Movie Morsels, Pt. 2

HELLBENDER (2021): This is a really cool little folk horror/witch movie entirely written, produced, directed, acted in & filmed by a real life family (mom, dad and two daughters) called the Adams Family. How cool would it be to make movies with your family?! Anyhow, it's about a teenage girl who lives a completely isolated life in the woods with her cool ass mom, and they have a really rad two-piece band, but then she starts to wonder about life in the outside world, as kids do, and it kind of all goes to hell(bender) from there. Sabrina she ain't. I enjoyed this slow-burn indie a lot. It lingers.

DEATH RINK (2019): I watched this because it's a slasher movie set at a roller rink. I try to make it a point not to talk shit on films I don't like, especially if they're independently made, so I'll just say that there was precious little skatin' and precious little slashin' in this roller skate slasher. Points for location, though. 

FRENCH KISS (1995): Remember the whole "nineties Meg Ryan movies are my cinematic comfort food" thing? This was a particular favorite of mine back in the day, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well it held up for me. Kevin Kline is kind of a left-field pick for the mustachioed, cigarette smoking, amoral Frenchman who sweeps Meggers off her feet after she travels to France to win back her wayward fiancé, but they do have chemistry and this movie is cute. Désolée, pas désolée, as they say.

ADDICTED TO LOVE (1997): Next up in my Meg Ryan journey, this rom com where she plays against type as a hard-assed, scooter-riding, eyeliner-and-animal-print-wearing NYC woman bent on revenge after her boyfriend leaves her for another woman is a real treat. She and the new gal's ex-boyfriend (Matthew Broderick, striking a tone somewhere in between charming smart-ass Ferris Bueller & the neurotic obsessive he plays in Election) start squatting in the decaying building across the street so they can engage in totally normal rom com behavior like spying on their exes via camera obscura, collecting cockroaches for a future revenge stunt, and sneaking into their apartment to put on their exes' clothes and have sex. It's kinda dark as far as Meg Ryan rom coms go, and again, this totally held up for me. 

YOU'VE GOT MAIL (1998): Oh man. Okay, so You've Got Mail has always been a tough one for me. On one hand, I love the Nora Ephron-ness of it all: Autumn in New York, Meg in super conservative high-necked granny clothes, cute one-liners, the gentle pace. On the other hand, Tom Hanks' character is a super prick in this movie, and the ensuing years have only made me hate him and what he does to Meg's cute little kids bookstore -- that she inherited from her sweetie pie of a late mother, no less! -- even more. I like this movie, I guess, but it's hard to watch, and it's hard for me to believe that these characters would actually start a full-fledged relationship with one another, let alone sustain one for any length of time. Maybe Meggers' interest in Tom's character is actually just a ruse and she takes the first opportunity to pour some poison in his ear while he sleeps or something. A girl can dream.

THE SCARY OF SIXTY-FIRST (2020): I watched this mainly because of the baffling title, and because I was like, "Wha...? It's about...Jeffrey Epstein? Or something?" 80 minutes later I felt like I'd emerged from one of those accidental Internet rabbit holes you fall down sometimes where you start out reading someone's Instagram comments and then you end up on some weird flat-earther/qanon forum and you're like, Damn, people believe this shit?! Also the title is never really explained. Like, I still don't get why "scary" is used as a noun. Anyway, I feel like maybe I'm either too dumb or not dumb enough for this edgelordy business.

ALISON'S BIRTHDAY (1981): Weird little Australian occult film that starts with a schoolgirl Ouija board seance and ends with a kind of Wicker Man-meets-Rosemary's Baby situation. It was a little predictable--like, how blatantly sinister are Alison's aunt and uncle?--but I still enjoyed the ride. If you're into folk horror movies (this is one of the films in the All the Haunts Be Ours box set), I think you'll like this one.

Movie Morsels, Pt. 1

Here's a little rundown on some movies I've watched lately. Again, there is no rhyme or reason to my selections. This is just my honest assessment of the movies I've been watching, as I watch them. More soon!

SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE (1993): I don't always watch rom-coms, but a certain breed of rom-com -- namely, anything Meg Ryan starred in between 1989 and 1998 -- is 100% cinematic comfort food to me. When Harry Met Sally... is the best of 'em, but since I've revisited that one fairly recently (and do so pretty regularly), I had a hankering to dip into my other erstwhile favorites starring Meggers, beginning with this gentle tearjerker. Much has been made in the ensuing years of Meg's pursuit of Tom Hanks' widower character, since she, you know, basically stalks him, but you know what? It works for me. They are MFEO. I buy it. An unfortunate throwaway line about "transvestites" has not aged well. Still, for a nearly 30-year-old romance in which the two main characters never kiss and barely say more than a few words to each other, this holds up. Extra points for the babysitter who looks like a young Shelley Duvall, and for being set in Seattle in the '90s without even hinting at the existence of grunge. I mean, can you imagine Nora Ephron writing a Kurt and Courtney meet cute? CAN YOU!? Now I wanna see that.

CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962): I saw this on 35mm at an actual movie theater, thanks to the geniuses at Cinematic Void and their Horror By the Water series. I've always dug this movie, but I feel like it made more sense to me this time than on previous viewings. Before, I would get hung up on the languid dream-like rhythm and lose track of the plot. This time, everything hung together and felt cohesive. I love that the main character is a church organist who doesn't believe in God or religion. "It's just a job to me." A woman who is disconnected on every level: From the friends she shares a car with in the film's opening scene, to the man in her boarding house who she reluctantly dates because she doesn't want to be alone. But the best part is still the salt-streaked seaside setting, and the hollow-eyed ghouls that pursue our heroine, arms outstretched, as she stumbles through the scenery, pulled toward something unnameable and unknowable.

YOU WON'T BE ALONE (2022): If most movies are novels, or at least short stories, this Macedonian film is a poem. It's not about what happens so much as it's about how it makes you feel as you accompany a shapeshifting young witch who yearns for a human life. I liked it, but I will probably never watch it again. It felt long, and it made me sad. But it was beautifully filmed -- the scenery in particular is often breathtaking -- and well-executed. I would recommend it to anyone who is intrigued by the premise, but if you're looking for a thrill-a-minute spookshow, this ain't it. This is more like The Witch on quaaludes. 

GONJIAM: HAUNTED ASYLUM (2018): Korean found footage horror about a group of ghost hunters who visit the titular haunted asylum so they can live stream the experience. As a found footage lover, I had a great time. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking here, but it did have its share of creepy moments, and I loved the setting.

WARNING: DO NOT PLAY (2019): Another Korean gem available to watch on Shudder, this is one of those movies with an "intrepid to a fault" protagonist who feels compelled to discover The Terrifying Truth at any cost. In this case, that Terrifying Truth concerns the legend of a cursed horror film, which the main character becomes obsessed with while procrastinating work on her own film. Relatable! Plus I love watching characters investigate. Typing into search bars on their laptops, checking their phones, going on little road trips, tricking strangers into giving them information...hell yeah! This movie has a ton of that and I find it so soothing. I found the ending to be a little muddled but I still recommend it overall.

MESSIAH OF EVIL (1973): Another Cinematic Void "Horror By the Water" screening. I'd seen this twice before, and every time I watch it I enjoy it a little bit more. It is so '70s -- the clothes, the interior design, the deeply questionable sexual politics -- and feels less like a movie and more like an actual nightmare. A woman visits a mysterious seaside town to find her missing father and discovers that the place is overrun with flesh-eating ghouls. There are two really great creepy sequences in this film that are pretty famous among genre enthusiasts: One in a grocery store, and on in a movie theater. It's also full of weird little '70s details, like a bed suspended from the ceiling by chains, a bathtub wedged into the corner of a bathroom, and a tonally-inappropriate theme song that plays over both the opening and closing credits. This movie exists in its own universe, and I love it for that.

TONY HAWK: UNTIL THE WHEELS FALL OFF (2022): Even if you know nothing about skateboarding, you know Tony Hawk. But like...do you really know Tony Hawk? Watching this documentary now, with my fresh (roller) skater eyes, I get what compels people to keep trying something over and over again, even though 95% of skating is falling (and Tony falls...a lot, and sometimes pretty badly). I've never been into team sports, but this kind of sport, where it's like you're on a personal quest to overcome your own physical and mental limitations? I can get into that. Skating takes some physical skill, sure, but so much of it is persistence and bravery, and that willingness to fall. I'm trying to take that spirit into my own skating, and into my own life. Even if you have no interest in putting wheels of any sort under your feet, there's probably something here that will inspire you.

Post-Pandemmy Update

 

Hi. It's been a long time.

Somewhat fittingly, my last post was in January 2020, shortly before the world changed. Needless to say, I've had very little to write about in the way of events since the pandemic began, and very little motivation to try to write about anything else. My depression, always a low whisper in the background, became a scream. But the scream ebbed and flowed -- I've been busy since March 2020, if not productive. How has your pandemic been? In addition to not dying of covid, here are a few (positive) things that have happened to me:

• My husband and I, as Black Lullabies, recorded a few new songs together after a long, long hiatus from creating new music. We also filmed the music video embedded above, for our song "Crown Shyness."
• I wrote a short screenplay called "Moon-Sick," which I took to a few film festivals, including Shriekfest (see me interviewed on the red carpet here) and Hollywood Horrorfest, where it won the award for Best Werewolf Short Script.
• After a lifetime of physical inactivity and struggles with my body image, I took up rollerskating (mostly park and street skating) and, later in the pandemic, aerial fitness. Both disciplines have completely changed my outlook on myself as a physical being, as well as my approach to setting and achieving goals. The feeling of finally learning a skate trick or an aerial move that I've been trying for months is unlike anything else I've experienced. I've also learned to fall -- both metaphorically and quite literally -- and how, if you do it enough, it's not a big deal. No, more than that: It's a necessity. It's part of the process. It's fun!
• I watched a lot of movies. 

Now, I'm trying to write again, and since nothing helps me punch through the frozen crust on the iced-over pond of my creativity quite like movie reviews, this blog felt like a natural forum for my musings. 

Before I get into it, a few caveats:

• Not all reviews will be horror movies. Many will be, because that's what I like to watch, but I do watch other things as well.
• Not all reviews will be of new movies. Many will even be of movies that I, myself, have watched more than once. I just want to get into the flow of writing again, and of sharing my writing with that great void that is the internet.
• Most reviews will be relatively short capsule reviews. I'm not anticipating any 5,000 word essays here. Then again, who knows what will happen? This post is already far longer than I imagined it would be.
• I will try to avoid the most egregious spoilers, but no promises. 

With all that being said, if anyone still reads this blog, I'm happy to have you along for this ride, for as long as it lasts. Hope you're still feelin' spooky.