October 2016

Barbara Crampton on Stuart Gordon, Chopping Mall, and the new wave of indie horror

For fans of 1980s B-horror, here’s a good AV Club interview with the delightful Barbara Crampton.

Anti-Christ in a custom van: The churchy cheap thrills of A Thief In The Night

It may seem impossible to not think of the end of the world in poetic terms, but never underestimate the premillennialists.

Why Punching Down Will Never Be Funny

Watters and… See more →

Though it’s not the masterpiece that John Carpenter would make 30 years later (which is apparently more faithful to the source material), The Thing from Another World is smart and tightly wound. The titular Thing is scarier in the imagination than on the screen, but its appearances, wisely, are few and brief. Tension is instead generated mainly by the conflict over whether the Thing should be studied or destroyed, and these scenes – dense with… See more →

Bumping this for the fiends in the PDT morning / EDT afternoon / GMT evening crowds. twitter.com/robweychert/st…

I couldn’t get the vocals right on The Misfits’ “Hybrid Moments,” so this cover is an instrumental. Happy Halloween! soundcloud.com/robweychert/hy…

Empty and ugly, The New York Ripper is content to have its inscrutable serial killer revel in the seediest corners of early-’80s NYC without the benefit of a remotely compelling narrative. It’s all cheap and no thrills, but I’ll give it some credit for being extremely skeevy, which I took to be its lone goal.

Exquisitely overdone in every respect, and entirely a product – and rebuke – of its time. This was clearly a lot of fun to make, is in turn a lot of fun to watch, and its theme song will get stuck in your head for weeks.

Opening with a newspaper headline about a murderous orgy, I thought this pre-Code thriller might be a bit more scandalous. Luckily, what it lacks in shocks it makes up for in unintentional farce.

If Hitchcock had a predilection for the supernatural, it might have looked something like Cat People. The suspense it creates in a few keys scenes – both in terms of their staging and the psychosexual premise that drives them – is among the boldest I’ve seen from 1940s-era horror.

The gags fly fast and furious in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, but not nearly enough of them land. Compared to the duo’s electric “Who’s on First?” routine, the humor here is stilted.

Lon Chaney Jr, who embodies few of the characteristics of the traditional leading man, creates a character so apparently charismatic that his love interest is unfazed to learn he is an unapologetic peeping tom. But the real star of the show here is the cinematography, whose mist and moonlight cloak the misadventures of Chaney’s otherwise fairly silly werewolf in artful dread.

The initial appearance of Boris Karloff’s mummy is properly arresting, but most of what follows is a snooze.

If you like loud, irate, distorted guitar music, here is a thunderous new thing for your earholes. amazon.com/Gold-Whores/dp…

Every aspect of Two Thousand Maniacs! exhibits a bare minimum of competence, and yet it is oddly unnerving, perhaps owing to how exuberantly its Grand Guignol spirit hurdles the boundaries of its era.

this is stupid youre stupid twitter.com/TheAtlantic/st…

“Priebus […] will become just the latest to invest with Trump and wind up poorer for the experience.” bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

I’m always disappointed by how much my mood can be altered by the unprovoked ire of a random sidewalk asshole.

A group of estranged friends reunites at a dinner party hosted by Eden, who, since everyone last saw her, has joined a New Age cult with her new husband. As the evening wears on, Eden’s ex-husband, Will, grows increasingly paranoid that the cult means the group harm. Is he right, or is his judgement impaired by the overwhelming grief triggered by revisiting the house where his son died two years before? I was eager to… See more →

Also, Netflix, please do a better job of keeping this bullshit away from my eyeballs.

I’ve spent the past 20 years knowing precious little about the movie Swingers. The description I just read convinced me to stay the course.

Apple’s Messages app now adds an iTunes Store link when an artist is mentioned. Our utopia of ad-saturated private conversations is nigh.

The government’s go-to expert on Agent Orange for the last several decades has a habit of downplaying its effects. propublica.org/article/alvin-…

SoHo and my bike bell were made for each other.

Seems like there’s a lot of energy devoted to validating extremely safe assumptions these days. twitter.com/nytimes/status…

Shellac and Shannon Wright at the Bell House tonight. It was really really good.

RIP Pete Burns, who wrote some of my favorite synth pop tunes and used the spotlight to challenge the gender binary. youtu.be/ZWbj64Rwfvc

NYC friends: I’m showing Hollywood horror classics The Mummy (1932) and The Wolf Man (1941) at Small City on Friday! smallcity.us/events/2016/10…

“The things Black Mirror uncovers about the nature of people and technology are […] remarkably absent of nuance.” vulture.com/2016/10/black-…

Julian Assange: “[A] man whose mission was often left on a backburner in his efforts to demonise his opponents.” buzzfeed.com/jamesball/here…

For the second time, I’ve failed to be mindful of which version of a Mario Bava film I’m watching, this time with Evil Eye, the apparently inferior English-language recut of The Girl Who Knew Too Much. Fool me twice, shame on me. Evil Eye’s sumptuous black and white cinematography is a joy to behold, but its murder mystery is muddled by clumsy tonal shifts and an overbearing score.

One of the many things I love about New Orleans is that none of its shutters are merely decorative.

@chambermonster meets her hero.

A lot of dudes who are not remotely good at photography sure do get hyped about having good cameras.

What a time to be alive. youtu.be/FdBF6h7oH5I

Tuned in late due to a time zone mixup. Does this debate have a moderator?

How the “garbage in, garbage out” principle applies to artificial intelligence: “How Machines Learn to Be Racist.” propublica.org/article/breaki…

“This is about bringing the sci-fi robots of our childhood to life.” thenib.com/the-league-of-…

Current status: 😍

The sad irony of the airplane’s back row: there’s no one behind you to bother by reclining, but you’re in the one row that can’t recline.

I weep for the children too young to have known a time when air travel didn’t insist a non-negotiable portion of the fare be paid in misery.

“More truthful discourse […] on our history of racial injustice is essential for us to achieve racial equity.” youtu.be/aS61QFzk2tI

Current status.

The trouble with I Saw the Devil is that its cartoon characters do not inflict cartoon violence. The level of brutality on display might be affecting if accompanied by actual gravitas, but it’s impossible to feel deeply for any of the characters because there is so little to them.

It’s not hard to understand a man’s desire for revenge after his wife is murdered by a remorseless, barbaric killer, but the extreme shape his revenge… See more →

For Marylanders offended that I called out their godawful flag, @pdoughbrie is currently directing a hailstorm of MD-themed insults at me. twitter.com/pdoughbrie/sta…

Just smashed my phone’s screen, and my contract is up, so I guess I’m upgrading. What are the best deals with good NYC coverage these days?

Some people are willing to defend the design of the Maryland state flag. Others use their eyes to see.

A gorgeous @nytimes documentary on forger Adolfo Kaminsky, who saved hundreds of lives in WWII and other conflicts. youtu.be/Dup6KOoaAUc

On rape allegations and separating the art from the artist. mtv.com/news/2941144/s…

In Jaws: The Revenge, Ellen Brody becomes convinced that the various, oversized sharks that have tormented her family over the last twelve years are somehow associated, or organized, or something. Whether Brody is wrong or right, there’s some fun potential in the concept. However, despite going so far as to hint that she may even have some kind of psychic connection with the shark du jour, Jaws: The Revenge doesn’t commit to its lunacy, and… See more →

Jaws 3 boasts the hokiest special effects of the entire series. Since those effects are apparently its reason for being (its original title was Jaws 3-D), and relatively little effort was exerted elsewhere in the production, this one is probably best viewed in 3-D with expectations kept low.

Jaws 2 may be the best of the superfluous Jaws sequels, but it’s arguably the most boring. In its attempt to maintain the setting and tone of the flawless original, it’s mostly an unremarkable retread that seems resignedly cognizant of its own disposability.

For the second feature of a 28-year-old filmmaker, Jaws is an incredibly assured effort, and still every bit as terrifying as it was 40 years ago.

NYC friends: I’m watching Jaws movies all day if you’d like to join me. The fun starts at 1:30.

So many relevant life choices to re-evaluate as I wait in the rain for a bus that may or may not come.

M Night Shyamalan is many things, but he is not a hack. His movies are dumb, but they are entirely his own, worlds that are not so richly imagined as they are distinctively contrived. Every character has an overwritten variation of Shyamalan’s own voice, rendering all dialogue conspicuously flat. Ludicrous premises and moments are carefully engineered with the bewildering expectation of generating pathos, shock, or delight. Even mainstream audiences seem to be confused as to… See more →

Recalling the confined paranoia of Roman Polanski’s apartment trilogy, and, more recently, The Babadook’s exploration of grief and maternal anxiety, Under the Shadow is an effective chiller set in Tehran during the Iran–Iraq war of the 1980s. When her husband is drafted by the military, Shideh (Narges Rashidi) is left alone to care for her daughter as bombs fall on Tehran and her neighbors flee the city. Still stinging from a medical school rejection… See more →

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Trump still refuses to recognize the exoneration of the Central Park Five. cnn.com/2016/10/06/pol…

Hats off to the guy on 6th Ave talking on the giant 1980s cellphone. Or maybe hats on. I haven’t decided. Stand by.

House is the Japanese tween fever dream I never knew I needed to experience. Virtually every shot is highly stylized in a different way, each scene is more bonkers than the last, and there is very little sense to be made of any of it. It’s an exhausting but worthwhile investment.

“Watters and Southern […] are too dedicated to maintaining the status quo to be remotely entertaining.” buzzfeed.com/scaachikoul/wh…

Not the worst of the crowded early ’80s slasher field, but an artless entry all the same, straying from the playbook in all the wrong ways. Bloody Birthday is so enamored of its premise (essentially The Bad Seed cubed) that it can’t take its eyes off its pint-sized villains, which means we know exactly what they’re up to at all times. Some of their murderous mischief is for revenge, and some is indiscriminate, but absolutely… See more →

Most people younger than me that I meet these days are markedly more evolved than I was at their age, and probably more than I am now.

What song is your #karaokewhitewhale, the gem that’s never available? Mine is “Turtle Power” by Partners in Kryme. youtu.be/VFsTr0kGAqU

For fans of 1980s B-horror, here’s a good @TheAVClub interview with the delightful Barbara Crampton. avclub.com/article/barbar…

It’s pretty cool how Arrested Development kind of becomes a different show when you learn that @ShawkataliA was the first person cast.

I finished piecing together the 2016 edition of Robtober, my annual horror binge. Follow along at home or join me: letterboxd.com/robweychert/li…

Every October, I put together a sizable schedule of horror/thriller/exploitation films, most of which I haven’t seen before. Dates and times (subject to change) are listed for any friends who want to join me. Also available as a handy Google calendar!

Don't Breathe

Fede Álvarez (USA, Hungary, 2016)

Three delinquents break into the house of a war veteran who is blind to steal his money. However, they discover that the man is not as defenseless as… See more →

Hesher gorehounds will enjoy Deathgasm’s gleeful synthesis of metal lore and maximal carnage, but its blood-soaked slapstick lacks the imagination of the Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson classics that inspired it.

For a very silly mockumentary about vampire roommates, What We Do in the Shadows packs a lot of heart, even as said vampires are violently devouring the blood of their innocent victims. Their benign malevolence (and that of their werewolf nemeses) – bolstered by impressively committed special effects – is a rare and delightful alchemy, and one that generates a lot of laughs.

Here’s to the people who do a good job. We will never have enough of you. 🍻

In 1967, Terence Young, director of several 007 movies, gave us Wait Until Dark, in which a blind woman is terrorized in her home by criminals who believe their contraband is hidden there. Its title, a command, refers both to its villains’ nocturnal scheming and to its heroine finding empowerment in her disability.

In 2016, Mike Flanagan, whose Oculus was a modest horror hit, gave us Hush, in which a deaf woman is terrorized in… See more →