Phone it in Friday CIX: YouTube Roundup CLXIX: 31 Days of Halloween, Part IV

7 November 20254 November 2025 The Portly Politico4 Comments

Halloween is a week past, but I still have some episodes of 31 Days of Halloween to share! By now, most interested readers have sought these final videos out on their own, but in case you missed any of the later episodes, I wanted to share them today.

On 1 October 2025 I launched a YouTube Shorts series, 31 Days of Halloween. The concept is simple: one, one-minute (or shorter) Halloween/horror movie review every day for the month of October. These reviews are super lo-fi—just yours portly recording on a phone, sitting at a desk. No frills, no fancy editing, just me giving my impressions of the films in an unscripted, fast way.

A quick note: most of the links below are Amazon Affiliate links, typically linking to the movie on DVD or Blu-Ray, as well as the books they’re based upon (or the novelizations of the films). I receive a portion of any purchases made through those links, at no additional cost to you.

Day 23: Nosferatu (1922)

Day 23 is the 1922 German Expressionist silent film classic Nosferatu.

Grab it on Blu-Ray here: https://amzn.to/4oaPdlG

Or DVD here: https://amzn.to/4o1Et8P

Day 24: Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

Day 24 is Werner Herzog’s adaptation of Nosferatu (1922), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979).

Grab it on 4K here: https://amzn.to/4owQsLF

Or DVD here: https://amzn.to/4hvMBME

Day 25: Nosferatu (2024)

Day 25 is Robert Eggers’s adaptation of Nosferatu (1922), Nosferatu (2024).

Grab it on 4K here: https://amzn.to/47drBqx

Or Blu-ray here: https://amzn.to/3Wekckm

Or DVD here: https://amzn.to/3WekcAS

Day 26: The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Day 26 returns to another silent film classic with 1925’s The Phantom of the Opera.

Grab it on Blu-ray here: https://amzn.to/47Hoh63

Or DVD here: https://amzn.to/4o4WGCF

Or get the novel here: https://amzn.to/3J8f5PN

Day 27: Psycho (1960)

Day 27 looks at a film on the border between horror and thriller, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960).

Grab it on Blu-ray here: https://amzn.to/42TXr97

Or DVD here: https://amzn.to/3Jo6R63

Or get the novel here: https://amzn.to/47oiuC1

Day 28: Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

Day 28 is a personal favorite, Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).

Grab it on 4K & Blu-ray here: https://amzn.to/4hup92o

Day 29: Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

Day 29 is the most unusual of the Halloween films, 1982’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

Grab it on 4K here: https://amzn.to/472YMgi

Or Blu-ray here: https://amzn.to/3WmPEwO

Or DVD here: https://amzn.to/3J0TvN7

Day 30: Halloween (1978)

Day 30 is the John Carpenter slashic Halloween (1978)!

Grab it on 4K here: https://amzn.to/4oxycBC

Day 31: The Thing (1982)

Day 31 is one of my favorite films, John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982).

Grab it on 4K here: https://amzn.to/4ntEaCB

Or Blu-ray here: https://amzn.to/3WL3SrH

Or DVD here: https://amzn.to/47bthkd

Thank You!

Thanks for watching 31 Days of Halloween! 🎃🎃🎃

Re-watch the entire series here:

Happy Friday! Until next Halloween!

—TPP

Monday Morning Movie Review: The Blob (1988)

3 November 20252 November 2025 The Portly Politico4 Comments

Yours portly has had very little time for watching flicks lately, but I managed to squeeze in the 1988 remake of The Blob. It and the 1958 original are both films I’ve known about my entire life, but I have never seen either of the flicks. I think an episode of Muppet Babies featured clips of the titular creature from the 1988 film, so I had a good image of the pink, oozing goo from my early childhood, but otherwise all I knew about either films was that they involved a gelatinous, amorphous entity absorbing people lethally.

Monday Morning Movie Review: Guest Review: Final Destination (2000)

27 October 202526 October 2025 The Portly Politico2 Comments

Spooky Season IV is out today!

Ponty delivers up some great posts this week, giving yours portly a bit of a break during a particularly busy season. He worked overtime (complete with overtime pay—zero times 1.5 is still zero!) to get this fun review to me in time to run in the vaunted Monday Morning Movie Review slot.

I remember seeing today’s film around the time it came out, when I was in high school (or possibly a few years later, in college; the early 2000s are a distant, warm blur to me now), and it made me really think about death, the way one does when at a funeral. I still think about this flick every time I board a flight, especially in those first few moments after takeoff. I breathe a tiny sigh of relief once the plane has finished its ascent.

I’ll let Ponty explain the rest. With that, here is Ponty’s review of Final Destination (2000):

Phone it in Friday CVIII: YouTube Roundup CLXVIII: 31 Days of Halloween, Part III

24 October 202522 October 2025 The Portly Politico4 Comments

In case you’ve missed any installments, I’m featuring the several days of reviews. If you want to catchup on Days 10-16, check out last week’s YouTube Roundup.

Phone it in Friday CVII: YouTube Roundup CLXVII: 31 Days of Halloween, Part II

17 October 202516 October 2025 The Portly Politico4 Comments

In case you’ve missed any installments, I’m featuring the several days of reviews. If you want to catchup on Days 1-9, check out last week’s YouTube Roundup.

Ponty Praises: The Descent (2005)

15 October 202514 October 2025 The Portly Politico4 Comments

Ponty is back with another great movie review, this week featuring the claustrophobic thriller of 2005’s The Descent. The film explores the tension of being trapped in the dark with something sinister and lethal—a core human fear.

When I was a kid, we took a big trip to the mountains to visit my great-grandmother in the mountains of western Virginia. On that trip we visited Mammoth Cave, a large cave system in Kentucky, and I believe Bat Cave in North Carolina as well (I could very well be conflating multiple trips into one in my mind). At one point on a guided tour of the caves, deep underground (we took an elevator to descend into the chamber), the tour guide turned off the lights in the cavern. The darkness was so total, so complete, it was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I think I instinctively moved closer to my family so I at least had some sense of security.

That experience very much captures, albeit in a very safe, tame, and controlled manner, what this flick feels like to watch. We take it for granted that, even in the dead of night, there’s usually some source of light: the moon, a cellphone, an alarm clock, the soft green of a charger indicating it’s doing its job. Total blackness—complete darkness—is something truly unsettling.

Ponder that as you enjoy Ponty’s review of The Descent (2005):

Monday Morning Movie Review: Hitchcock Films

13 October 202512 October 2025 The Portly Politico2 Comments

Yours portly has been working on several higher-level, real-life projects lately (besides planning a wedding in about six weeks), so today’s post is going to be a very quick reflection on the films of Alfred Hitchcock.

Shudder has featured several of the director’s films lately, and it’s been a pleasure to revisit them. In particular, I’ve watched Psycho (1960), Vertigo (1958) and Rear Window (1954). The Birds (1963), which I saw in the theater two years ago, is also on the streaming platform, but I’ve yet to re-watch it.

Phone it in Friday CVI: YouTube Roundup CLXVI: 31 Days of Halloween, Part I

10 October 20259 October 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

In case you’ve missed any installments, I’m featuring the first few episodes today!

Day 1: Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

Day 1 is the 1983 classic Something Wicked This Way Comes, the adaptation of the classic Ray Bradbury novel.

Grab it on DVD here: https://amzn.to/42dfK8Y

Or get the book: https://amzn.to/4nuKBq4

Monday Morning Movie Review: Spree (2020)

6 October 20256 October 2025 The Portly Politico3 Comments

Yours portly is playing catch-up on the blog after a grueling Homecoming Week at work. Apologies for delayed and/or missing posts lately. —TPP

I’m not a huge fan of “found footage” films, most of which are just knock-offs of The Blair Witch Project (1999). Of course, I see the appeal for studios: these flicks are cheap to make, and offer (at least in theory) a more visceral experience. There are exceptions (such as today’s film), but found footage flicks typically devolve into lots of shaky camera work and improbably perfectly placed cameras that always seem to capture the exact video and audio that they need to tell the story.

Naturally, that’s because it’s all directed and staged, but it reveals the lie inherent in these films. Far from being “found,” the footage is actually quite curated—but in a sloppy manner to create the illusion of us just picking up someone’s perfectly edited (in-camera!) VHS tape.

Anyone who has ever had the misfortune of reviewing security camera footage will know that they rarely capture anything worthwhile. The footage is too grainy to identify anyone positively; audio is lacking or non-existent; footage gets overwritten with new footage quickly. The frustration for law-abiding citizens, of course, is that security cameras never seem to get the right angle to catch criminals, but always keeps an eye on the rest of us. CCTV might help keep down crime, but it really just ends up monitoring the rest of us. It’s the definition of anarcho-tyranny.

But I digress. I recently watched a good found footage film, 2020’s Spree. It’s a horrific dark comedy, mostly because it shows the extreme toll of living in a terminally-online world, in which shallow and hallow people gauge their self-worth in terms of likes, impressions, and reactions.

31 Days of Halloween Starts Today!

1 October 20251 October 2025 The Portly Politico4 Comments

Today I’m kicking off 31 Days of Halloween, a series on my YouTube channel. Each day in the month of October I’ll offer up a lo-fi, off-the-cuff, rapid-fire, one-minute, hyphen-hyphen, Halloween/horror movie review. These are quick and, therefore, not very comprehensive, but they give my quick impressions of some classic (and not-so-classic) flicks.

I started the series with the subject of my most recent Monday Morning Movie Review, 1983’s Something Wicked This Way Comes:

New Shorts will post each morning in October 2025 at 6 AM EST. If you enjoy them, leave a comment on YouTube (or here!) and share with your friends!

Happy October!