October 2017

Hello, dear reader!

October is gone, but its links remain.

For my part, I wrote a bit about my first ten years on Twitter, dusted off the ol’ dream journal, and published the full calendar for Robtober, my annual horror movie binge. I also wrote a bit about each of the 31 movies included in Robtober this year. They’ll all be collected on my site later, but for now they’re available on Letterboxd.

With Robtober keeping… See more →

The Uninvited is a compelling and well-paced mystery that tries to be a few too many things. The seams between its comedy, melodrama, and horror may be visible, but when it wants to be spooky, it does so very successfully, and the whole thing is beautifully shot. I’m especially fond of all the opportunities it creates for characters to emerge from and disappear into inky blackness.

jk i will not be skipping anything

I’ll now update you in real time which songs I skip on this chronological playlist of nearly everything the original Misfits ever recorded.

It is Halloween, so here is a @letterboxd list of movies referenced by @themisfits. letterboxd.com/robweychert/li…

Discovery of brand-new Fever Ray album makes @robweychert gasp audibly and excitedly at his desk.

Is there a person on earth who responds positively to passive aggression when unsubscribing from a service they didn’t consent to receiving?

I spent most of Fiend Without a Face trying to decide if I was amused or annoyed by its budgetary workaround of making its monsters invisible. When we do finally get to see them, they’re rendered with a disarming panache that almost pays off, but at the end of the day, there’s not much to set this apart from the other B movies of the ’50s.

Canoa: A Shameful Memory tells the true story of a group of mountain climbers in 1968 who were terrorized by a small Mexican town in thrall to a corrupt Catholic priest. It begins by plainly stating the facts of the event, followed by a mix of faux documentary footage (giving background on the town’s economic woes and poorly-educated populace) and a dramatization of the 48 hours leading up to the event. This context—plus one hell… See more →

After seeing three of his films, I have yet to undertake a thorough appraisal of Yorgos Lanthimos’s skewed visions, but for now, I’ll just say I’m still really enjoying living in his weird world.

Once again, death has a nonsensical plan that its victims-to-be generously recite aloud to the viewer in simple declarative sentences as they somehow piece it all together. As with the other Final Destination movies, this is recommended for folks who love to see the Mouse Trap board do its thing but are too lazy to set it up.

Whatever it is that appeals to me about so many of the satanic-panic-inspired schlock horror flicks of the ’80s, this one doesn’t have it.

If you were like, “We’ve got to see this hybrid The Thing / Terminator / buddy cop movie from 1987 starring Kyle MacLachlan,” I’d be like, “Um, yes, we certainly do.” And our decision to see it would indeed be a wise one. But as we might have expected, the product is not quite the sum of its parts.

The most engaging slasher films tend to be the ones that continue the whodunit tradition of their giallo forefathers. Not only do you get to enjoy amusing innovations in grisly murder, you get to guess which unlikely suspect is responsible for them. Happy Birthday to Me is arguably the best of the whodunits in the first wave of slashers, and its crazy finale is my favorite kind of preposterous.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space is the rare treat that happens when the right people go all-in on the right ludicrous concept (or at least as all-in as a couple million bucks would allow). The hideous clowns and their imaginative misdeeds are rendered so vividly and with such care that any skeptic the film fails to disarm is truly a lost cause.

Less than three hours left to make your voice heard in this extremely important poll. twitter.com/robweychert/st…

“Our data implies that gender differences may lie not in how women act but in how people perceive their actions.” hbr.org/2017/10/a-stud…

A disparate handful of travelers take shelter from a storm in a creepy house with a creepy family. The plot, a collection of vignettes running the gamut of comical, spooky, and romantic, seems designed more to highlight the strengths of the cast and the set than to advance a cohesive narrative, but it works as both a celebration and satirization of creaky-old-house tropes. The ensemble cast is terrific, as is their staging on the expansive… See more →

Raisins?

Today I learned that the high five was created in 1977 by the first openly gay athlete in Major League Baseball. cbc.ca/news/canada/ma…

An anthology of four shorts directed by women, XX’s preoccupation with maternal horror is the opposite of the crappy brodown that was V/H/S, but it’s ultimately just as disappointing. The shorts are all equally unsatisfying, but Sofia Carrillo’s Švankmajer/Quay-inspired dollhouse-of-horrors interstitials are pretty cool.

“We had heard people […] take refuge in tribalism, and appeal to extremes. But the report mentioned little of that.” theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

“The top 1% alone holds twice as much value as the bottom 90%. That’s where most of the benefit to an increase in stock values goes.” twitter.com/washingtonpost…

A great case study in industry-backed deregulation and the flimsiness of the Trump administration’s ethics rules. nytimes.com/2017/10/21/us/…

Sometimes a bad night’s sleep is a goldmine for the ol’ dream journal. twitter.com/robweychert/st…

Another chapter in the saga of bugs and sleep and me. v6.robweychert.com/blog/2017/10/d…

I shudder to think what Freaks would have been if it were helmed by a director without a circus background, especially given how difficult its 1932 audience apparently found it to empathize with the performers. Despite his cast’s dramatic shortcomings, Tod Browning’s look behind the sideshow curtain is deeply human, and its cathartic revenge sequence is rightfully iconic. I so wish we could see the original 90-minute version.

Owing to the central relationship between a kindly antiques shop owner and his granddaughter, as well as the enchantingly mysterious mechanical device that upends their lives, Cronos feels kind of like a Jean-Pierre Jeunet stab at horror, which I guess could be said of several of Guillermo del Toro’s films. That said, Cronos’s imagination and balance of sickly and sweet make for a strong debut. The villains (Claudio Brook and Ron Perlman) aren’t nearly… See more →

“Trump’s populist, nationalist agenda has largely been replaced by the agenda of the corporate right.” newyorker.com/magazine/2017/…

“[B]e wary of how you’re reacting to a biased sample […] outliers don’t offer you meaningful information about who most protesters are […]” twitter.com/voxdotcom/stat…

For better or worse, Vampyr prioritizes the lyrical over the logical. Its surreal visual poetry is mesmerizing, though it doesn’t quite make a full meal.

Dear Mosquito,

I must commend you on a successful campaign of terror, even if its motivations are unclear. What a feast I would have been! A steak the size of a city, unconscious and completely unaware that its tender extremities were under siege by a tiny, carnivorous dive-bomber. And yet, you sacrificed your own self-interest for the sake of unprovoked spite, and landed right on the paragraph I was reading, just as my eyelids were… See more →

While Itay Tiran’s incredible performance as the possessed bridegroom is the standout component of Demon, the film is largely driven by a morbid fascination with patriarchy. As the father of the bride works frantically to ensure that his new son-in-law’s disturbing ailment doesn’t reflect poorly on him, the groom is hidden rather than helped, the bride’s devastation is ignored, and the wedding reception drags on compulsorily. The father’s pride benefits no one and hurts everyone.… See more →

A scorching condemnation of capitalism. As the armed-and-dangerous hitchhiker reminds his captives, their concern for each other is what keeps them under his thumb, while he is empowered by his selfishness. When competition trumps collaboration, compassion is a liability.

brb

Sumptuous visuals with atmosphere to spare, but I wish there were more of a story to hang them on. Simple tales of vengeful ghosts are common and often satisfying, but I found this one repetitive and shallow.

“It’s almost as though [university and fraternity stakeholders] are completing the second half of the same hazing rite that killed the boy.” twitter.com/TheAtlantic/st…

Zombieland’s towering self-satisfaction is inversely proportionate to its ingenuity and wit.

Visually breathtaking to the last, and another reminder that I really need to get more German Expressionism under my belt. The endless invention and confident hand behind Faust’s sets, cinematography, and special effects are entirely stunning, and Emil Jannings’ Mephisto is appropriately otherworldly.

Sending my love to Mogadishu.

I admire the chutzpah it takes to acquire a Spanish werewolf/vampire movie, slap a Frankenstein title on it, and sell it in place of (the unwatchable) Dracula Vs. Frankenstein you originally promised to American theaters, which is what distributor Sam Sherman did in the early 1970s with Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror. The movie is terrible, but at least it introduced me to Paul Naschy, who is apparently Spain’s barrel-chested Boris Karloff.

Perverse camp expertly dialed to 11.

Mostly an excuse to bring to life a collection of steampunk Nazi monsters that probably began as notebook doodles, and to take advantage of access to some marvelously dilapidated industrial locations. The creatures are fun, but the halfhearted found-footage format is distracting enough to sink the whole thing, flaunting its artifice with English-speaking Russian soldiers and supposed 16mm footage from the 1940s rendered in crisp HD. I know I’m taking this all too seriously, but… See more →

My 13th @AndrewWk bangover hurts so good.

A documentary on witchcraft in seven parts, incorporating a vintage PowerPoint presentation, delightfully grotesque dramatizations of occult folklore, and semi-rational hypotheses of what drove the paranoid, superstitious frenzy of the Middle Ages. Nearly 100 years after its release, Häxan’s preoccupation with female “hysteria” is also an unintentional indictment of its own time’s shallow thinking, and parallels are easily drawn to the modern era’s persistent misogyny and crooked notions of criminal justice.

A subpar backwoods survival slasher with a modest body count and zero mystique. Notable for featuring several cast and crew who would go on to much bigger and better things (Daryl Hannah, Joe Pantoliano), but if Hollywood stars’ humble horror beginnings are the primary draw for you, you’d be better served by The Burning (Jason Alexander, Holly Hunter), or, hell, Friday the 13th (Kevin Bacon). The Final Terror is mostly a snooze.

“What we need to start talking about is the crisis in masculinity.” twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/s…

I can now confirm that getting a nod from Thanks for Making is a really great way to start your day. Thanks, @FictiveCameron! twitter.com/FictiveCameron…

Julia Ducournau’s thoroughly absorbing Raw is out in front of the Robtober pack so far. Weak stomachs beware. letterboxd.com/robweychert/fi…

Lush, invasive, viscerally unsettling, and tender in every sense of the word. I was rapt for the duration.

TL;DR: Twitter is mostly a platform for me to complain about car alarms. twitter.com/robweychert/st…

Looking back at my decade on Twitter: how I got started, how I’ve used it, what I find valuable, and what I don’t. v6.robweychert.com/blog/2017/10/t…

I didn’t understand Twitter at first. A service that would constantly update me via SMS about the minutiae of my friends’ activities? Uh, no thanks? Using it via its website was less intrusive and slightly more appealing, but the whole thing still seemed to me like a really disorganized and fairly pointless chat room. Nevertheless, most of my friends in the web design community had joined by late 2006, and the service dominated SXSW Interactive… See more →

Dog whistles are so 2016. twitter.com/realDailyWire/…

I had to bail on this halfway through because the shaky cam was gonna make me barf. From what I saw, the effects are impressive and all of the characters are irritating, with the possible exception of Lizzy Caplan, who does her usual good job of playing Lizzy Caplan.

A paranoid conspiracist (John Goodman) keeps a young woman (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) captive in his underground doomsday bunker to protect her from what he claims is some kind of nuclear fallout above. Goodman’s reliably excellent performance works in concert with a smart script to keep you guessing about the truth of the matter, and Winstead’s charisma is rooted in a persistent resourcefulness that stops just short of Macgyver. I was frequently distracted by the big… See more →

Prompted by the 2017 film adaptation of It, I revisited the 1990 miniseries version for the first time in more than two decades, and it holds up about as well as expected. The kids are decent, the adults are laughably melodramatic, and the finale is pretty embarrassing. Even at a runtime exceeding three hours, this adaptation can barely scratch the surface of King’s sprawling novel, and the questions it leaves unanswered hurt more than they… See more →

Many a movie sports a protagonist who sucks at life, and you’re like, “Hey, I suck at life, too! I am invested in seeing this character succeed, for truly their success is a success for us all.” In The Void, however, it’s more like, “This guy doesn’t seem to have any good excuse for sucking as much as he does, and this warmed-over Lovecraft nonsense is exactly the dull fate he deserves.”

Okay, fine, dance party over, back to cleaning. 😞 youtu.be/-T8R_VDTOYQ

the shuffle is on fire all hail the shuffle youtu.be/Z97_gljMeaY

fuck it i’ll just live in filth youtu.be/3Va981qGlxM

Apartment cleaning plods along joylessly, and then this thing settles into its groove, and the dance party begins. youtu.be/p2sez21Cyyo

“[I]f expanding that audience meant involving white nationalists and neo-Nazis, their participation could always be laundered […]” twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/s…

Email clients and other digital products have come and gone, but I used @aim daily for nearly 20 years. That’s a hell of a thing. twitter.com/aim/status/916…

That great thing where, in the time you spent refreshing the broken, non-updating LiveNation event page, the tickets sold out.

A serviceable (if blandly presented) documentary with about a zillion variously-credentialed talking heads discussing Psycho’s iconic shower scene. The scene’s cultural context and lasting influence are 101 stuff, but 78/52 is at its best when it digs into the minutiae of the storyboards, staging, cinematography, sound design—casaba!—editing, symbolism, etc. Even the most dedicated Hitchcock scholar will probably learn something new. The interviews’ steady fawning tone gets a bit grating (only one person… See more →

Aaaaand we both forgot our anniversary again. 12 years with @ChamberMonster and I’m still dumbfounded by my luck. 💘

One of my favorite takedowns of all time is a single sentence in the San Diego Union-Tribune, in which David Elliott refers to Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream as “less filmed than assembled by an MTV task force committed to the final obliteration of subtlety.” Seventeen years later, subtlety continues to elude Aronofsky, and Mother!’s environmentalist/biblical allegory may be his most heavy-handed work yet.

That’s fine, as far as it goes; subtext doesn’t always… See more →

I want to go to there. twitter.com/nytimes/status…

Prrreeeeeetty excited about this. twitter.com/NoiseyMusic/st…

There are lots of opportunities for tech to do more good and less harm, and @sara_ann_marie is on the case: sarawb.com/technically-wr…

Though my feelings on the subject are unambiguous, I have a curious habit of seeking out reminders that I don’t ever want to be a teenage boy again, and Super Dark Times is an effective one. Its backwards gaze is largely unvarnished (apart from Ben Frost’s overly atmospheric score), but many moments are richly observed—I could practically smell the dead leaves that decorate those short, aimless hours in late autumn between the school day’s final… See more →

It feels good to have my site active again, and I’m having fun with it. This post is dressed up for Halloween! 💀 twitter.com/robweychert/st…

This is some handsome work. Looking forward to seeing how it’s implemented. Congrats to all involved! twitter.com/AaronRobbs/sta…

Robtober 2017 is upon us. Here’s the lowdown on my annual horror movie binge. v6.robweychert.com/blog/2017/10/r…

Every October, I put together a big schedule of horror films, most of which I haven’t seen before. Films, dates, and times (all subject to change) are listed for any friends who want to join me, and ticket links are included for public screenings. The schedule is also available as a handy Google calendar and as a Letterboxd list.

Below the schedule you can find a bit about how it’s curated as well as a roundup… See more →

I hate that this is what will get me to finally watch Peter Bogdanovich’s four-hour Tom Petty documentary. RIP Tom Petty. twitter.com/RollingStone/s…

Sending my love to Las Vegas.