Back in late 2022 and early 2023, Ponty and I did a series of posts about our favorite films. I ranked 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back as my number one pick. If we redid the lists, I doubt it would rank that high, but it would certainly be in the top five.
At the time, I noted that Empire was the first film I ever reviewed for what would become Monday Morning Movie Reviews. At the time, I just called it Monday Movie Review, perhaps knowing there’d be days I’d miss the “morning” deadline. Regardless, the review of that film marked something of a turning point for The Portly Politico, moving away from primarily political topics and moving more decisively towards cultural ones.
One of the flicks on my mental “to view” list for some time now was today’s feature, The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971; that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you). It’s been wickedly hard to track down online, although I’ve seen its sequel, Dr. Phibes Rises Again (same affiliate link as above) available on a number of platforms. For whatever reason, I never cared enough to find the DVD (ibid.)—or to even consider looking for it!
So when the sequel popped up on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, I decided to hunt down the original. Surely YouTube would have it as one of their free (with ads) flicks, yes?
Well, no. But someone—or two someones—had uploaded it to YouTube. I can’t vouch for how legit it is that they’ve done so, but they’ve head the film uploaded for seven years, so I imagine American International Pictures or the copyright holders of the various Great American Songbook tunes in the film don’t care or don’t know about the upload (hopefully I’m not outing them with this review). Regardless, two gentlemen in New Castle, Pennsylvania, have a little horror show called New Castle After Dark (website) in which they dress in the kind of tuxedos nerds wear to the prom. They also smoke lots of cigarettes and drink dark beer while they make some general comments about the flick.
It’s a charming setup, and I appreciated that they didn’t cut into the film too frequently. From what I recall, they do an intro, then host a segment midway through the film, and finally close with some concluding remarks. It’s just the right about of interstitial commentary, and I think it’s super cool that they’re trying to capture the spirit (no pun intended) of late-night horror hosts.
Here’s the flick with their commentary if you want to check it out yourself:
The premise for Dr. Phibes is insanely fun and campy: the titular doctor, who holds dual doctorates in music and theology, seeks revenge on the surgeons who he believes botched his wife’s surgery some years earlier. He methodically murders each doctor according to the Ten Plagues of Egypt from Exodus.
Phibes himself is a gruesome character. While his wife was going into surgery, he attempted to rush back to England from Switzerland. In the process he crashed his car, sustaining injuries that made it impossible for him to talk. To do so, he used his knowledge of music and acoustics to create a voice box (through which he comically drinks some champagne at one point). He also has a full, automaton band that plays jazz and pop standards from the 1920s (the setting of the film) and, anachronistically, the 1930s and 1940s.
Vincent Price portrays the devilishly ingenious doctor, so imagine Price’s stentorian voice filtered through an old landline telephone wire. It’s so goofy and awesome.
I started writing this review Sunday evening and decided to spend time with Dr. Wife, who is now done with residency and living here in our South Carolina house permanently! This morning was full of errands, including taking Nugget to the vet for her annual visit and taking care of things around the house. Ergo, I’m finally getting around to finishing up this review. —TPP
Also, this post includes some Amazon Affiliate links (the book and movie titles). I receive a portion of any purchases made through these links at no additional cost to you. —TPP
On Saturday I wrote about Richard Matheson’s novellaI Am Legend, which I enjoyed reading over the past week. What prompted me to purchase the book was re-watching its 1964 film adaptation, The Last Man on Earth. The film stars Vincent Price is the role of Robert Neville, the titular last man on Earth not to succumb to a terrible plague that turns people into vampires.
My Boomer-esque journey into the glory of free movies (with ads) on YouTube continues with the 1978 remake Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the classic featuring the likes of Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, and Jeff Goldblum. At the time of writing, the film is available for digital rental or purchase on YouTube, but it was available for free last week:
Regardless, it’s been a couple of years or so since I last saw this classic, and watching from the relative intimacy of my office computer—up close, largely focused, with a clear view a foot or so from my face—I appreciated Invasion of the Body Snatchers more than ever.
YouTube has a treasure trove of classic films that are free with ads—legally. Indeed, in watching some of these films on my desktop, I’ve had no ads actually pop up (and I’m not using some kind of cheeky ad blocker). YouTube has fed me some great films, mostly from the 1960s and 1970s.
One of the best I’ve seen so far is 1970’s Cromwell, a historical drama based on the life of the the Puritan warrior and later Lord Protector of England Oliver Cromwell. The film also stars Obi-Wan Kenobi—excuse me, Alec Guinness—as King Charles I in a pitch-perfect performance (Richard Harris also delivers a fiery performance as Cromwell).
Here’s the entire film here; it is well worth investing in the runtime, and I found it gripping for the entire duration:
Now that you’ve spent the morning watching the movie, on to the review!
Dr. Wife and I took in another indie horror-ish flick on Saturday, checking out the Internet sensation Backrooms (2026). The film is based on director Kane Parson‘s YouTube series, Backrooms, which itself is based on a 4Chan thread from 2019. “The Backrooms” are a series of liminal spaces that exist extradimensionally, but are accessible from the real world. They consist of seemingly endless corridors decorated in the drab yellow wallpaper and builder-grade carpet of every 1990s dentist office. Indeed, the original photo that inspired the Backrooms is from a Wisconsin furniture store renovation in 2002.
Neither of us have watched the YouTube series, and I knew very little about the Backrooms extended universe. I wanted to go into the film blind, although I knew a little bit of the plot and characters just from watching reviews. That said, here is a playlist of the original YouTube series:
Having seen the film, you don’t really need to watch the YouTube series to appreciate what the director is doing, and to get some hazy understanding of what the Backrooms are. However, be aware going into the film that you’re going to leave with more questions than answers, and that is the point.
Dr. Wife and I took a trip to the theater on Saturday to see the horror/psychological thriller/black comedy Obsession (2025-2026). Dr. Wife had seen it on social media, and Critical Drinker’s positive review clinched it.
The film is based on a familiar premise: be careful what you wish for. It’s essentially a “The Monkey’s Paw” with one wish instead of three. Naturally, the one wish goes horribly awry.
The protagonist, Bear, is deeply in love—obsessed—with his friend and co-worker Nikki. After a night out with their fellow co-workers Ian and Sandy, Bear drives Nikki home, and she pointedly asks Bear if he likes her, saying, “now’s the time to tell me.” Bear, who is a rather cowardly young man, sheepishly denies it.
Frustrated with his own spinelessness, he uses a “One-Wish Willow”—a novelty toy he purchased at a New Age shop as a gag—to wish that Nikki love him more than anything else in the world.
Well, it wouldn’t be a movie if the wish didn’t come true; it does, and what starts as a giddy romance quickly devolves into an obsessive, dangerously co-dependent relationship, amid which the “real” Nikki briefly “breaks through.” These episodes of lucidity show a woman desperately fighting to reassert herself against Bear’s wish, which has robbed her of her free will.
My school is giving its annual Spring Musical tonight. They’re doing a stage musical adaptation of Disney’s Descendants, which follows the lives of the children of the various Disney villains and heroes. It’s a cute little musical and it’s always cool seeing what our Drama teacher manages to put together.
The plot of the play itself, however, is classic modern Disney propaganda. It essentially presents a naïve view that evil is not a real threat; instead, it just needs to be neutralized with tolerance and a proper environment.
Well, yours portly is back at it today after a glorious Spring Break. It was busy, but the kind of busy I like—getting stuff done around the house and knocking out various errands without the drain of doing them after working all day. There’s still an immense amount of unpacking to do, but I can at least maneuver around my home office without sucking in my gut and performing pudgy pirouettes around boxes.
Writing, however, took a bit of a backseat to errands—and to Old World, the 4X strategy game that absorbed much of my waking hours in the waning days of break. I stayed up until nearly 2:30 AM Friday night/Saturday morning playing the game, and was reminded why I don’t do that anymore, as I was dragging the rest of the weekend. That said, I did finish my first campaign (still a tutorial, technically, but it was a complete playthrough without any gimmicks and with only minimal handholding from tutorial pop-ups), winning an “Ambition Victory” as Babylon. Granted, the difficulty was a couple of notches below the standard settings, which probably explains why I was able to focus on churning out generation after generation of philosopher-kings in a mostly peaceful playthrough. Still, I feel much more confident to tackle higher difficulties as I continue to learn the game.
Those self-indulgent updates out of the way, let’s get to the movie review! At the beginning of break, Dr. Wife and I saw the new A24 flick The Drama (2026), starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. I’d always thought that Zendaya was kind of a one-note actress, as her entire schtick was to gaze moodily into the camera with the same expression. The Drama disabused me of that notion (to be fair, though, that is how she played every other character I’ve seen her portray).
The film is billed as a romantic comedy, which is a bit misleading. The flick is comedic, but it’s black comedy. Dr. Wife and I found ourselves failing to suppress guffaws at some of the truly deadpan, downbeat, dark humor of the flick, which always makes for a good time.
Indeed, there’s apparently some Internet outrage (the worst kind of outrage) over this perceived bait-and-switch, as people go in expecting a film about a cute couple getting married and instead get a movie about a dark revelation threatening that marriage. Yes, that’s technically the plot of every romantic comedy—something unflattering comes out in the second act that precipitates in the male lead running to the airport before his girl flies off to The Big City—but it’s much darker and more psychological here—and realistic. The film asks, “what would you do if you found out something about your fiancée that is (potentially) deeply troubling just five days before your wedding?” It also asks us to consider which is worse: doing something that is mildly or moderately bad, or thinking about doing something truly despicable but not carrying it only due to external factors.
Yours portly is a sucker for old-school sword and sorcery stories: loin-cloth-clad barbarians; pseudo-Sumerian cults; wicked witches; feisty damsels; ferrets. 1982’s The Beastmaster has them all (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you).
This film was on cable all the time when I was a kid, although I think its heyday was passing by the early 1990s. According to the film’s Wikipedia entry, HBO played it so frequently that people joked that “HBO” stood for “Hey, Beastmaster’s On.” We didn’t have HBO (except for those free weekends they would do sometimes, and then we were forbidden from watching it), but the same entry notes that TBS played it enough to be called “The Beastmaster Station.” That’s probably where I first saw the flick.
Regardless, the film made an impression. Coming of age with He-Man action figures, I couldn’t help but equate He-Man with Dar, the titular Beastmaster himself. They look and dress the same; both have a scantily-clad girlfriend; and both have a pet panther that aids them in battle.
More importantly, the essential elements of what I would come to recognize as “low” fantasy, pulpy sword-and-sorcery were all there. The trope of a free and wild rustic using only his sword, his wits, and his animal companions against an entrenched and powerful wizard turns up frequently in low fantasy, notably in the classic Conan stories. The early 1980s was awash in celluloid adaptations of these stories, which meant that late-1980s and early-1990s cable showed them frequently.
So, what of The Beastmaster itself? It’s a great film, not for any deep artistic merit or innovative camera work, but because it’s fun while also creating a clear sense of dread (which is probably why it is currently on Shudder, where I watched it).
