Yes, August is almost over, but I haven’t collected my thoughts on July yet, so take my hand and travel back in time to the distant lands of about a month ago. Most of the stuff I see is old anyway, so it’s hardly like holding a newspaper next to my face would make any difference.
TV
Love Village
A Japanese dating reality show where the contestants are all over thirty five, have a low fame-hunter quotient, and are ostensibly looking for their final life partner. In addition, they have to fix up the remote house they live in with each other. Everyone plays their cards pretty close to the chest. Anyone can ring the love bell up the hill, then all the others line up in front of the house. The person who rang the bell then says to whom they have feelings for, then confesses those feelings in front of everyone. The person who they confessed to does not respond. They all go to bed. The next morning, the scene is recreated, and the confessed to either says they have feelings or not. If they do, the pair leave love village together, a happy couple. If not, the person who confessed leaves alone. Everyone cries and hugs regardless. Oh, and did I mention that the theme song is The Backstreet Boys’s Backstreet’s Back? Also, there’s in-studio commentators in front of a live audience reacting to the whole filmed piece, either genuinely or roasting the contestants, the production, etc. Filmed last year. It’s on Netflix. If this sounds remotely appealing, you owe yourself a look.
Music
Stung! by Pond
A genre-spanning ear-worm pop gem. Some baroque funk in here I especially liked. Pond has been around a while, but I’m just learning about them now. The cover looks like you, the viewer, were just stung by the bee pictured, and your vision is blurring out. The music is much better than that feeling.
Beautiful Hell by War on Women
Well crafted, sonically interesting, and thick-sounding hardcore. Politically in-your-face, this feels like what rock music should be. Beautiful Hell is their latest release, and from 2020, so hoping they have new material soon.
Movies
Child’s Play
After watching all the Friday the 13th movies, my roommates and I started a new 80s slasher project: Child’s Play. It’s the classic story of a foul-mouthed serial killer whose soul gets trapped in the body of a doll that goes on a terror spree. There’s a lot more subtle tension than the premise would have you believe, with a strong performance from the Mom from Seventh Heaven and Star Trek IV. Plays on the childhood fears of not being believed and loss of innocence. Good stuff.
Child’s Play 2
Chucky, the killer doll from part one, is back, due to corporate greed. Meanwhile, Andy, the terrorized little boy from part one, is put into foster care, as the state institutionalizes his mother for ranting about said killer doll. Without the horror elements, the story is a grounded, heartfelt rendition of life in the foster system. The addition of spunky teenager Kyle is great, and while it doesn’t have quite the same scares as the original, it makes up for it with personality.
MaXXXine
This is my pick for the best horror movie of the year so far, and one of my favorite movies this year, period. A smart, schlocky meditation on the desire for fame, Mia Goth turns in another stunning performance as Maxine. This time, it’s in the neon soaked 80s LA, which is so fun to look at. Each movie in the series borrows film language from genre of the decade in which the story takes place. Where X was shot like 70s grind house, prequel Pearl was shot like a dark Wizard of Oz, MaXXXine is shot like a slick 80s video nasty. Pearl’s final shot was incredible, giving MaXXXine big shoes to fill; in my opinion, it delivers. Don’t miss it.
Child’s Play 3
You can’t keep a bad doll down. In part three, we follow a now teenage Andy in a military school. Less memorable overall, there’s still some fun kills and lines and general weirdness. The law of diminishing sequel returns holds true. An unshakable law, that no series ever breaks, right?
Seven Samurai
Got a chance to see the 4k remaster in theaters. Absolutely gorgeous. The story still slaps. Even though it’s a subtitled movie made in 1954 about an even earlier time, the movie still connects. The audience was packed, and everyone was responding. The movie is really funny! You get that at home, but not to the same extent as you do with a packed crowd. What a wonderful experience.
Bride of Chucky
Remember that unshakable law of sequels having diminishing returns? Chop it up and throw it down a well, because Bride of Chucky is here. Realizing that familiarity with a character makes them less scary, series creator Don Mancini leaned into the campy, comedic elements of the character for this one, and it is such a blast. Jennifer Tilly plays the bride, and she’s as funny as she is compelling. This also marks the series integrating more overtly gay themes and characters, something I imagine Mancini couldn’t do culturally earlier in the series. I cannot stress how fun this movie is.
M3GAN
Re-watched this one with my roommate, this time in the unrated version. Ooooh! I couldn’t tell the difference. The movie’s still a fun little A.I. zing, though, with a surprising amount of heart. If you don’t like horror movies, don’t worry, this is not scary. It’s essentially a drama.
Seed of Chucky
You thought Bride of Chucky was wild? Seed says to hold its beer. Everything in the previous film is cranked up: the comedy, the camp, the gayness. The movie begins with a James Bond style screen wipe, but instead of blood it’s cum. Yes, that’s how it starts, and it doesn’t get less nuts from there. Some may find the meta humor and wild tone shifts wobbly, but I had such a great time with this one.
Curse of Chucky
Made several years later, this one is a more back to basics story, toning down the absurdist black comedy, in favor of a slow build tension more akin to the original Child’s Play. I actually liked this one quite a bit, and thought the premise and characters were clever, even if the acting was uneven and sometimes you could really feel the low budget.
Kinds of Kindness
Dear God. What did I watch? Four short films starring largely the same actors playing different parts, from Yorgos Lanthimos, the director of Poor Things and The Favorite. I can’t begin to describe this thing. It’s not a horror movie, and yet it’s somehow the most disturbing movie I’ve seen all year. Longer. This movie sticks to you. Good God. I’m probably going to see it again.
Cult of Chucky
Now the series takes a perplexing dip. After the zany heights of Seed and respectable grounding of Curse, Cult goes off on such a bizarre turn. Not in storytelling per se, but in production quality. It just feels cheap, and not in a fun way. Also the story makes no sense. Also not in a fun way. I’m glad I saw it, because now I can say I’ve seen all the Chucky movies (jealous??), but wow, what a weird, disappointing end to the series.
Evil Dead Rise
After the let down of Cult of Chucky, it was time for my roommates and I to rinse out with a new horror franchise—The Devil Dead. This time, we decided to watch them in reverse release order. Which means we started with Evil Dead Rise, a movie from only last year I meant to see but didn’t get a chance. It’s good! Instead of a remote cabin in the woods, it’s set in an apartment building. For the Evil Dead horror to work, the characters need to be isolated, and they got that to work in very clever, unforced ways. There’s also gay/non-binary kids, where that’s just part of the background, not directly commented on, which feels like progress. You know what’s not progress? Possessed moms. So good.
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
Even though I saw this only a few months ago, the local horror club was showing this outdoors in the back of a bar. The screen was small, and it drizzled a bit, but there was a good sized crowd of horror weirdos all laughing and cheering along with the cheap thrills. Fun times.
Tank Girl
The first of a double feature hosted on our roof, Tank Girl is a all attitude 90s comic book adaptation of a wise-cracking rebel, the titular Tank Girl, trying to survive in a desert post apocalypse controlled by an evil corporation. There’s a lot of genre fun here, and while it doesn’t stick everything it tries, it’s got such a personality to it you can’t help but like it. Also, Ice Cube plays one of the mutant Kangaroo people, so check it out for all the make up screen time.
All About Evil
The second part of the roof double feature, All About Evil is an ultra low budget horror movie about a woman who owns a failing movie theater who starts filming horror shorts to screen at her theater, where the kills are actual murders. Made by a drag queen, the high camp of a drag show is palpable. It also has nothing to do with All About Eve. The movie doesn’t really work, but it also kind of does? It’s a whole thing, you know?
Mandy
Holy crap, this movie is so good. Drenched in color and style and mood, there’s hardly any dialog. Nick Cage movies can go either way, and boy is this a good one. Kind of like a demented neon folk horror. Just let it wash over you.
Deadpool & Wolverine
Not so much a movie as a meta joke delivery machine. Not everything lands, but I had a good time. I don’t go to see Marvel movies for the seriousness. Silly. Of course, it’s all about who you go with.
Evil Dead
This is the 2013 remake, which, apparently, a lot of folks don’t like. It was the first time seeing it for me, but I thought it had a lot going for it. Maybe a little more on the grimy side, and less on the living cartoon side, of the Evil Dead equation, the main character’s struggle with addiction set against the horrors of the dead I thought was really powerful.
Army of Darkness
Well of course, the one and only. It had been a while since I’d seen Army, and while a lot of the zingers don’t hold up, along with that one out of nowhere misogynist ick scene towards the beginning, all the physical comedy is still great, and the practical effects are a delight. My roommates and I saw the version with the extended scene at the mill, and we were laughing our guts out. What a good time.
And that about wraps it up. Tune in in another month for what I’ve been media-ing two months ago.