Lazy Sunday CXL: More Movies, Part XI: Movie Reviews, Part XI

This Sunday’s collection of film retrospectives features a trio of darker and weirder fare, especially She’s Allergic to Cats (2016).  Perhaps the long Thanksgiving Break will give you an opportunity to watch a movie about a guy whose “true passion is making weird video art that nobody understands.”  ‘Tis the season… right?

With that, here are another three reviews for your delectation:

  • Monday Morning Movie Review: She’s Allergic to Cats (2016)” – This flick is described on Shudder.com thusly (and the description says it all):

    A lonely dog groomer in Hollywood searches for love, but his true passion is making weird video art that nobody understands. His menial routine spirals out of control when he meets the girl of his dreams, crossing boundaries between reality and fantasy as he dives deeper into his video experiments.

  • Monday Morning Movie Review: Near Dark (1987)” – What an excellent vampire movie!  Near Dark focuses on a relationship between a farm boy named Caleb and a strange girl called Mae.  Mae, of course, turns out to be a vampire, and ends up biting Caleb in his truck amid a frenzied, pre-dawn make-out session.  This bite transforms Caleb into a creature of the night, and as he runs—his body smoking in the harsh daylight—Mae’s cabal of white trash vampires snag Caleb, driving off with him.
  • Monday Morning Movie Review: Heathers (1989)” – Heathers was the writing debut of Daniel Walters, who (according to The Last Drive-in with Joe Bob Briggs) wanted to write a script that felt like a John Hughes film that Stanley Kubrick directed (Kubrick did not direct HeathersMichael Lehmann directed in his film debut).  Well, Walters achieved his goal—this is a very black satire on popularity, mass media, and high school power struggles.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Monday Morning Movie Review: Wait Until Dark (1967)

A quick note of apology to Audre Myers, one of my regular readers:  Audre mailed me a DVD of the film Bell, Book, and Candle (1958) at the beginning of October.  I have been waiting for opportunity to watch it with my girlfriend, then was going to review it.

Well, it turns out when you live four hours apart from each other, your weekends get filled up pretty quickly with fun activities and/or family obligations outside of the house—or catching up on a shared television series.  Poor BB&C has fallen by the wayside.

As such, I’ve yet to watch what appears to be a wonderful film, sent by a very wonderful friend.  I do apologize, Audrey, but I will make time this week to hook up the Blu-Ray player and watch the film solo.  Expect a detailed, lovingly handcrafted review in one week!

As I’ve noted many times before, Shudder has some of the best (and so-bad-it’s-the-best) content of any streaming service I’ve ever encountered.  Something I appreciate about the service is that they don’t just stick to slashers, but really take an expansive approach to “horror” as a genre.  They go out of their way to deliver some excellent classics that probably don’t show up anywhere else.

One such film—one that I would not strictly classify as a “horror” film, but which certainly deals with a horrific scenario—is 1967’s Wait Until Dark, starring Audrey Hepburn as a blind woman living with her photographer husband in a basement apartment in New York City.  Hepburn’s character, Susy Hendrix, has only been blind for a year or so, the result of a tragic accident, so she is still learning how to attend to everyday tasks without sight.

That said, she is fairly capable, and manages well enough, though the film clearly demonstrates that she is vulnerable due to her disability.  The stage is set for conflict when Susy and her husband come into the possession of an old-fashioned doll.  Unbeknownst to them, the doll is filled with heroine smuggled from Montreal, and a trio of crooks are intent on recovering the stash.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Halloween Kills (2021)

Halloween has come and gone, and we’re now entering the season of thankfulness—and then Christmas!  But I figured I’d squeeze in one more movie review related to the holiday, as my girlfriend and I saw—perhaps, it’s better to say, “endured”—2021’s Halloween Kills.

Halloween Kills is the sequel to 2018’s Halloween, itself a sequel to 1978’s Halloween (here’s a handy chart of all twelve Halloween films, and a diagram showing the different continuities within the bloated series).  Like Halloween II (1981), which starts immediately following the events of the original, Halloween Kills takes place on the same night as the events of Halloween (2018).  Confused yet?

Well, none of that much matters, besides the characters repeatedly mentioning the Michael Myers murders “forty years ago.”  Really, most of the movie is a sad attempt at making a statement about a mob mentality, itself muddled by the fact that the mob—which keeps chanting, “Evil dies tonight!”—is actually right about the necessity to annihilate Michael Myers once and for all.

Needless to say, it’s not a very good movie.  The 2018 Halloween was a great follow-up to the original (even taking into account that horror movie sequels are almost never good, or justified), and explored the theme of complacency in the face of a real existential threat.  Lori Strode’s character correctly understand that there is evil in the world, and Michael Myers is the relentless embodiment of it.  She therefore wisely takes major precautions to protect herself against the inevitable return of the man in the mask.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Dracula (1931)

My local library has been screening the classic Universal Monster Movies every Saturday night this month, which is just about the greatest thing any library has ever done (besides, you know, storing all of that knowledge).  They kicked off the month with 1941’s The Wolf Man, but I think they saved the best for last—1931’s Dracula (this weekend they’re showing a non-Universal Monster flick).

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Lazy Sunday CXXXVI: More Movies IX: Movie Reviews, Part IX

We’re just one week from Halloween, and it looks like some serendipitous timing for this next filmic installment of Lazy Sunday, as the three films this week are either horror films or “horror-adjacent” in nature.  It’s perhaps a bit of an underwhelming example of serendipity, as I now pretty much exclusively watch horror movies on Shudder, but these reviews were from my pre-Shudder days, when I was watching most stuff on Hulu.

Of course, you don’t care about all of that.  You just want to read about movie reviews you probably already skimmed through months ago.  So, on with the retrospective!

  • Monday Morning Movie Review: The Wailing (2016)” – Asian horror is really where all the fresh stuff in horror flicks is coming from these days, or so it seems.  Asians harbor way fewer hang-ups than we do about politically correct stuff, so they’ll make movies that aren’t just agit-prop for Cultural Marxism and Grievance Studies majors.  2016’s The Wailing was a pretty good example of this phenomenon of East Asian horror, but there are far better ones (like 2017’s One Cut of the Dead, a brilliant zombie film that is really a film-within-a-film about making a film).  Also, the movie is excruciatingly long, especially if guttural Korean wailing isn’t your thing.
  • Monday Morning Movie Review: Color Out of Space (2019)” – My blogger buddy photog over at Orion’s Cold Fire and I published our reviews of The Color Out of Space simultaneously.  You can read his screed against this cinematic butchering of the Lovecraft story here.  We both drew the same conclusions:  it was an insufferable movie, which was really unfortunate because of its Lovecraftian source material and the presence of Nicolas Cage.  Those two combined should make for an insane experience.  Instead, this movie felt like a chore to watch, and none of the characters came across as likeable or sympathetic.  What’s funny, too, is that when I subscribed to Shudder, they were making a big deal about having this film on the streaming service.
    Even Nicolas Cage was bad in this film, and that’s hard to write as a Nick Cage fan.  Here was my assessment from the original:
    “It’s like the uncanny valley:  at a certain point, robots, animatronics, etc., are so realistic, they’re unsettling.  The viewer can tell that something is off, despite the enhanced realism.  In Color, Cage gets so crazy it loses its impact; instead of creating the unsettled feeling one gets around a raving derelict at a late-night bus stop, one gets the unsettled feeling of seeing a robot trying to be life-like.  It’s an unsettling portrayal, to be sure, but not in the way the filmmakers intended.”
  • Monday Morning Movie Review: Life Like (2019)” – I watch so many movies, I forget about most of them, even the ones I review.  That was the case with Life Like.  It was a decent film with an intriguing premise, but the wife came off as completely ungrateful for the incredible life she literally had fall into her lap, resulting in a near affair with a not-quite-android.  Yeesh!  I ended my review thusly:  “As Proverbs 21:9 says, it is better to live on the roof of one’s house than with a riotous woman.  We could probably add “hunky robots” to that, too.”

Well, that’s it for this last film retrospective before Halloween.  Here’s to a spooky, fun week!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT^2: On Ghost Stories

It’s that time of year again—the so-called “spooky season,” when Halloween decorations go up, scary stories get told, and overwrought bloggers with delusions of grandeur stage over-the-top concerts from their front porches (well, maybe that last one is just me).  As the weather turns cool and the leaves begin to fall, it’s almost impossible not to settle in with some hot coffee and a good collection of ghost stories.

So, for the second year in a row, I’m looking back this TBT to 2019’s “On Ghost Stories,” a post that now will hold the distinction of being a perennial favorite.

One might think that as scary as the real world is, we’d spend less time reading spooky fiction.  It seems the opposite is the case.  Perhaps the idea that malevolence is not necessarily the result of human frailty, but rather due to wicked supernatural influences, is oddly comforting.  That evil is the result of our fallen nature—and, of course, the malignant supernatural influence up on it—is a bit easier to forget, perhaps, when reading about some ghostly figure wreaking havoc in the English countryside.

More likely, it’s just that we enjoy being scared—when we can easily flip off the television or close the book.  Horror is fun when there are no real consequences attached to it.  Then again, just watching horror movies probably isn’t healthy (I’ll report back if I suddenly get any macabre urges).

Well, whatever the reason, a good ghost story is hard to pass up.  With that, here is “TBT: On Ghost Stories“:

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Monday Morning Movie Review: In the Earth (2021)

Well, it’s not quite morning, and I’m still playing catch-up after a weekend of indolence and ice cream, but but I’m eking out this Monday “Morning” Movie Review for your daily delectation.

I often review films that I like, or about which I can say something positive.  This week’s film, In the Earth (2021), is one that I cannot recommend to most viewers, but one I nevertheless enjoyed.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Lifeforce (1985)

I’m a big sucker—pun most certainly intended—for vampire movies.  I’ve always enjoyed the vampire mythos, and find them to be terrifyingly fascinating villains (or anti-heroes).  The concept of immortality in a fallen, ever-changing world is itself a haunting prospect, one filled both with opportunity and, ultimately, hopelessness.

I also love science-fiction movies, notably those that take place in space.  The sense of boundless adventure and the thrill of exploration combine with high-tech gobbledygook to make for some fun stories.  Sci-fi, like horror, also has the ability to be among the best social commentary put to paper.

With 1985’s Lifeforce, those two genres are combined in a pleasing, memorable way.  Indeed, the film is based on a novel called The Space Vampires, which gives the game away on the front cover.  The vampires of the film and the novel are energy vampires, sucking the lifeforce from their victims, luring them in by shapeshifting into the guise of what the human victim most desires in a mate.  In doing so, they turn their victims in ravenous husks who must feed on the energy of others to survive.  If they don’t, they explode into a puff of dust and ash.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: The Stuff (1985)

Shudder continues to deliver up the bizarre and unusual, proving it’s well worth the price of admission for the streaming service.  This last week saw the service bring the 1985 film The Stuff to the service.

It’s an unusual horror flick that combines elements of consumer protection advocacy, mass media advertising, consumerism, ruthless business tactics, and addiction into a blob of creamy terror.

Indeed, the film is something like The Blob (1958) and Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) rolled into one:  a greedy corporation knowingly sells a dangerous product, which turns out to be a goopy white organism that entire consumes the very people consuming it.

So, essentially, the entire flick is a metaphor for consumerism and corporate greed run amok.

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