Okay, okay, okay. When traditional Christmas fare starts encroaching on even my preferred viewing schedule, I suppose it’s time to finally, grudgingly let October go. It was another fun ride, but your light reading recap CONCLUDES below…
Random Acts of Violence (2020 Shudder) – Over six decades of applied storytelling sophistication have given lie to Francois Truffaut’s famous assertion that the action and spectacle of “anti-war” films inevitably tend to glamorize that which they are arguing against. That famous critique was front of mind as I took my second swing at Jay Baruchel’s Random Acts of Violence, a sentient lawnmower I initially handpicked as fuel injection for the marathon whose core philosophical concerns often prove just as uncomfortable as anything onscreen. A bonafide underground sensation and unapologetic controversy magnet based on an infamous true crime murder-spree, the critically reviled “Slasherman” graphic novel series nears its landmark final issue. Pressured to craft a worthy, uncompromising finale yet irretrievably blocked, creator Todd hits the road with his girlfriend and two assistants on an ill-advised DIY publicity tour of the original killing grounds, where he is confronted daily by the ugly human face of his authorial endeavors, manifesting in the guise of unsettlingly fawning fans, combative radio interviewers, and any number of survivors, witnesses, and local lawmen who actively wish him dead, not including a flesh-and-blood Slasherman copycat taking apparent explicit inspiration from his panels to craft a fresh series of roadside murders of uncommon brutality. As coincidence becomes self-fulfilling prophecy and the walls around Todd close in, Acts hammers home questions on both the limits of artistic license and creative responsibility for subjectively irredeemable expression. No satisfying answer is offered, sadly, because none is possible, but the road to the dead end is fairly, bloody, unforgettable.
[REC] (2007 Blu-Ray) – The normalization of social media as actual media platforms like TikTok has officially turned a generation of potential horror movie protagonists into camera-toting narcissists who clearly prioritize recording fantastic events for posterity over simple survival. What such evolution suggests for the future of humanity I leave for sociologists to ponder, although I hate that, on occasion, good-hearted witnesses like the panic-stricken residents of a quarantined Barcelona apartment building and the first responders trapped with them after a routine distress call plummets ninety degrees due south then keeps tunneling, tragically get pulled into the abyss alongside those closeup-ready goofs without whom we might be better off. Or instead of them. Anticipating this development by several years is the bugnuts 2007 found footage classic – for my money, THE bugnuts found footage classic, bar none – [REC], in which intrepid Spanish television presenter Angela Vidal (fresh-faced, rapidly unraveling Manuela Valasco, providing a direct conduit to escalating viewer dread and unease as the situation deteriorates) and her stoic but heroic cameraman Pablo tag along with local firefighters for a “day in the life” feature that quickly turns into something different altogether. It’s entirely possible to avoid spoilers here while offering effusive praise for how [REC] is staged for the camera, and for the staggering intensity that permeates it. Unsung but even more vital are the efforts of the unseen yet omnipresent Pablo, who takes Angela’s edict to “keep recording” like a directive from God Himself, a god otherwise conspicuous in His absence as events unfold.
Scanners (1981 HBO Max) – Built, and built alone, upon the shocking impact of what is still one of the greatest practical effects set pieces in film history – you’ll know when you see it – Scanners’ reputation as a horror classic both precedes it and is unfortunate, since it is much more a paranoid conspiracy yarn than any sort of fright fest, and a fairly sloppy one at that. To sample David Cronenberg’s earliest work (say, pre-Dead Zone) is to witness filmmaking elegantly wedged into the space between artistic ambition and budgetary restriction survive and even thrive in spite of its limitations. With its unruly larger canvas, pronounced sci-fi elements in search of something to say, pretensions to being an action thriller, and impenetrable cabal of undistinguished academic and corporate villains pulling the strings, Scanners is blessed with more obstacles than most. This underlying idea of a new mutant race of “Scanners”, misunderstood, potentially deadly hyper-telekinetic everymen that various stakeholders actively seek to exploit, subjugate, or exterminate, has real juice, though you often sense Cronenberg struggling valiantly against tedious plot specifics. With the exception of fifth-billed Michael Ironside as a genocidal free agent, the acting here is uniformly wooden, often distractingly so, and tends to turn down the temperature at inopportune times. Still, that one sequence is masterful, and, on the unlikely chance you haven’t seen it, really must be experienced. Just grant yourself permission to turn off Scanners at the twenty-minute mark, and invest your precious time elsewhere. This list is lousy with worthier destinations.
Sinners (2025 HBO Max) – No director today dependably delivers first class genre fare with the thoughtfulness and facility of virtuoso multi-instrumental mentalist Ryan Coogler. His textural sensibilities and storytelling instincts are sound, honed, and engrossing, somehow equally applicable to boxing dramas, historical biographies, superhero origins, slices of life, and, not unrelated, blues-soaked, deep south, post-Prohibition-era vampire bloodbaths. Coogler’s latest, Sinners, is his masterpiece, not to mention the best film of 2025, and unlike anything I’ve seen. It’s a gangster movie, and a character study, but also a love story, or, more accurately, a tale of several loves sparked, lost, and rekindled, then lost again. It’s a widescreen tone poem to a bygone era, Gulf Coast Mississippi circa-1938, lived-in and luxuriant. It is visually gorgeous, alternately hilarious and deeply moving, featuring tremendous ensemble acting from Michael B. Jordan as infamous twin entrepreneurs returning to their roots following a lucrative stint as Capone henchmen, heading a melting pot of show-stopping supporting muscle. It boasts wall-to-wall music of uncommon quality and variety, seemingly just as much curated as composed, that seeps into the bones until, marinated in a lusciously blended stylistic melange (gospel, celtic folk, hip hop, arena rock, every stripe of blues from the Delta to Chicago), viewers involuntarily move in their seats. It’s the lost pilot to an HBO prestige drama that should’ve been. Only beyond that is it, finally, astonishingly, a vampire movie too, and a gripping, ripping, exquisite one at that. If you haven’t seen Sinners, do quit reading and change that, stat.
The Substance (2024 Blu-Ray) – The designated “It” horror movie of 2024 is a hypnotic, pulsating engine of dread and disgust that is no less potent a full year later, having lost none of its formidable power to provoke either thought or gag reflexes, though to consider The Substance a mere product of its times, however superior, is to inadvertantly shortchange its insane relatability, insidious craft, and concussive impact. When the book is written on twenty-first century cinema, I believe Coralie Fargeat’s extreme body horror parable will be near the top of page one. Should’ve been Oscar winner Demi Moore stars as Elizabeth Sparkle, a TV institution whose world is shattered when, only a few hours into her 50th birthday, she is fired as a has-been from her long-running fitness show. Crestfallen, desperate, and personally lost, she is sorely tempted by whispers of a mysterious black market supplement that promises to provide the very best version of you, though the fine print is a bitch. There’s much to spoil here, not least your appetite or perception of reality, so my recap should necessarily end. Stunningly situated at the intersection between Cronenbergian metaphysiological train wreckery and Terry Gilliam’s trademark odd-angle phantasmagoria, The Substance alternately throbs like a Miami nightclub or an infected tooth, often simultaneously. For a film whose principals are vainglorious gluttons consumed to the point of psychopathy with the surface of things, chief among its numerous gooey virtues is its steadfast refusal to remain skin deep. There are always additional depths to plumb. Always.
Tales From The Hood (1995 Shudder) – As much a product of the times in its way as the aforementioned Bad Seed is Rusty Cundieff’s Tales From The Hood, an earnest, hard-charging, enthusiastically foul-mouthed, terminally heavy-handed horror anthology that, despite clear goals to provide both insightful social commentary and bloody good entertainment, never quite succeeds at either. Lured by the promise of a lucrative drug score, a trio of blustery, posturing street toughs descend on inner city Los Angeles’ Simms Funeral Home, immediately dispensing with pleasantries and engaging in a revolving door intimidation game with its proprietor, a wizened, eccentric mortician possibly high on his own supply, who recounts how the most recent additions to his inventory met their demises by way of cautionary tale. Plagued throughout with questions of how to strike the proper balance between preaching and playtime, Hood’s sincerity is never in doubt, and I appreciate Cundieff’s overarching strategy to dig into, expose, and flip stereotypes on their fat heads in the process of telling otherwise straightforward E.C. Comics-style stories of justice, revenge, and general comeuppance. It still didn’t take long for me to start second-guessing his choices in real time, which certainly detracted from the overall experience. Distinguished among the glut of budget horror anthologies that materialized in the wake of HBO’s successful Tales From The Crypt adaptation, Tales From The Hood holds a special place in the hearts of ‘90s kids beyond count, and part of me understands totally. I just missed its intended expiration date by three decades, that’s all.
Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983 YouTube) – An unprecedented wide release summit meeting of four of the decade’s brightest genre filmmaking minds, 1983’s Twilight Zone: The Movie could and probably should have been spectacular. Instead it’s an entertaining but flawed curio, alternating home run swings with conspicuous half measures, boasting four high concept vignettes of varying quality that, for better and worse, are reminiscent of the uneven if often stunning output of Rod Serling’s original TV touchstone. Maybe that was the point. How else to explain John Landis’ strangely toothless opener, in which a disgruntled barstool bigot learns how the other half lives in a guided tour of applied racism throughout history? Steven Spielberg’s segment, in which the infectious positivity of new retirement community arrival Scatman Crothers transforms its residents into literal children, barely even registers. Only in its back half does the movie gain altitude, as Joe Dante creatively reimagines classic “It’s a Good Life”, wherein a cartoon-obsessed child with frightening telepathic abilities browbeats his supplicating “family” into submission. That leaves George Miller to helm the showy finale, a straight reboot of the immortal “Nightmare at 40,000 Feet”, in which a terrified white-knuckle traveler (a gravitationally manic John Lithgow) becomes convinced he sees a gremlin sabotaging his flight’s engine during a raging storm. The disproportionate quality gap between original stories and repurposed Zone episodes is both yawning and instructive, and, even though Twilight Zone: The Movie delivers in its biggest moments, leaves one wondering what might’ve been had all four directors taken a uniform approach.
Weapons (2025 HBO Max) – As enumerated above, when the dust settles and the blood finally dries, 2025 is likely to be remembered among the best years in horror cinema history, overflowing with bracing directorial statements, twisting turns, tricky treats, prize surprises, fates worse than death, and, above all, heavy ordinance, ruinous and confidently deployed. Speaking of firepower, the unprecedented ninth such exhibit in our marathon, Zach Cregger’s Weapons, while terrific in its own right, is only ultimate alphabetically but may still be the most unpredictable in construction and execution. It is also a veritable Abrams Tank in the ongoing war against spoilers, blemished but hardly dented despite numerous image leaks online. Its boilerplate synopsis – a fifth grade class disappears en masse in the wee hours of a random morning, never to return, transforming the surviving community into a pitchfork-wielding mob – intrigued without exactly sending me sprinting to the theater, though the surrounding critical buzz eventually became impossible to ignore. Weapons’ winning strategy is to present the bigger picture without comment – elliptical, inexplicable, horrifying – then dramatically backtrack, adding incremental context through the isolated perspectives of several overlapping protagonists. This has the effect of making surprises practically impossible to anticipate as the answers coalesce into a solved puzzle. With its own creepy setup obliterated by a whiplash-inducing left turn, Cregger’s much-ballyhooed debut, 2022’s Barbarian, once left me bemused. Given its follow-up’s self-assurance and multi-directional impact, perhaps a reappraisal is in order. Or maybe I’ll just revisit Weapons instead, and enjoy watching those wayward kids at play.
Would You Rather (2013 Shudder) – Let’s momentarily table further discussion of flesh-rending zombie ravagers, itinerant vampire buskers, reality-bending psychotropic diet aids and the like for something that hits much closer to home. In a genre where most mortal threats arise from nothing more sinister than leaving the house on the wrong morning, Would You Rather wades headlong into the concept of personal agency, and how every choice has consequences, rippling, long-lasting, and, occasionally, quite dire indeed. A clever bastardization of the classic Agatha Christie “locked room” murder mystery – since everyone is still breathing before they (and the plot machinery) begin picking one another off – Would You Rather presents the case of Iris, an unemployed twenty-something clinging to society’s bottom rung and desperate for hope, who is lured by a fortuitous if immediately suspect offer to a gathering where she and seven other financially compromised dinner guests engage in the classic party game reimagined as a round-robin of escalating interpersonal hostilities directed by a sadistic philanthropist. What begins innocuously enough – bribing a vegetarian to devour a plate of foie gras or a recovering alcoholic to wolf down a snifter of scotch – quickly gets out of hand for the uncommonly distinguished B-movie cast (Brittany Snow as Iris, Whedonverse staple Enver Gjokaj, Jeffrey Combs, fairly delicious as the unhinged master of ceremonies) in ways both squirm-inducing and, ahem, eye-opening. If the film’s overall impact is dulled somewhat by how unlikely the scenario seems at a distance, consider that a small favor, since otherwise it might’ve been nigh unbearable.
X (2022 Blu-Ray) – Sure, X takes place in 1979, but, ultra-exposed both visually and thematically, sunbathed in oversaturated colors and softened edges – call it sub-standard definition – it’s still legitimately impressive how effortlessly Ti West’s southwestern guerrilla slasher about a troupe of adult performers who get more than they bargained for from the prickly landlords of their latest rented filmset evokes the grainy, grindhouse aesthetic of 1970s extreme genre fare, much the same way his breakthrough feature The House of the Devil channeled the VHS rental-ready 1980s. Luckily, X has more to offer beyond convincing period immersion, because at first West seems to have straight homage on his mind, setting his meteorologically oppressive scene as if on location at a certain noteworthy chainsaw massacre (imagine “Texas” spelled with three Xs). Following a moody preamble of striking B-roll footage that could’ve been lifted wholesale from Tobe Hooper’s trailblazer, X settles into a quirky if grungy case study contrasting the easygoing pornographers shooting in the barn – two female talents, one an industry vet, the other an ambitious ingenue, one male talent, a pretentious cameraman, his wide-eyed girlfriend running sound, and their Roger Corman meets Matthew McConaughey ringleader – with the elderly, altogether homicidal married curmudgeons sharing the farmhouse up the hill. I required a second viewing of X to assure me I was remotely interested in sampling its weird sequels, one the mad matriarch’s origin story and the other the ingenue’s crazy coming of age, but I already doubt either of them will match their dusty, gnarly progenitor.
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Author’s note: 2024’s 31 DAEs marathon did, in fact, take place at the appointed extended witching hour, and was a more than marginal success I must say, just not one covered smartly enough on my part to allow for the type of writeup you just so heroically survived. For the three or so readers who might’ve once wondered in passing, I present its roster of movies below as posthumous proof of the ‘24 edition’s existence, and leave you to ponder what might’ve been. Just thinking about writing another 31 capsule reviews makes me want to locate the nearest crypt and crawl in, so for now I shall instead downshift into sugarplum visions of Gremlins, and Jugband-playing Muppet otters, of Skellington, John McClane, “It’s Me, Billy” circa ‘74, Buddy the Elf, and, by god, the one and only Chuck Jones/Boris Karloff original Grinch. Hopefully it won’t be another year before my next post, whatever the topic, but that thankfully shouldn’t have any effect on next year’s 31 DAEs, and I’m hopeful you’ll consent to reading all about it when the time comes. I’m having way too much fun to stop now.
Happy Holidays, all, whatever (and whenever) you celebrate. Cheers!
3 From Hell (2019 – Shudder) | Abigail (2024 – Peacock) | Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024 – VOD) | Campfire Tales (1997 – Prime) | Child’s Play (1988 – Blu-Ray) | Creepshow 2 (1987 – Blu-Ray) | Feast (2006 – Prime) | Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982 – Blu-Ray) | Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982 – Blu-Ray) | Hush (2016 – Shudder) | Immaculate (2024 – Hulu) | In a Violent Nature (2024 – Shudder) | The Invisible Man (2020 – Blu-Ray) | Late Night With the Devil (2023 – Shudder) | Longlegs (2024 – Theater) | Night of the Creeps (1986 – Blu-Ray) | A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985 – Blu-Ray) | Overlord (2018 – Paramount Plus) | The Rental (2020 – Netflix) | The Sadness (2023 – Shudder) | Scream VI (2023 – Paramount Plus) | Shocker (1989 – Shudder) | Talk To Me (2023 – Paramount Plus) | Terrified (2018 – Shudder) | Terrifier 3 (2024 – Theater) | Tourist Trap (1979 – Prime) | Vicious Fun (2024 – Shudder) | The Void (2017 – Peacock) | What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962 – DVD) | Wrong Turn (2003 – Prime) | Yummy (2019 – Shudder) |
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