading a list for the year. I'm also open to all genres this time, not just horror. This will be an interesting change from the (very worthy) challenges I've completed in the past. Many director's commentaries and featurettes await! Feel free to join me with the "2024 Disc Challenge" tag!

*OK so I have seen EATING RAOUL before, but that was 40 years ago and I've forgotten it.

1. Legend

   Studio DVD from the 1990s

2. Yojimbo

   Criterion BRD, part of the YOJIMBO/SANJURO boxed set.

3. I Shot Jesse James

   Eclipse DVD, part of the SAMUEL FULLER FIRST FILMS boxed set.

4. After the Rehearsal

   Criterion BRD, part of the INGMAR BERGMAN CINEMA boxed set.

5. Identikit

   Severin BRD, part of the HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN: RARITIES boxed set

6. Watership Down

   Criterion BRD.

7. The Freshman

   Criterion BRD.

8. The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?

   Severin BRD, part of the Ray Dennis Steckler box set.

9. Eating Raoul

   Criterion BRD.

10. The Wind Rises

    Touchstone / Studio Ghibli BRD.

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Shudder doesn't list these in their HQ, so I'll do it.

• Get Away
• Grafted
• Dark Match

Obviously there are plenty of big 2024 films I haven't seen by 12/31. This is a snapshot of how things stood at the end of the year.

1. The Substance
2. The Brutalist
3. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
4. Nosferatu
5. Thelma
6. Flow
7. Anora
8. Film is Dead. Long Live Film!
9. Serpent's Path
10. Chain Reactions

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Time for this year's challenge! This is based on Zack Long's annual horror challenge. This will be my third trip around the sun with Zack's crew. My goal is to a) watch movies I haven't seen before, and b) preferentially select discs I own or movies available on streaming. I haven't seen any of these films prior to 2025. Click Read Notes to see the categories.

1. The Man Who Laughs

   Silent Horror

2. Godzilla Raids Again

   50s Creature Features!

3. Twisted Nerve

   Proto-Slasher.

4. Legend of the Mountain

   A Movie I've Never Heard Of

5. Phobe: The Xenophobic Experiments

   Shot on Video

6. The Phantom of the Opera

   British Horror

7. Kill, Baby... Kill!

   Witches

8. A Bay of Blood

   Giallo

9. Stoker

   Gothic Horror

10. Starry Eyes

    Cults

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

All the movies exhibited on Shudder's show THE LAST DRIVE-IN WITH JOE BOB BRIGGS (2018-). I think I only ever saw four or five episodes of Joe Bob's Drive-In Theater on The Movie Channel back in the 1980s, but they stuck with me. (Surprisingly I never saw Monstervision.) So when I noticed this on Shudder, I was intrigued, and found a new favorite show.

Not depicted: In October 2021 they celebrated THE WALKING DEAD by showing a double feature of S1E1 and S1E2. Those TV eps aren't listed in Letterboxd, so they're not here. But if they were, they'd be wedged between TERROR TRAIN and ICE CREAM MAN.

Other such anomalies include:
TWD: Dead City S1E1: Mid 2023
TWD: Daryl Dixon S1E1: Late 2023
TV-edit of HALLOWEEN for Fear Fest: Late 2023
TWD: The Ones Who Live S1E1: Early 2024

• Tourist Trap
• Sleepaway Camp
• Rabid
• The Prowler
• Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama
• Daughters of Darkness
• Blood Feast
• Basket Case
• Re-Animator
• Demons

...plus 165 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Shudder HQ doesn't post these lists here, so I'll do it myself!

• Destroy All Neighbors
• Suitable Flesh
• Dario Argento: Panico
• Skeletons in the Closet
• History of Evil
• Satanic Hispanics
• You'll Never Find Me
• Baghead
• Late Night with the Devil
• Infested

...plus 22 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Not all horror films, but a lot of them, are seriously on my wavelength with their music choices. For some it's the soundtrack, for others, the score. Might be just one track that hit me (Raw), or I play the entire album on repeat (Suspiria 2018).

• Blood and Black Lace
• Suspiria
• Halloween
• Nosferatu the Vampyre
• Cannibal Holocaust
• The Thing
• The Return of the Living Dead
• Psychos in Love
• Santa Sangre
• It Follows

...plus 28 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• The Haunted Hotel
• The Pumpkin Race
• The Ouija Board
• Koko Sees Spooks
• Just Spooks
• Alice's Mysterious Mystery
• Slick Sleuths
• Pete's Haunted House
• Sure-Locked Homes
• The Fresh Lobster

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Updated, corrected, chronological and complete list. Now containing all the shorts!

• Salem's Lot
• Devara: Part 1
• The Babadook
• The Nightingale
• Hush
• Daniela Forever
• Southern Comfort
• Lake Mungo
• Sky Peals
• Total Recall

...plus 113 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My personal choices, indexed to my (imperfect) use of the Letterboxd star rating system. Last updated 9/14/24.

• Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
• Godzilla Minus One
• The ABCs of Book Banning
• Poor Things
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
• Killers of the Flower Moon
• Gold and Mud
• Hundreds of Beavers
• Bones and All
• Prey

...plus 88 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• To Fire You Come at Last
• We Always Find Ourselves in the Sea
• Our Selves Unknown
• Psychomania
• The Enchanted
• Swimmer
• The Legend of Hillbilly John
• The White Reindeer
• A Witch Drum
• With the Reindeer

...plus 34 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

All the movies announced for Cinecon 60, taking place at the Writers' Guild of America Theater in Beverly Hills, CA, August 29 - September 2, 2024. "The Cinecon Classic Film Festival is dedicated to showcasing unusual films that are rarely given public screenings." Looking forward to it! Excludes some ephemera and TV kinescope offerings, and two or three shorts with no Letterboxd presence.

• The Flower of Doom
• Below the Surface
• Mama's Affair
• The Pill Pounder
• Crooked Alley
• Ladies of Leisure
• The Dixie Flyer
• The Fire Brigade
• Forced Landing
• The Harvester

...plus 27 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

My plan to watch movies for the HORRORx52: 2023 Challenge. This is my first go-round with Kynky's challenge, although I've completed two years of Zack Long's History of Horror Challenge. I haven't seen any of these before the year 2023. Read notes to see the categories.

1. The Shining

   Most popular film on your watchlist

2. Zombie Strippers!

   Lowest rated horror film on your watchlist. This one, suprisingly, is based on Ionesco’s play RHINOCEROS.

3. The Cremator

   BLINDSPOT: Highest rated horror film you haven't seen that's not on your watchlist.

4. Snow Falls

   Released in 2023.

5. The Vampire Lovers

   A horror film released in the year you were born.

6. Candyman

   Directed by a woman (#1)

7. The Funhouse

   A film from the UK's Video Nasties list.

8. The Neon Demon

   Released in the 2010s.

9. Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key

   Slasher/Giallo. This one's a giallo.

10. Rapture

    Horror around the world: Spain.

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films that tell you about other films, ideally films you wouldn't have encountered otherwise. The real bedrock of the self-directed film school I've been in for the last several years. Click "Read Notes" for links to lists of all the films referenced in each documentary.

• The Story of Film: An Odyssey

  List of films referenced.

• The Story of Film: A New Generation
• Los Angeles Plays Itself

  List of films referenced.

• Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror

  List of films referenced.

• Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema

  List of films referenced.

• Hollywood

  List of films referenced.

• Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror

  List of films referenced.

• Complicated Women

  List of films referenced in the documentary film.

  List of films referenced in the original book.

• Hollywood Chinese

  List of films referenced.

• American Grindhouse

  List of films referenced.

...plus 12 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Evenings at the tavern that were ... unfortunate. A film festival for the WCTU.

• Near Dark
• At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul
• The Fall of the House of Usher
• Last Night in Soho
• Green Room
• An American Werewolf in London
• From Dusk Till Dawn
• Road House
• Airplane!
• The World's End

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Click the Read Notes button on the top right to see the categories. Note that some nominees are continuing TV shows or videogames, and these are not on Letterboxd so they're not included here. Full list at Fangoria.com. You can vote at this link. No shorts category this year, sadly.

• Amityville: An Origin Story

  Achievement in Non-Fiction

• The Enfield Poltergeist

  Achievement in Non-Fiction

• The First Omen

  Best Cinematography
  Best Costume Design
  Best Director
  Best Lead Performance (Nell Tiger Free)
  Best Score
  Best Screenplay
  Best Wide Release Movie

• I Saw the TV Glow

  Best Cinematography
  Best Limited Release
  Best Score
  Best Supporting Performance (Bridgette Lundy Paine)

• In a Violent Nature

  Best Cinematography
  Best Makeup FX

• Infinity Pool

  Best Cinematography
  Best Director
  Best Score
  Best Screenplay
  Best Supporting Performance (Mia Goth)
  Best Wide Release Movie

• Poor Things

  Best Cinematography
  Best Costume Design
  Best Lead Performance (Emma Stone)

• Immaculate

  Best Costume Design
  Best Lead Performance (Sydney Sweeney)

• Late Night with the Devil

  Best Costume Design
  Best Lead Performance (David Dastmalchian)
  Best Screenplay
  Best Wide Release Movie

• Lisa Frankenstein

  Best Costume Design
  Best Lead Performance (Kathryn Newton)

...plus 38 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Embrace the bleakness, June 1-7, 2024! The full schedule of 44 films (all three chapters of WORLD OF TOMORROW count as one film) was announced by the American Cinematheque on Thursday, May 2, 2024.

1. The Middleman
2. Merrily We Go to Hell
3. Destroyer
4. The Panic in Needle Park
5. Rome, Open City
6. Testament
7. Paisan
8. Germany, Year Zero
9. Se7en
10. Killed the Family and Went to the Movies

...plus 36 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Death Spa
• Lisa Frankenstein

Film experiences that are largely or absolutely destroyed for you if you see the trailer (or poster) first. One of the biggest disservices film marketing does. If there's a movie here you haven't ever heard of before, then quick! Go see it, and don't even click on the link first.

• The Truman Show
• Blood Red Sky
• Abigail
• Speak No Evil
• Terminator Genisys
• X
• The Menu
• The Banshees of Inisherin

This is essentially my History of Horror 2022 Challenge. (Well, this plus the remaining 12 episodes of The Last Drive-In that I hadn't seen.) I'm taking a break from Zack Long's superb collective challenge to sink my teeth into this amazing Severin box set.

• Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror
• Eyes of Fire
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
• Transformations
• Backwoods
• Leptirica
• Ward
• The Maiden's Tune
• Witchhammer
• Viy

...plus 26 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I have NOT seen many current movies this year. There are a lot of films that probably should be on this list but aren't; I'll see many of them in early 2024.

1. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
2. The Creator
3. Raging Grace
4. Oppenheimer
5. The Killer
6. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
7. Barbie
8. Mayhem!
9. They Cloned Tyrone
10. When Evil Lurks

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Shudder HQ doesn't post these lists here, so I'll do it myself!

• Sorry About the Demon
• The Lair
• Skinamarink
• Attachment
• Nocebo
• Spoonful of Sugar
• Leave
• The Unheard
• Kids vs. Aliens
• From Black

...plus 23 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Short films with no Letterboxd presence at the moment, but they were part of Beyond Fest and I watched them on October 7:
- Wrong Planet, Julia Ponce Diaz, 14 minutes, USA
- Goats, Michael Prieto and Julia Kern, 12 minutes, USA
- Exuma, Eli Powers, 11 minutes, USA

• The Creator
• Kill
• The Abyss
• The Royal Hotel
• Crash
• Spooktacular!
• Manhunter
• Mancunian Man: The Legendary Life Of Cliff Twemlow
• Caligula: The Ultimate Cut
• Enter the Clones of Bruce

...plus 75 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

All the movies announced for Cinecon 59, taking place at the Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo, CA, August 31 - September 4, 2023. "The Cinecon Classic Film Festival is dedicated to showcasing unusual films that are rarely given public screenings." Looking forward to it! Excludes some ephemera and TV kinescope offerings with no Letterboxd presence.

• Little Mickey Grogan
• Adventure's End
• The Gold Diggers
• Sugar Daddies
• Why Girls Love Sailors
• Putting Pants on Philip
• Bulldog Edition
• Destry Rides Again
• Freckles
• Hit Parade of 1947

...plus 17 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Reality TV appeared seemingly out of nowhere in 2000 due to a writer's strike. When Americans think about why, they'll often point vaguely to Japan or England for the shows' antecedents. But we had plenty of homegrown culture that led right to the questionable pleasures of TEMPTATION ISLAND and THE BACHELOR. Here's a list of films that explore that. Suggestions welcome, though I'm trying to keep the focus on works / things that happened BEFORE 1999 that set the stage.

• They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
• Network
• Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure

List of what's in the Criterion Box Set.

• Smiles of a Summer Night
• Crisis
• A Ship to India
• Wild Strawberries
• Ingmar Bergman on Life and Work
• To Joy
• Summer Interlude
• Summer with Monika
• Images from the Playground
• Dreams

...plus 50 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• Nope
• Prey
• RRR
• X
• Barbarian
• Pearl
• The Banshees of Inisherin
• Something in the Dirt
• The Commons

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Amazingly, Shudder doesn't have this list over at their HQ, so I created it. Listed in order of Shudder debut.

• For the Sake of Vicious
• Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror
• The Last Thing Mary Saw
• Boris Karloff: The Man Behind the Monster
• Slapface
• All the Moons
• They Live in the Grey
• Hellbender
• The Scary of Sixty-First
• The Seed

...plus 45 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Midsommar
• Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
• Klaus
• Knives Out
• The Aeronauts
• Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
• The Lighthouse
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
• Suspiria
• Teen Titans Go! To the Movies

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The best films from 2020 that I saw DURING 2020.

1. World of Tomorrow Episode Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime
2. The Invisible Man
3. Palm Springs
4. Run
5. Wolfwalkers
6. Scare Me
7. Waffle
8. Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics
9. Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
10. Anything for Jackson

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Bo Burnham: Inside
2. WandaVision
3. The Mitchells vs. the Machines
4. Midnight Mass
5. Dune
6. Last Night in Soho
7. The Green Knight
8. Squid Game
9. Judas and the Black Messiah
10. Pig

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I've got two movies to start this list with. I imagine with a lot of time, diligent research, and help from friends, that it could grow in a few years to as many as five.

• Real Genius
• Stand and Deliver

Two pandemic trilogies:
The last three feature films I saw in theaters before lockdown
AND
The first three movies I saw in theaters after vaccination

Between these two trilogies, I saw about 525 films from my sofa at home.

• Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
• 1917
• Parasite
• Lamb
• Last Night in Soho
• Nightmare Alley

For the Showdown. I'm about done with science fiction film these days; one of the main reasons I've turned to horror is that sf film has completely abandoned its ancient remit of showing us ourselves by extrapolating plausible futures. But every once in a while a movie still tries to do that, or is just so fun on its own that I don't mind it. Here are a few of them.

• The Quiet Earth
• The Lathe of Heaven
• Cube
• The Arrival
• Jupiter Ascending
• Transcendence
• The Postman
• Tomorrowland
• How to Talk to Girls at Parties
• Robinson Crusoe on Mars

This year's History of Horror Challenge is a cinematic trip around the world. Frankly I could do with that in 2021. I haven't seen any of these films (except MIDSOMMAR — see below) before 2021.

1. Destiny

   Silent Horror

2. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

   Tod Slaughter

3. Master Minds

   Poverty Row

4. Knife+Heart

   France

5. The Fabulous World of Jules Verne

   1950s Monsters

6. Ever After

   Germany

7. House on Haunted Hill

   Vincent Price

8. Shelley

   Sweden

9. The Day of the Beast

   Satan

10. Ring

    Japan

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I'm fascinated by movies that argue against their own source material. It's such and odd and ballsy move for a film creator to make. There seem to be very few of these, but I'm always on the look out for more.

• Sita Sings the Blues
• Starship Troopers
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
• American Psycho
• The Devil Wears Prada

For the Showdown. Mom & Dad kept a pretty tight ship movie-wise, and I wasn't allowed to see most R-rated movies. But they were powerless against the videotape revolution, and they made a few weird choices of their own. See the notes for details. Enjoy!

• Jaws

  I ask you: why did our parents take us to see this when we were eight, seven, SIX years old? I've asked around, and this seems a common if not universal GenX experience. Since I'm from Los Angeles, I got the added delight of my parents taking my brother and I to the beach the next day, and demanding we get in the water. WTH? (Really great movie, though, and seeing it in the theater so young probably contributed to my love of horror movies.)

• Poltergeist

  I LOVE this movie. But it scared the piss out of me in the theater when I was 12. That scene with the guy in the bathroom mirror!!

• The Return of the Living Dead

  It's a comedy, but that's not how it played to me in 1985. It was the first zombie movie I ever saw, and the story arc of James Karen's character gave me the biggest case of heebie-jeebies of any movie on this list.

• Student Bodies

  Baby's First Slasher. Actually I had a great time watching this, it played to me as the comedy that it is. But my parents would've been pretty upset that I saw it. This was the beginning of the end of parental control over my film viewing, as VCR technology became widespread in 1982-83 and I started spending lots of time at the homes of friends with older siblings and libertine parents.

• Midnight Express

  Drug dealing, prison rape, islamophobia ... there's a lot to unpack with this one.

• Scared Straight!

  There was just no earthly reason to show me this film. Probably the only film in this list that was INTENDED to traumatize young viewers.

• A Clockwork Orange

  I was probably 12 when I saw this. I think most of my friends saw it at a similar age. There's no way we were supposed to.

• Tommy

  I mean, it's crazy that I saw this at 10, right?

• Beneath the Planet of the Apes

  Hoo boy. Saw this in 1979, and the very end was very confusing to me. "What just happened?" I asked my Dad, and that's how I learned about the Bomb. Thus, this movie was DEFINITELY the most traumatic experience on the list. Great film though.

• Planet of the Apes

  I got in a lot of trouble when I saw this at nine years old, and then the next day I started re-enacting the final scene complete with Charlton Heston's curse words. "Damn you to hell!" A LOT of trouble.

For the Showdown

• Bell, Book and Candle
• Viy
• I Married a Witch
• The Juniper Tree
• Suspiria
• Suspiria
• The Witch
• Witchhammer
• Häxan
• The Love Witch

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Going to take a crack at the History of Horror Challenge. Some of the choices for the scream queens (their theme this year) are pretty thin. But there's a lot here I'm really excited to see.

When choosing films from these categories, I gave priority to those I haven't seen before, and those available streaming. THE EXORCIST is the only movie here that I've seen before 2020.

View the notes to see the weekly categories.

1. Doctor X

   Fay Wray

2. Faust

   Silent Horror

3. The Haunting

   Ghosts

4. Witchhammer

   Witches

5. The House That Dripped Blood

   Ingrid Pitt

6. The People Under the Stairs

   Horror Noire

7. Perfect Blue

   Anime Horror

8. Shivers

   Barbara Steele

9. Living Skeleton

   Zombies

10. Ravenous

    Western Horror

...plus 42 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

TCM's slate of films for the Women Make Film festival.

• Merrily We Go to Hell
• Olivia
• Sleepwalking Land
• Seven Beauties
• Je Tu Il Elle
• Mädchen in Uniform
• La Ciénaga
• El camino
• Lovely & Amazing
• Wanda

...plus 89 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The best movies set in L.A. I prefer movies that are set in Los Angeles and have NOTHING to do with Hollywood or the film industry, with a few rare exceptions.

• The Exiles
• Alien Nation
• Tequila Sunrise
• Los Angeles Plays Itself
• White Heat
• L.A. Confidential
• Beverly Hills Cop
• La La Land
• Sunset Boulevard
• There Will Be Blood