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Watched on Tuesday June 10, 2025.

Elite girls with guns action! You know you're in for a great movie when it opens on a gorgeous field of poppies and leaves you to meditate for just a moment on the contradictions of the flower's beauty vs the brutal violence the narcotics contained therein beget - before the scene quickly turns into a violent shootout and field burning exercise by Interpol to reign in the rampant drug trade in the area. The way the narrative is deployed in Iron Angels is basically Michael Mann levels of deliberate, with the stylized intercutting that follows between the disciplined and vengeful cartel contrasted with a less-than-flattering portrayal of the Interpol agents celebrating their minor victory speaking much louder than dialog ever could. Combined with the very top notch action that punctuates this lean as hell film, I don't know why this isn't heralded as an absolute staple of late 80s modern Hong Kong action. I'm beyond excited to continue venturing into Teresa Wong's work because if the next two films in the series are anywhere near this good I'll be looking at another favorite discovery of 2025 for sure.

Watched on Monday June 9, 2025.

Watched on Monday June 9, 2025.

Watched on Sunday June 8, 2025.

Would've been a little better if there was a scene where Talia Shire made Stallone take off his silly looking hat just like he did for her.

Watched on Sunday June 8, 2025.

Watched on Saturday June 7, 2025.

Now this is the exact texture of boring and inept that I crave! Watching this late at night as I was perilously perched between dream and wakefulness was a perfect salve for my sleepy mind. All the characters sort of began to blend together as I found myself closing my eyes for just a second, then a second longer, but it's almost as if the characters themselves are caught in a hypnagogic lull: it's genuinely hard to imagine how chill everyone is in this movie after finding their dead friends lying around the house. Being the conscientious roommate I am I had my surround sound system's remote in hand ready to lower the volume any time a character let out a blood curdling scream after finding a corpse, but everyone was honestly pretty chill about seeing their dead friends. I'm pretty sure at one point the final girl, who has already seen multiple of her friends' bodies, asks her other friend why she's freaking out?

Throughout the runtime I kept thinking of another of AGFA's recent home video rescues, Satan War which despite the title has little to do with Satan and nothing to do with wars, but is instead basically 60 minutes of the same 30 second synth cue looped over poorly "edited" footage of two people walking around a house and mumbling. Is Satan War a good movie? Hell no, but it is an incredible curio of pure no-budget southern-fried exploitation filmmaking, and so is The Last Slumber Party. Heck, between the two movies you might could even edit one whole movie where something happens! But those of us who are seasoned in the kind of mind-melt cinema AGFA loves to bring to the small screen won't have any problem with the long stretches of airlessness in this thing.

For what its worth I might recommend the uninitiated start with the video preservation rather than the 16mm scan that is the main presentation on the AGFA disc. The restoration is a little *too* immaculate at certain points here and I can only imagine a little scuzz would really liven the place up and heighten the overall dreaminess here. I'd be curious to know if you can still very clearly see the crewperson standing in the back of the closet during the first scene where we see the dead jock hanging in there on the video presentation.

Watched on Thursday June 5, 2025.

Having only come to Donnie Darko in my adult life, though I was 9 years old at the time of its release, I have a very different relationship to it than many who grew up loving it. Every time I return to the film, I'm worried that it'll drop in my estimation, but it strangely feels like a bit of a different movie every time I watch it. I was very excited to have the opportunity to see a newly-struck 35mm print at my local arthouse, and I gotta say seeing this thing on shimmering celluloid on a 40 foot screen was an experience I'll cherish. While I'm certainly more of a Southland Tales guy, I really appreciate the total "this is my first movie!!!" energy that Kelly brings to this production.

I don't think I'd ever noticed exactly how much Kelly is very deliberately playing with time here: not only is time travel and the nonlinearity of time a theme in the script, but Kelly also abuses the speed control of his camera to an almost embarrassing degree. It makes sense that this period piece set in one of the tentpole years of MTV (1988) and filmed in another (2000) has music video aesthetics baked into its diegesis, but I certainly hadn't clocked that aspect in previous viewings. Thank god for those flourishes though, because the earnest try-hard-ness of Kelly's approach here is THE thing that elevates this beyond the milieu of coming-of-age stories this one is aping. I don't think another director could pull off the utter sincerity of the film's final scene without eliciting an eye roll, but Kelly somehow makes it work.

Ya know, sometimes when you're a fucking idiot like me who buys 50+ discs a month some things that are Very In Your Wheelhouse just kinda sit on your shelf for a while - once that "shiny, new" patina wears off they'll blend in to stack/row/shelf/shelves of similarly unwatched and neglected titles, sometimes for weeks, other times months, and in many cases for years. When that happens it leaves you open to forgetting that a huge part of the marketing was "Category III // girls with guns combo," so you're about 2/3 of the way through the movie that has already included some naked martial arts and lots of subversive statements about both HK and China's governments, when suddenly a moment of respite is punctuated by a brutal double gang rape scene that seems to have come out of nowhere. It's one thing when you're waist deep in a DTV Japanese erotic thriller franchise where every entry has some graphic sexual assault/torture/bondage thrown in (yes, I watched four of Toei's XX DTV series last month) so you more or less can expect it, but to be hit with something like that out of left field feels downright transgressive.

A lesser movie would have left that bad taste simmering in my mouth like blood from a cheap left hook, but thankfully Women on the Run is a masterful balancing act that umm earns(?) its transgressions. Some of the action here is a little more cut heavy than I like in my Hong Kong flicks, but wow is it ever cleanly telegraphed and super impactful despite the lower average shot length and reliance on closeups over medium shots. The first hour or so relies upon a decent baseline knowledge of the Hong Kong handover and I'm sure to a native it would have been even less confusing, with things like spoken language or accents more clearly delineating the dual Guangzhou/Hong Kong settings. Any reprehension you might feel about a more political potboiler can be set aside though, because when this thing is on it's really on & kicking all kinds of ass!

I never really clocked how the thesis of this movie is that most punks are - generously - one incentive structure away from being predatory fascist bottom feeders and I gotta say Alex Cox was cooking with that one. Is this the most watchable movie of all time? It felt like the 92 minutes lasted all of a half hour while I was watching it this time.

Watched on Sunday June 1, 2025.

Watched on Sunday June 1, 2025.

Loved the energy of the ensemble here - true small town weirdness on display. Not quite as scathing of a film as I'm used to from Imamura: Pigs and Battleships and Black Rain both have a scathing political dimension to them, but The Eel feels less concerned with the ravages of western imperialism and more interested in asking what it means for us to forgive someone for a crime of ion, or more importantly what it takes for someone who lives a life of remorse to forgive themselves. It's a big story assembled out of many disparate small parts and I really appreciate that it never tries to be didactic or overly analytical in addressing its subject matter. Between this and Lost Highway 1997 was a real hallmark year for wife killer cinema.

And who said you can't make a movie with virtually no stakes? Almost documentarian in its dramatic arc in that the only real "bad guy" here is the inevitable march of time and capitalist "progress" which ensures every aspect of life is commodified and every independent operation that's cheap enough gets bought out buy a conglomerate that doesn't care about values or mission statements. Jeff Goldblum has never looked so sleazy (probably the slicked back hair that screams "guido") and John Heard has never looked hotter (probably the guyliner).

Half star deduction for almost certainly inspiring someone to go try and pursue a songwriting/bartending career in New York City.

Well, having watched several of Toei's XX DTV films and deciding the 1995 Zero Woman: Final Mission reboot wasn't my speed about 60 minutes in, I'm fully in my "touring through the C-string Japanese franchises" era - so what better time to venture beyond the iconic Meiko Kaji entries in what may very well be my favorite exploitation/genre film franchise of all time? New Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion serves as a basic reboot of the series with every conceivable level of production taken down a notch or two. Director Yutaka Kohira is certainly no Shunya Ito and star Yumi Takigawa will never hold a flame to Meiko Kaji's iconic performance as Nami Matsushima/Sasori, but gee whiz I guess that certainly didn't stop anyone from giving it the old college try! While its presentation is unavoidably more grounded than Ito's original film (heck, his whole trilogy) there are at least a couple of moments in this film that attempt to harken back to the showstopping moments of gel-lit, Kabuki-influenced neo-expressionism that make the first three Sasori films so memorable. And while there are, to be sure, some moments of abject humiliation and torture here, I think for the most part the violence is toned down a few notches below the brutal heights that Ito's films would adopt. The plot here is absolutely focused on corruption and degradation of Japan's society, much like Ito's original trilogy, but there's never quite a moment like "the red of Japan's flag is actually blood staining a white sheet" symbolism that you get in the first film.

I know it sounds like I'm really trashing this thing, but it's hard to discuss this film on its own as it is an almost complete re-metabolization of the elements of the first film. That said, on its own this thing really does sing, but it will forever be dragged down by the negative space between what it achieves and what had already been achieved by the high-water mark of the first films. I do quite enjoy Yumi Takigawa's central performance here - she is granted much more agency than, say, Miki Sugimoto in Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs, which is clearly another pinky violence flick deeply indebted to the original Sasori films - and its only when compared to one of the most striking screen presences of all time that she begins to appear lacking in any significant regard.

While it doesn't do nearly as much to reinterpret the series as 1991's Female Prisoner Scorpion: Death Threat, a film which renders Nami Matsushima as a spectral presence haunting the prison, a spirit of rebellion and defiance that there possesses a different woman, rather than relying on a different actress to interpret Meiko Kaji's legendary performance, I'd say I walked away enjoying New Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion just fine. It certainly corrects the grievous error in Kaji's final film Grudge Song - which renders the most badass female action icon of all time little more than an afterthought to a much less charismatic dude who takes the center of that film - so it definitely stands head & shoulders above what I to be a huge misfire in the franchise. Having put this off for years now I feel a little silly for thinking it'd be such a steep dropoff in quality and I genuinely look forward to checking out 1977's New Female Prisoner Scorpion: Special Cellblock X which sees Yutaka Kohira return to the director's chair.

Ya know, I appreciated several aspects of this, but it's a strange case of a films' strengths also being its weaknesses. Case in point, the action on this thing gets rolling less than 10 minutes into the movie, meaning there's about 110 minutes of stuff happening built off a very shallow introduction. I don't think the balancing act quite works, and in fact I would wager this would be better proportioned if we could simply hang out with Geena Davis a little longer before her memories start coming back - all you need is technically there already, but the screenplay is clearly compensating for some of these structural flaws in moments like the one where Samuel L Jackson points out how Davis has started cursing more. Beyond that, I have to say there's just TOO MUCH STUFF that happens in this thing - just when you think you're finally ready to begin digesting the meal the chef is bringing out yet another plate. Hard to say whether a steadier hand in the directors chair could assuage some of the bloat here or if it's endemic to the script though. I can say for sure that the action here leaves a whole lot to be desired; it's hard to look at most of the setpieces and not imagine what they'd be like if the seams weren't showing quite so clearly - especially since the American metabolization of Hong Kong's incredible action filmmaking scene was already in full swing by '96. I hope I enjoy this a little more on a rewatch when I know better what kind of territory I'm treading onto because it certainly has its charm. I will say my biggest disappointment is the absolute lack of reckoning with the ever-mounting sexual tension established between Davis & Jackson by the film's end which leaves the neatly wrapped-and-bow-tied epilogue feeling a bit inauthentic.

Wow, whod've thunk an actually funny comedy opening wide in theaters in 2025? I think the best parts of this are honestly the DNA it shares with the comedies of Matt Farley & Charles Roxburgh - the small town ennui, the hyper-specific jokes that recur throughout, and the focus on the fine line separating well-meaning slackers from deranged psychopaths. Unlike a lot of things I've seen theatrically this year, I feel I'll actually rewatch this one eventually. A very good time at the movies!

I still stand by my old review for a summary of how I feel about the content here, but this time I latched on to the abundance of allusions to amerikkkan imperialism & military occupation that are sprinkled throughout this film. The big bad guy is implied to be the bastard son of a prostitute who serviced American GIs during the post-war military occupation, the first brutal rape scene is punctuated by shots of American fighter jets, and about a dozen other references that I've smoked myself out of ing clearly. The cumulative weight of these moments is a pretty damning thematic subtext that I'm not sure I clocked at all the first time I watched the film, and ensures that Zero Woman Red Handcuffs shares more DNA with Shohei Imamura's Pigs and Battleships than I would have guessed before throwing the gorgeous Cauldron blu-ray in my player. Now that I'm all primed up on V-Cinema as well I really look forward to checking out some of the in-name-only sequels from the 1990s, which I hope will be a little less wretched than this initial entry can be at times.

Only time will tell if this is an actual inflection point in the careers of Matt Farley & Charles Roxburgh, the nicest guys in showbiz, but I can say with certainty that it feels like a departure from the slew of films that begin with 2021's Heard She Got Married and carry on through 2024's Local Legends: Bloodbath. Evil Puddle finds the duo working with their largest canvas yet - their growing popularity in the first half of the 2020s has brought a whole new roster of fresh faces of fan-cum-actors that mingle with the stable of friends and family that have defined the duo's films for decades - and the result is a remarkably coherent tapestry of small town Americana. Oh, and did I mention it's their first color film, save for certain versions of Heard She Got Murdered, in the better part of a decade? Like Magic Spot before it, Evil Puddle feels like another solid entry point into the duo's body of work; while there are some aspects that are perhaps best appreciated by dyed-in-the-wool fans, my good friend John - a complete Matt Farley neophyte who I dragged to the entire premiere weekend's proceedings - had no trouble acclimating to the offbeat, absurdist comedy and disaster movie pastiche that Roxburgh & Farley present here.

I'm sure I'll have much more to say once I watch the film again at its Dallas, TX premiere this July, but Evil Puddle has been bouncing around in my head for the better part of a week now and I still find it endlessly endearing and inspiring. Longtime fans and newcomers alike should be sure to catch one of the screenings that the pair are planning for the next few months if one pops up near you!

Was very excited that the hotel I'm at in Boston had an AMC next door, so I figured I'd go check this one out. Unfortunately as the 20 minutes of ads for the worst looking horror sequels I've ever seen (M2GAN??? Talk 2 Me??? Eat your slop piggies!!) dragged on endlessly I felt my excitement wane. Unfortunately the horrible looking intro - do anyone else's dreams look like fucking dogshit? - did not do much to win me over but when we snap into the present day I was at least glad this started looking like a movie rather than the ugliest made-for-Netflix schlock I've ever seen. I dunno maybe I'm just jaded but these CGI gore extravaganzas don't really scratch the itch for me - would it kill someone to pop a fucking squib or at least use like a cup of fake blood or something? All in all far from the worst of a pretty middling franchise, but I think I gotta be better about trusting that voice inside of me that says "you don't need to see the new horror movie in theaters" because yet again it was kinda right. Hate to be a curmudgeon, and I'm glad this scratches the itch for so many, but it didn't really do it for me.

Genuinely love that there is the  pickup shot seemingly filmed in a real subway station entrance juxtaposed with the comedically low effort fake NYC that feels virtually indifferentiable from the previous location which was inside a boat. This is what dreams are made of.

On paper this Dracula film with a nu metal/scuzzrock soundtrack, a unique twist on vampire mythology, the cinematographer from The Killer, and David Cronenberg's production designer and costume designers, Carol Spier and Denise Cronenberg, should be a five star engagement. Unfortunately instead it's actually Dracula 2000, which manages to wring nothing interesting besides a twist out of the concept of Judas Iscariot being Dracula. The flashback scene to Judas betraying Christ is so beautiful that it makes you wonder why the rest of the film doesn't have that heightened appearance. The New Orleans locale is sorely underutilized. 

I will give an enthusiastic nod of the head to whoever cheekily picked Mary Van Helsing's place of work so that she awakens from her first Dracula reverie wearing a shirt that says VIRGIN in huge letters. I will give a stern wag of the finger to sexual predator Danny Masterson who said of the production "Dracula's like a pimp, ya know? The ladies love him. And then he gets her and then ya know he kinda does bad things to her and she secretly digs it even though she doesn't. That's Dracula." 🤨

Watched on Friday May 16, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 15, 2025.

Watched on Friday May 16, 2025.

A standout in Toei's DTV XX erotic thriller series alongside XX: Beautiful Hunter so far. This one has a totally different structure than the other three I've seen, and also unlike the other three XX films I've seen - much to its benefit - this one does not feature an extended scene of S&M or sadism. As I have come to expect from the series there's are plenty of extended softcore scenes, often layered with complicated psychosexual longing and themes of voyeurism and technology displacing authentic desire, which honestly goes a long way to curbing the boredom some of the more protracted sex scenes can otherwise inspire.

As I mentioned the construction of the film is not like the other three XX titles I've seen - here rather than a nocturnal revenge thriller, we follow a mysterious, yet deadly, female bodyguard as she agrees to guard a gem counterfeiter. The film's tone is much more of a heightened noir melodrama formula than others in the franchise - the images that stick with me as I reflect on the film are not the neon-lit streets of Tokyo, but of a desolate bar in the daytime with sunlight blasting through the windows - but while it has the least "action" setup of any of these that I've seen it does in fact contain some of the best on-screen violence (read: lots of squibs!) while the others have often left most of the bullet impacts out of frame by focusing on the shooter and/or the aftermath.

What really floored me about this is the casual nature of the plot, which concerns our protagonist's backstory. Throughout the film we are teased at her past, but it all snaps into focus towards the end with a very Psycho-esque sequence where a doctor recounts Cheryl's history as a former male kickboxing championship who fell so deeply in love with her competitor that she ended up pursuing a sex change operation. Sure, the politics of that kind of reasoning are a little muddled, but I was shocked at how okay with this everyone seemed to be. Many films would make her transness the butt of a joke or perhaps not sympathize with her struggle, but XX: Beautiful Killing Machine situates the viewer as being completely in sympathy with Cheryl the entire time. This is kind of a spoiler, as the info is not dispensed until around an hour into the film (though it is often hinted at), but it's also the best selling point I can give someone who might want to seek this film out - which I suggest you do if you've read this far!

A big departure from the other two XX movies I've seen in that the protagonist here is not a badass lady assassin, but is a working class medical examiner who gets rather convolutedly tangled up in a serial killer's web. The end result is a meditation on base western influences corrupting the pure harmonious spirit of Japan* - "even crimes can cross the ocean" as one character says - that ends up feeling something like an episode of The X-Files or Dexter except with quintessentially Japanese perv shit mixed in. Some truly amazing moments, all the great neon-drenched urban vibes I've come to love from V-Cinema titles and some more medically minded gore that fits the switch in genre pairing from action to suspense thriller, but boy the sex stuff in this one is pretty much across the board harder to watch than in Beautiful Beast or Beautiful Hunter.

* look I'm not purposefully doing oriental mysticism here but that's the crux of this film's cultural standpoint which defines serial sexual violence and killing (perhaps rightly so) as a primarily western phenomenon. Don't shoot the messenger!

Watched on Sunday May 11, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 11, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 11, 2025.

Ya know I totally forgot how this whole thing is pinned on oriental mysticism - they literally get put into an emotional Chinese finger trap - but wow I love watching Jamie Lee Curtis do all this goofy shit. Her best ing actress oscar for her incredibly minor part in EEAAO was clearly a "whoopsie" for the academy overlooking her lead performance in this one.

Started off not giving much of a shit about this one, but by the end I was totally invested. Both Rosanna Arquette and Vincent Spano are smoking hot here, and it's pretty genius how I didn't even realize he was setting up a pre/post '67 conflict with both of their aspirations/personalities. Spano permanently tied to the past, idolizing Frank Sinatra and the aspirations imposed upon him by his elders, while Rosanna embraces the free love & free drugs mentality of the burgeoning hippie movement. Really lovely film & an engaging story that reverberates far beyond the small scope of its own subjects' romance.

Shocked on a rewatch by just how sparse this thing is. It's almost like the movie is fashioned from bits of genre history, and carried fully by Kurt Russell's charisma and John Carpenter's pulsing synth score. Maybe next time I watch this it'll finally click into all-timer status for me like it does for so many people, but I was a bit too distracted this watch through for it to cement that title.

Watched on Thursday May 8, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 8, 2025.

Simultaneously the greatest movie ever made AND perhaps only Lam Ngai Kai's third best motion picture? The movie that turned me on to psychotronic Hong Kong cinema, maybe even the first HK movie I watched, and a perennial favorite. The jump in quality between my first experience with this movie (Youtube DVD rip with bad burned in dual language subtitles) and the gorgeous blu ray editions that have since been released truly brings joy to my heart because wow this thing is so visually opulent. Imagine how many people have only ever seen those stunt people get hit by a Jeep in blurry standard definition... So much crazy stuff happens in this movie that I only walk away ing like a dozen things that occur, but somehow the kaiju fight between Baby Ghost and the xenomorph ripoff creature that also flies around like a bird isn't one of them?? I'll tell you one thing I literally never forget and that's the machine built to sacrifice babies. Pure fucking cinema!!

What if we took everything you liked about the first movie (standard prison break story, tense character drama, incredible snowy setting) and threw it all away?

Watched on Tuesday May 6, 2025.

Watched on Monday May 5, 2025.

"His father owns Harrison Ford."
"The actor?"
"No, the car dealership."

Watched on Saturday May 3, 2025.

Lightning in a motherfucking BOTTLE. Absolute head-spin cinema; situates you so perfectly within John Heard's point of view that you almost forget how insane it all is. Mary Beth Hurt is so real in portraying her inner conflict that early on that you almost forget she's going through an actual life crisis and John Heard is simply attaching himself like a parasite to her. Those rom-com sensibilities crumble away over time as Heard's remarks grow increasingly unhinged and the ugly underside of his unrequited longing bubbles to the surface; by the end, Chilly Scenes of a Winter might come down as one of the more ascerbic examinations of male obsession of the 1970s. The film is never fully unsympathetic towards Heard - and therein lies its power to seduce viewers - but it also seems rather uninterested in justifying his cruel actions towards either Laura or Betty, his assistant who becomes collateral damage in his singleminded pursuit of a married woman. Peter Riegert, who also plays the pickle guy in Micklin Silver's 1988 film Crossing Delancey is fantastic here as Charles' number one confidant and chief enabler. A remarkably smart and cutting script that nonetheless maintains the rom-com sheen that hides its sharper edges. Certainly one of my favorite first time viewings of 2025 so far.

Damn, this Arrow V-Cinema box set truly has my head spinning; seven films in and I haven't hit a single dud, but have discovered like four truly remarkable pictures and a few others I really dug. Carlos was one I wasn't really looking forward to, perhaps the name inspired slightly less confidence than Danger Point: The Road to Hell, XX: Beautiful Hunter, or The Hitman: Blood Smells Like Roses (god I love me a good "title colon subtitle" naming convention), but holy cow it's VERY easy to see why this was named the number one V-Cinema film of 1991 by the only two contemporary film magazines in Japan to bestow such an honorific. Carlos is basically a Yakuza twist on the Scarface story, with our titular protagonist having fled his native Brazil for Japan after going to war with the Medellin cartel.

The story is a little twisty, but once you get your footing you're treated to a remarkably stylish and suitably violent genre picture that captures the remarkable neon-lit Tokyo nightlife like few other films have ever managed to. Naoto Takenaka really shines as Carlos - his cocky attitutde belies his sheer charisma and personability, and those competing notions are all completely squared away as we see Carlos may be an underdog in of class and social stature, but he never enters into a fight without a definitive leg up on whoever he may find himself pitted against. The video essay by Jonathan Clemets included on the Arrow blu ray is actually pretty fantastic in unpacking some cultural context, like the ways the film uses set dressing to undermine the legitimacy of the Yakuza's old school code of honor. I highly recommend it as supplmentary material for anyone who chooses to seek this title out, which I definitely suggest people do.

I've always liked The Fly, but it's been an A-tier Cronenberg rather than an S-tier for me until this time through. I won't ever love it as much as I love Videodrome, but seeing this on 35mm with a packed audience made it come alive for me. It's easy to take the climax for granted, but seeing how the last 5 minutes or so were on their own entire reel made it feel like those images were simply too powerful to be put on the same reel as the dialog-driven portions of the film. Great stuff, Goldblum really is electric here in a way that I only appreciate more having seen the comparatively flawed The Fly II.

The longest standing title on my watchlist, now that I've seen the nice new HD scan of the freaky HK flick Devil Fetus was 1998's Tomie, a loose adaptation based off Junji Ito's first serialized manga character. Happy to say that I've crossed it off the list with the somewhat new Arrow blu-ray release.

While it's been quite some time since I've read any of the Tomie stories, I enough to know this is only a loose retelling of the story. It is also not a straightforward horror-fest, relying far more on suspense and tension than explicit imagery or onscreen violence. The film often relies on long takes and simple setups that allow uncomfortability to simmer, and that relaxed filmmaking style is complimented by thoughtful blocking and some lavish lighting work. It is first and foremost a mood horror piece, rather than an excuse to shock the audience. There are several "twists" throughout, as narrative information is dispensed in bite size chunks that keep you guessing how they all fit together, although I'd be lying if I said everything makes total sense and is fully reconciled by the film's end.

Also has to be said that this thing has an incredible soundtrack & sound design. The eerie main theme sounds something like Yellow Magic Orchestra interpolating one of Shintaro Sakamoto's more wistful tracks - the YMO connection only seems more intentional when we discover that the mental health facility is named Hosono Clinic (with my limited knowledge of Japanese pop culture this seems like a very low hanging reference point, like naming someone in your cheapo horror flick Sherriff Carpenter or something). The rest of the soundtrack is a cool electroacoustic blend, and the sound design itself is akin to Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure, which is just about the highest compliment I can give a horror film's sound design for establishing tension via environmental sounds.

Watched on Monday April 28, 2025.

adding as i more

• Nosferatu
• Häxan
• The Phantom of the Opera
• The Wind
• The Wages of Fear
• Seven Samurai
• Santa Claus
• The Apartment
• Harakiri
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

...plus 413 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

movies i have on disc

• 12 Angry Men
• 13 Frightened Girls
• 13 Ghosts
• 13 Steps of Maki: The Young Aristocrats
• The 14 Amazons
• The 15:17 to Paris
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• 2010: The Year We Make
• 2020 Texas Gladiators
• 2046

...plus 3795 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Work in progress of films sampled or referenced in the work of billy woods in his solo and collaborative projects as well as features. I’m including movies sampled in Armand Hammer tracks, but otherwise these are specifically name checked, referenced, or paralleled by woods’ own verses only.

• Frankenstein

  Hunchback jump when I shout “eureka!”

• The Wizard of Oz

  Rent Control - Super Flight Chron Brothers

• The Postman Always Rings Twice

  Pompeii

• Red River

  Frontier Province intro sample

• The African Queen

  on the ship's deck / shipwrecked europeans swimming with the virus / shot out like god's semen

• Mogambo

  The Man Who Would Be King

• Rear Window

  Nosy neighbors / rear window
  
  Parallels to Asylum as well. 

• Black Orpheus
• Dr. No
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

  Guy Fawkes - Super Flight Chron Brothers

...plus 98 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I see lots of people ask for recommendations from Vinegar Syndrome, so here are my highlights from the VS/VSA/VSP/VSU catalogs. Film preservation rules and nobody does it better than Vinegar Syndrome.

Roughly in order of how highly I'd recommend them.

1. Emma Mae
2. The ing
3. Looking for Mr. Goodbar
4. Righting Wrongs
5. Penitentiary
6. Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby
7. The Laughing Dead
8. Thriller: A Cruel Picture
9. Tough Guys Don't Dance
10. Disconnected

...plus 92 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

personal "warts and all" canon. i dunno, just spitballing here

• Nosferatu
• Dishonored
• Freaks
• The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
• The Black Cat
• Bride of Frankenstein
• Double Indemnity
• Detour
• The Red Shoes
• All About Eve

...plus 621 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films about drugs, conspiracy, being too fucking online, surveillance, shadow operatives, the Committee for Indoctrinating America, and being a big dumb american man all cum and no brains.

Loosely associative list, a WIP. Can be directly referential to Pynchon, directly referred to by Pynchon, remind me of scene from certain books, or just play like a Pynchon book does in my mind. Quality varies and ymmv.

Please drop suggestions; always open to paranoiac thrillers, slapstick nonsense, lefty propoganda, or any mishsmash thereof.

• The Criminal Code
• Freaks
• The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

  three letter agencies saw this and were like "damn what a cool guy"

• Duck Soup

  slapstick political farce, need i say more

• The Black Cat
• Ministry of Fear

  nazi spy networks... secret codes and wwii conspiracies... parallel governmental superstructures

• Double Indemnity

  big dumb american man, all cum no brains

• Detour
• Gilda

  set in Argentina in 1946 and its primary concern is a casino and the entangled financial interests of Americans and Germans?? i dunno, i would absolutely love to learn more about this film from a historical POV because i didn't think that we really think the presence of former nazis in South America was a big media talking point.

• The Big Sleep

  insipient form of what Altman would perfect with The Long Goodbye, and Pynchon would reappropriate for Inherent Vice

...plus 181 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Heat ripples on the horizon, flushed skin, forehead sweat glistening under the oppressive sun, ancient willows, towering pines, and humidity so thick and omnipresent it oozes out of your TV screen. Movies you’ll understand if you also grew up in the desolate shithole we call the American south, with a strong lean towards Louisiana and East Texas & the kind of b-pictures I personally gravitate to.

• Blonde Venus
• Jezebel
• Suddenly, Last Summer
• In the Heat of the Night
• Easy Rider
• Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
• Deliverance
• Live and Let Die
• Thomasine & Bushrod
• The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

...plus 51 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

recs for my dear pal

• Reflections of Evil
• Tokyo Fist
• Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway
• Metal Detector Maniac
• Red Spirit Lake
• Sixteen Tongues
• Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind
• Born in Flames
• Fatal Pulse
• The Fun House

...plus 15 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

programmed at the Spacy Microcinema in Dallas, TX

3/16/2024: Heard She Got Married/Heard She Got Murdered - A Motern Media double feature + Q&A with star/director Matt Farley & Charles Roxburgh.

5/18/2024: Reflections of Evil (2002) + Q&A with director Damon Packard

6/8/2024: Handgun aka Deep in the Heart (1983) homecoming screening + locations tour by me & presentation by Erica Shultz of Unsung Horrors

7/20/2024: Special mystery conspiracy thriller screening featuring parapolitical journalist Robert Skvarla

8/24/24: The ing (1984) + Q&A with director John Huckert
8/24/24: Strangers Online (2009) + Q&A with director John Huckert

9/7/2024: Charon aka The Jar (1984) + Q&A with director Bruce Toscano

10/12/2024: Black Eyed Susan (2024) Texas premiere + Q&A with director Scooter McCrae

11/16/2024: Red Spirit Lake + Q&A with director Charles Pinion
11/16/2024: We Await + Q&A with director Charles Pinion

12/7/2024: The Mafu Cage (1978) + Q&A with director Karen Arthur

1/10/2025: Don't Let The Riverbeast Get You! (2012) upstairs at the Texas Theatre + in person Q&A with Matt Farley & Charles Roxburgh

1/11/2025: Motern Media quadruple feature @ Spacy featuring Matt Farley & Charles Roxburgh in person - Slingshot Cops (2016), Magic Spot (2022), Freaky Farley (2007), and Metal Detector Maniac (2021)

2/13/2025: The Enchanted (1984) + Q&A with director Carter Lord

3/1/2025: Emma Mae (1976) + Q&A with Khadijah Fanaka, granddaughter & biographer of director Jamaa Fanaka

• Heard She Got Married

  3/16/24 double feature; Q&A with star Matt Farley & director Charles Roxburgh

• Heard She Got Murdered

  3/16/24 double feature; Q&A with star Matt Farley & director Charles Roxburgh

• Reflections of Evil

  5/18/24 Q&A with director Damon Packard

• Handgun

  6/8/24 - locations presentation & presentation by author & host of the Unsung Horrors podcast Erica Shultz

• Endangered Species
• The ing

  8/24/24, Q&A with director John Huckert

• Strangers Online

  8/24/24, Q&A with director John Huckert

• The Jar

  9/7/24, Q&A with director Bruce Toscano & writer George Bradley

• Black Eyed Susan

  10/12/24, Q&A with director Scooter McCrae. Dallas, TX premiere.

• Red Spirit Lake

  11/16/24, Q&A w/ filmmaker Charles Pinion

...plus 12 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

If the movie has a water bed onscreen, even ingly, I need to know about it. please send suggestions.

• Malibu High
• Pieces
• Blood Beat
• A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
• In the Cold of the Night
• Bride of Chucky
• Edward Scissorhands
• A Goofy Movie
• The Ice Storm
• The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

...plus 14 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Interiors that don't match exteriors. Hidden depths within unassuming boundaries. Liminal spaces that collapse violent history and dull modernity into one physical space - temporality corrupted by geometry. Dank, dark basements hiding the primordial ingredients of life & the promise of death.

Something I've been meaning to compile for a few years and always forget, so there are many films missing but now this is here for when I them. Specifically tying these to the house itself and the notion of spaces impossibly superimposed within one another. Feel free to drop suggestions.

• Haze
• Amityville 1992: It's About Time
• The Sect
• My House Walk-Through
• Us
• Mortuary
• House
• House II: The Second Story
• Thir13en Ghosts
• The Beyond

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

It's that time of year when the temperature dips just slightly below 100F, the leaves are gonna start falling in a couple months, and you can just feel the Halloween spirit blowing in the uncomfortably warm midday breeze.

• Prophecy
• Poltergeist II: The Other Side
• Mark of the Devil
• Satan's Slave
• The Burning
• Dr. Giggles
• Demons 2
• The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave
• The Jar
• Hubie Halloween

...plus 76 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Friday October 18, 3P-6A

1. Beetlejuice
2. Dead of Night
3. Door Into Darkness: The Tram
4. Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker
5. At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul
6. Hangman
7. Black Sabbath
8. The Cat
9. Bones
10. Blood Massacre

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Fucking sue me, losers. Cutoff for good ones is Rosenthal’s Halloween II (1981).

1. Halloween III: Season of the Witch
2. Halloween
3. Halloween II
4. Halloween: Resurrection
5. Halloween
6. Halloween II
7. Halloween Ends
8. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
9. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers
10. Halloween

...plus 3 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

pulp to fall asleep to; wip

• Murder Weapon
• Over the Edge
• Repo Man
• Cyborg
• The First Man
• Halloween II
• Grave Secrets
• Nowhere
• Curfew
• Alphaville

...plus 30 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

No hyperbole allowed. Films with moments or sequences so outrageous that you have to stand up on your couch and scream because you can’t believe what you’re seeing. Not just wild, but OUTRAGEOUS. Films they could perform a root canal during because my jaw is open so wide.

The highest praise I can give to a motion picture

• Calamity of Snakes
• Parole Violators
• Emanuelle Around the World
• Dr. Caligari
• Run and Kill
• Knock Off
• Metal Detector Maniac
• The Tenant
• Reflections of Evil
• A Better Tomorrow

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I was so moved by seeing Singapore Sling for the first time, I had to throw down a list of movies that it made me think of.

• The Mafu Cage
• Sunset Boulevard
• Daisies
• Dr. Caligari
• Blonde Venus
• Bringing Up Baby
• Emanuelle in America
• Bitter Moon
• Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
• Death Game

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

In honor of my 31st birthday I hosted a 14-movie marathon 7/1/23-7/2/23. These are the movies we watched, in the order we saw them.

• Branded to Kill
• Sorcerer
• Shallow Grave
• Planet of the Vampires
• Heartbreakers
• Dr. Caligari
• If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?
• The Boxer's Omen
• Lady Terminator
• Naked Killer

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Best new-to-mes in '23, ordered by watch date.

• The Driver
• Devils on the Doorstep
• Speed Racer
• The Adjuster
• In Bruges
• Show Me Love
• Cutter's Way
• Twenty Years Later
• Old
• Four Flies on Grey Velvet

...plus 49 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

12 hour mini marathon for Halloweentimes 4:20p-4:20a Friday October 13. 2023

1. Bride of Frankenstein
2. Goké, Body Snatcher from Hell
3. A Bay of Blood
4. Poison for the Fairies
5. Amityville 1992: It's About Time
6. We're Going to Eat You
7. The Fun House
8. Q

Original one sheets owned

• Penitentiary
• Penitentiary II
• The Fly
• Amityville 1992: It's About Time
• The Exorcist III
• Double Team
• Knock Off
• Pearl
• Top of the Heap
• Hard Target

...plus 20 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Reflections of Evil
2. The Spook Who Sat by the Door
3. Targets
4. PTU
5. Sunset Boulevard
6. Morvern Callar
7. Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby
8. Eve's Bayou
9. The Celebration
10. Ms .45

...plus 40 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Now that I’ve seen Bloodsport I can publish this. Not necessarily in order of JCVD performance, but of overall film quality. Starring roles only.

1. Hard Target
2. Knock Off
3. Universal Soldier: Regeneration
4. Replicant
5. Double Team
6. Universal Soldier
7. Maximum Risk
8. Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning
9. Death Warrant
10. Bloodsport

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

This year spooky season began with my local Alamo’s 8/24 screening of Halloween 3: Season of the Witch.

1. Halloween III: Season of the Witch
2. Kill, Baby... Kill!
3. The Witch Who Came from the Sea

   70s regional number 1

4. Xtro 3: Watch the Skies

   worst 90s horror sequel

5. Candyman: Day of the Dead
6. Two Evil Eyes
7. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
8. Body Snatchers
9. Species III
10. Tropic of Cancer

...plus 83 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. Tales from the Hood
2. At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul
3. Don't Torture a Duckling
4. A Bay of Blood
5. Def by Temptation
6. The Fun House
7. Death Game
8. The Mafu Cage
9. White of the Eye
10. The Entity

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

fuck John Hughes

• I Start Counting
• Jeremy
• Switchblade Sisters
• Emma Mae
• Over the Edge
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High
• Valley Girl
• Smooth Talk
• River's Edge
• Housekeeping

...plus 35 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge
• Dream Demon
• Chopping Mall

• Juice
• Love & Basketball

• Jungle Fever
• Until the End of the World
• My Life as a Dog
• Girlfriends
• Modern Romance
• Five Element Ninjas
• Guilty of Romance
• Southland Tales
• Serpent's Path
• White Heat

...plus 149 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

watched Sept/Oct 2021

1. Auntie Lee's Meat Pies
2. Dead & Buried
3. Bride of Chucky
4. Irezumi
5. Intruder
6. Prisoners of the Ghostland
7. The Black Cat
8. Drag Me to Hell
9. Evilspeak
10. Shallow Grave

...plus 44 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.