Year: 1983 Director: J. Lee Thompson Cast: Charles Bronson, Lisa Eilbacher, Andrew Stevens Run Time: 1 hour 41 minutes MPAA Rating: R
In the mid-80's, the slasher genre had ensconced itself so securely in the cinema firmament that just about every genre had to get in on the fun and throw a knife-wielding maniac into the mix. An early adopter of this practice was another genre that was pumping out movies like there was no tomorrow: action. We'd already seen a genetically modified maniac thriller grafted onto a Chuck Norris "romantic" actioner with Silent Ragein 1982, but you know a trend has legs when The Cannon Group tosses their hat into the ring.
The iconic shlock production company, then under the loving care of producers Golan and Globus, had already produced a half dozen slashers by the time 10 to Midnight came out in 1983, but this would be the first time they mixed their action peanut butter with their horror chocolate. They paired a fresh-off-Death Wish 2 Charles Bronson with Happy Birthday to Me director J. Lee Thompson and hoped they could make magic.
Sorry, that was a typo. Money. They hoped they could make money.
Where should I even begin? I suppose with Charles Bronson, who's as close to a protagonist as this movie gets, even though he's offscreen as much as humanly possible. He plays one Leo Kessler, a hard-nosed cop who is irritated by his new erudite yuppie partner Paul McAnn (Andrew Stevens, who had his turn as a stalker killer in the execrable The Seduction). You can probably guess where this is going, and you would be wrong, because if they made this a buddy cop movie, they'd have to get Bronson out of his trailer.
We also get the privilege of following the exploits of Warren Stacy (Gene Davis, of The Hitcher and Cruising, so his homoerotic cinema bingo card is pretty complete), an absolute creepo incel who aggressively flirts with women and flies into a murderous knife-happy rage when they quite reasonably reject him. He has now set his sights on Laurie Kessler (Lisa Eilbacher), who has the supreme misfortune of being the progeny of Leo. Paul and her develop a little bit of a flirtation because it's not an 80's action movie if a cop isn't overstepping ethical boundaries with a case. Now we have all the pieces in place, watch them run around! Oh, and when Warren is killing people, he walks around completely naked.
Oops, did I forget to mention?
10 to Midnight is an odd duck. If you take a step back and look at the thing, it's really not successful as either a slasher or an action film. On the one hand, you have a series of kills that are largely concentrated in the beginning and ending (the second act has a pace that is murderous, and not in the good way) and all follow the same M.O.: A little bit of stalkin', a lot of stabbin', and home before dinner gets cold. On the other, you have an action film that doesn't depict much action. The cops walk around and ask people questions and file reports, but they hardly break a sweat. You'd hardly even know it was trying to be an action flick if not for the parts where the cop who plants evidence and wants to act outside the law is meant to be the hero of the movie.
And though Charles Bronson could hardly be blamed for not giving this particular project much respect, he's not phoning in his performance. He's telegramming it. What we're seeing onscreen isn't Bronson in any meaningful sense of the word. It's the flesh his consciousness usually occupies, but the true Bronson is somewhere sunny and warm where he doesn't have to recite dialogue at a naked man. Every line is delivered in a flat monotone, except for the ones where he randomly injects some excitement by emphasizing the wrong syllables ("he was on mor-PHINE").
And yet, despite being an abject failure on paper, why is 10 to Midnight so goddamn fun?
Don't look at me like that.
What it lacks in, well, almost everything, 10 to Midnight makes up for with a healthy portion of 80's sleaze and cheese. This is a film that is unembarrassed to plumb all the weirdest corners and most clandestine impulses of the brain of screenwriter William Roberts (the creator of The Donna Reed Show, somehow). This is a film that asks a disaffected Bronson to complain about how much he hates quiche one moment, then scream at a young man about jerking off the next.
The film can't find its identity in a genre, so it just commits to being whatever the hell it wants to be in this particular second, existing in an effervescent, eternal Now. This Now also happens to be 1983, so we get a heady synth score while all this is happening, and you know I'm never gonna complain about that. And maybe I finally get why all those straight teenage boys went to see the shittiest slashers in droves, because sending a naked Gene Davis to wander around a third of your movie is certainly a way to capture my attention (this film is obsessed with nudity from any gender, so it's nice and equitable although it's just skittish enough to never go full frontal on Davis - in this moment I can't quite recall if there is female full frontal, but there may well have been some while I was distracted).
At the end of the day, I have watched many many many slashers that are worse than 10 to Midnight, though that's probably more of a slight toward myself than it is praise for the film. With the exception of that dreary middle 30 minutes where it makes feint toward being a legal thriller that it graciously doesn't commit to, it's easy to be entertained here (I almost forgot to mention the banter between Laurie and Paul, which is warm and sweet, if inexplicable). What the hell, I say check it out! Maybe?
Killer: Warren Stacy (Gene Davis)
Final Girl: Laurie Kessler (Lisa Eilbacher)
Best Kill: They're all pretty much the same M.O., but there's a fun gag at the end of Betty's roommate's death where the toast she was making pops up out of the toaster at the second she expires.
Sign of the Times: Laurie's "going out" outfit involves a one-molecule-wide headband that couldn't possibly be doing anything meaningful to her hair, so it must be for fashion.
Scariest Moment: When Warren is trying to break through Laurie's bedroom door, the mirror on the other side shatters.
Weirdest Moment: Charles Bronson confronts Warren with a sex toy discovered in his bathroom, which resembles the snout of the "Mahna Mahna" muppet crudely grafted onto a salad spinner hair dryer.
Champion Dialogue: "Don't do anything I couldn't do better."
Body Count: 7
Dale is stabbed.
Betty is stabbed in the gut.
Karen is stabbed.
Blonde Roommate is stabbed.
Shower Roommate is stabbed in the gut.
Bunny is stabbed offscreen.
Warren Stacy is shot in the head.
TL;DR:10 to Midnight is a bizarre slasher-actioner hybrid that is well served by an exceptionally sleazy presentation.
There's a reason describing the plot is only a small portion of any review that I write (well, depending on how long-winded I'm feeling that day). While the plot is an incredibly important element of any narrative feature and informs everything from the underlying themes to the way those themes are supported by the filmmaking, the actual incidents involved are less important than the way they are created and presented. So, for example, when I describe 1983's Blood Beat as "a Christmas film about a telekinetic killer samurai who is powered by female orgasms," if your taste is even miles close to mine you might expect to have a raucous good time. I should get into the plot a little further than that, because I'm gonna remind you again: plot isn't everything.
Costuming MIGHT be everything, but that's a different question.
Blood Beat has a pretty small cast, so there's no need to dwell for too too long here anyway. In a small rural Wisconsin home, Cathy (Helen Benton) lives with her outdoorsman lover Gary (Terry Brown) who would like very much to become her second husband, though she refuses. Cathy engages in automatic painting, allowing her latent psychic powers to guide her hand into some monstrously creepy designs. When her kids Dolly (Dana Day) and Ted (James Fitzgibbons) come home for Christmas, Ted brings an unexpected houseguest: his new girlfriend Sarah (Claudia Payton). At first Cathy's constant staredowns of Sarah seem like the domain of a woman who is overprotective of her son, but we come to realize her psychic powers might be warning her of something when a killer dressed as a samurai plows through the neighbors with a big sword every time Sarah orgasms.
Plot isn't everything.
There are many ways that the filmmaking can step in the way of a good plot, but the primary way that Blood Beat demonstrates is one of the worst: it's boring as sin. For one thing, it refuses to put any named characters into any real danger until way too late in the game to stir any semblance of tension. It's one of those slashers where the bulk of the body count is provided by unnamed characters who show up for one scene to be stabbed with something sharp. Some of these films can be successful in a way. Take Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (hey, I said "in a way"). But that approach is only fun when the characters in these solo scenes are so unrelentingly zany that they push the film all the way across the line into surrealism.
Blood Beat also misguidedly assumes we'll be interested in half a dozen scenes of these people hunting deer, and every scene (hell, every shot) drags on longer than it needs to. The camera lingers lovingly over every inch of every prop and set, allowing every action to be captured in its full sweep, then holding for a beat to see if anything interesting happens afterward. It never does. And the dialogue that fills these endless stretches of waiting has the sour tenor of bad improv patter, actors merely amusing themselves with mindless chatter until the director screams "cut!"
I will give Blood Beat this: it really really tries to at least deliver "weird." The material here ranges from the slightly off-kilter (Cathy says of her own brother, "I know him really well") to completely unhinged bananapants (the five minute sequence of the entire house being rattled by telekinesis while Cathy stands in the living room with glowing hands shouting at a samurai). And while the death scenes are uniformly uninteresting (all the blood has the crusty dull look of Karo syrup allowed to dry too long), at least the effects in the telekinesis sequences are arresting. I will say, as someone with a photosensitivity for whom flashing lights and huge swaths of glowing neon across the screen poses a problem, these scenes were not for me. But generally they look as convincing as you were gonna get at this budget level in the 1980's.
Did I hedge that enough? They still look ridiculous, is what I'm saying.
Other things that determine a movie's success besides the plot? Music is a big one. Blood Beat at least makes some big swings, underscoring scenes with classical music that builds to a maniacal crescendo at every opportunity, or random snippets of monks chanting. But acting is perhaps the biggest. Acting is key to making the characters believable, and believable characters is the key to investing in this "plot" you all keep going on about. And the acting here is atrocious, never worse than when Cathy is screaming her goofy Power Rangers dialogue at the samurai with all the force of will of a wet tissue dissolving in a heap. Though this moment is given a run for its money when a man discovers the bloody corpse of his wife and seems no more than vaguely irritated by the situation.
I really really wanted Blood Beat to be a hidden gem. I wanted it to be the campy good time I was promised by certain podcast hosts who shall remain unnamed. But it wasn't. Instead it was a lesson that you should never review a film by simply repeating the log line and going, "right?!" That's how we end up in these situations, everybody! So yeah, that's a pass on Blood Beat, thanks anyway.
Killer: The Samurai
Final Girl: I guess Dolly (Dana Day)
Best Kill: Really none of them, but maybe the first kill involving the samurai sword, which promised a much more fun 80's bonanza than what we ultimately got.
Sign of the Times: Help me decide: 1) A nighttime dialogue scene between a hunter and his wife in an average rural home takes places while he's sitting on the world's wibbliest, wobbliest waterbed. 2) While Gary is being telekinetically pelted with all the items in the kitchen pantry, a can of Tab goes flying at his head.
Scariest Moment: The samurai kills a neighbor who has run into their front yard, so he immediately turns his sights on them afterward.
Weirdest Moment: This movie is about a telekinetic Christmas samurai spirit who is powered by the female orgasm and psychic paintings, you want me to pick just one?
Champion Dialogue: "Your music makes me wanna pee."
Body Count: 9
Poacher is gutted offscreen.
Pete has his throat slashed.
Chris is run through with a sword.
Hunter is shot in the back with an arrow.
Wayne is stabbed with a sword.
Beanie Camper is stabbed with a sword.
Gary is stabbed with his own knife.
Cathy is telekinesised to death.
Sarah is telekinesised to death.
TL;DR: Blood Beat is a terrific camp fest on paper, but the execution is tedious as all get out.
Year: 1983 Director: Ulli Lommel Cast: Suzanna Love, Robert Walker Jr., Jeff Winchester Run Time: 1 hour 25 minutes MPAA Rating: R
Ulli Lommel and Suzanna Love are the Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson of dumb early 80's horror movies. Their relationship is fascinating. Lommel was an acolyte of both Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Andy Warhol and seems to have learned nothing from either of them. Love is a DuPont heiress who was married to him from 1978 to 1987, writing the checks to fund several of the movies they made together. Over the course of their marriage they created 12 movies, previously intersecting with Census Bloodbath with the 1980 killer mirror movie The Boogeyman and its 1983 sequel Boogeyman II. That same year, they created Olivia, a movie inspired by a location scout for Boogeyman II, and that's what we're here to talk about today.
And doesn't that title just send a chill up your spine?
So Olivia (Suzanna Love, of all people) is a young London woman with a ridiculous Dick van Dyke accent trapped in a loveless marriage to Richard (Jeff Winchester). As a child, she witnessed her prostitute mother being murdered by a john, and now imagines her mother's voice yelling at her and demanding that she murder men. She does follow her mother's orders once, but then she quickly falls in love with a potential victim, American builder Mike Grant (Robert Walker Jr.), who is in town to discuss whether to renovate or demolish the London Bridge (yeah, that's what this movie is about, for some reason I can't possibly fathom).
Richard discovers the affair, there's a scuffle, and Olivia escapes. Cut to four years later, the London Bridge has been transplanted into the middle of Arizona, and Mike reunites with Olivia, now going by Ginny and working as a real estate agent at a set of luxury condominiums built along the Colorado river. Then it mostly forgets that it's a horror movie until the final 10 minutes or so.
Everyone, Olivia is very strange.
Olivia is barely a slasher movie. Hell, it's barely a movie. There are enough kills present that I don't regret its inclusion in this project, but the nods at a Psycho-esque psychological profile of a woman driven to kill (which is certainly the impression the poster wants to give us, at the very list) are just nods. I can't quite discern what kind of story Olivia wants to tell, but it's certainly not a story about a serial killer. It's a little bit about a woman caught up in the headwinds of male desire and patriarchal oppression and struggling to escape from that. But also not really? It's dumb, is what it is.
I will say this about Olivia: it ends very far from where it starts, so it certainly keeps you on your toes. There's a fine line between "weird" and "bonkers" and the film doesn't cross over into the latter enough to be satisfying as a camp spectacle, but it's at least different. There's no movie like it. Because most movies have rising action, a climax, and then falling action. The narrative here is more of an omelet than anything, whisking together gratuitous sex scenes, the occasional kill, and lots of Olivia glowering in any direction she pleases.
You go, girl!
There is actually some good material in Olivia, and it comes from the place I'd least expect this movie to excel: the score. The composer here is Jerry Goldsmith('s son Joel), and he is turning in a score that feels very John Carpenter. And I don't mean he's joining the endless collective of slasher composers copying Carpenter's iconic 1978 score for Halloween. No, it feels very 2018 Carpenter, bizarrely ahead of its time with its penchant for sustained drones that sound like plaintive whale calls. The score is perhaps just as wide-ranging and unfathomable in its motivations as the movie itself, but it's lush. The sex scene that is scored by a synthesized harp that sounds like it's meant to be set behind a waterfall in a Fantasia movie is a particular standout. I'd actually listen to this score on purpose, and that's not something I've said about many a 1983 slasher movie.
Also, the lighting is somewhat atmospheric sometimes. And the acting, while certainly not good, is at least enough to get you through these characters' ever-changing journeys. But having sat through the entirety of Olivia, I really have no idea how to digest it. It just kind of sits there in my brain in one big lump. I've at least hacked off a piece and filed it under "remember this score," but otherwise I'm at a loss.
Their previous slasher The Boogeyman isn't exactly a masterpiece, but it's at least very clearly a slasher movie with a hearty body count, even when it turns into a peculiar Exorcist riff with John Carradine toward the end. Here they take a lot of the same ingredients (sexy murder flashback, vaguely supernatural events surrounding murder, etc.) and get really distracted by the London Bridge. Honestly, this might be more of a travelogue than anything, a full experience of what it's like to cross the bridge both in its original London home and at the real-life facsimile in Lake Havasu City, Arizona that somehow inspired this whole mess. I guess I'm grateful to this movie for that, because I had no idea we had a whole-ass London Bridge on this side of the pond, but I'd rather watch a documentary on the creative process behind deciding how this movie was going to be structured rather than the actual movie itself.
Killer: Olivia (Suzanna Love), but only sort of Final Girl: Olivia (Suzanna Love), but only sort of Best Kill: It's the only kill that's any good at all, but it's actually quite pleasing. Mike is brushing his teeth with an electric toothbrush and gets the device shoved through the back of his neck in what might be the film's only special effects shot. Sign of the Times: Olivia's out-on-the-town outfit is a spray of hard-cut blonde bangs and the squarest sunglasses you ever did see. Scariest Moment: When "flirting" with her, Mike forces his way into Olivia's house. Weirdest Moment: Mike seduces Olivia with a sexy rendition of "London Bridge is Falling Down," emphasis on "my fair lady." Champion Dialogue: "They've got nothing better to do than jump off the bridge." Body Count: 4; only 2 of which are perpetrated by Olivia.
Olivia's Mom has her head slammed into the bed which kills her somehow.
Eric has a bottle smashed on his head.
Mike has an electric toothbrush shoved through the back of his throat.
Richard is stabbed to death.
TL;DR: Olivia is a scatterbrained, strange movie that doesn't really add up to much. Rating: 4/10 Word Count: 1139
Year: 1983 Director: Michael Dugan Cast: Marjoe Gortner, Bobbie Bresee, Norman Burton Run Time: 1 hour 36 minutes MPAA Rating: R
The 1983 paranormal slasher Mausoleum was, according to legend, financed by the mob as a money laundering scheme. This isn't as uncommon as you might think, and it doesn't even necessarily spell doom for a production. Christmas Evil and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre were both financed by the mob and I couldn't think of a wider gulf in quality between two films. If nothing else, it gave an early gig to effects whiz and Friday the 13th Part VII director John Carl Buechler, so it wouldn't be a waste even if the entire film was a lit with a single penlight.
It wouldn't be the first slasher I've seen lit that way.
Alright, so the plot! Insofar as there is one. Susan Farrell (Bobbie Bresee) is born into a cursed family. The Nomed clan was cursed in the 1600's to have their firstborn daughter possessed by the demon who lives in the local mausoleum, and apparently in the intervening 300-odd years never thought to move. And also apparently the mausoleum has always been there and America was just built around it.
Anyway, the demon has chosen to possess her at age 30 for no apparent reason, and is turning her into a sexy vixen who seduces gardeners and delivery boys of all stripes before murdering them with her telekinetic demon powers, to the dismay of her husband Oliver (Marjoe Gortner) and longtime psychiatrist Dr. Simon Andrews (Norman Burton who you will recognize as Eric Binford's boss from Fade to Black, though he also played Felix Leiter in a small indie titled Diamonds Are Forever). And that's pretty much it!
Oh, also when she kills people her eyes turn green and space laser sounds play. And that's the movie!
What makes Mausoleum interesting is that it's really not that interesting. Filmmakers have combined the slasher and possession genres before to mixed results. For every Killer Party and Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II, there's a... actually, I've got nothing, they're all awesome. It's such a weird swing from the start that the films have almost no choice but to be a bonkers good time. And it's not that Mausoleum is not that, it's just that it can't quite build a framework worth mounting all the gooey 80's nonsense on.
It's not like I come to the 80's slasher well for deep, trenchant character studies, but at least most of the time we get characters like "child psychology major who can work a pitchfork" or "girl who really likes sex and wears granny panties." You know, characters you can really sink your teeth into! Mausoleum makes it very clear that Susan is evil and possessed from the start, so it kind of forgets to make her have any sort of struggle with the evil burgeoning inside her. And the people she murders mostly crop up in one or two scenes before they're offed. The only characters she has any meaningful interactions with are her husband and doctor, who are two of the blandest nobodies who ever nobodied. So Mausoleum is a narrative that follows no one, which leaves it feeling more than a little aimless.
And while the demon/kill effects are fun, the scenes are paced with all the pep and zip of a funeral procession. Typically we hold on Susan's glowing eyes for 20 seconds, then cut to nothing happening, then back to Susan for another riveting 20, then back to nothing happening, then another 15 or 20 of Susan for flavor (maybe this time she's flexing her face like she's watching a "Cheekbones of Steel" exercise tape), then something cool happens. And quite literally nothing of note happens in the final 15 minute confrontation with the demon itself, which takes place in at least two different locations that three different characters shuffle their way between.
Capital stuff, my friends, absolutely capital!
But those effects though! They're certainly not the best that the 80's or even John Carl Buechler had to offer, but they're certainly better than they have any right to be in a film this transparently interested in showing a sexy lady wandering around rather than frightening an audience. They've got that textured, wrinkly, tactile feel that Buechler always imbued into his work, and there's a hell of a lot of them. Typically a low budget demonic film will save all its effects budget for the grand finale, but we're catching glimpses of Susan's gargoyle-esque demon face from the word "go," and while the kills aren't all that unique, they're well-rendered and know that we've come to see gross shit happen to mean people.
Actually, technically speaking, most of the film displays more skill than you might think. The score is orchestral and lush, and the generic scene of whispered voices calling out to Susan is presented in a churchlike harmonic vocal that is actually quite beautiful to experience. And the lighting and cinematography certainly have their moments, most notably in an early scene where the demon's shadow looms over young Susan, but also giving surprisingly classy grace notes to the kills like a shattering wine glass, or a dropped sheaf of papers fluttering in slow motion through the air.
Really the only true failure here is the screenplay (which also includes one of the most egregious Token Black Comic Relief Characters in a decade that wasn't exactly experiencing a deficit of those). And maybe the acting, but it's not like having Meryl Streep or Jack Nicholson in here could have brought this bland screenplay to life. Also, I maybe have a bone to pick with the production design, which quietly posits that Oliver and Susan are maybe the richest people on the planet because their lavish three-story modern home makes the Guggenheim look like a particularly spicy public restroom.
But it all comes out in the wash. At the end of the day, I enjoyed the time I spent with Mausoleum, even if it wasn't quite the hidden gem I wanted it to be.
Killer: Nomed Final Girl: Susan Walker Farrell (Bobbie Bresee) Best Kill: An art dealer in a mall is levitated out into the open air pavilion and gloriously impaled on a particularly stylish fountain.
Sign of the Times: The dance club Oliver and Susan go to reeks of cigarette smoke and white people disco. Scariest Moment: Even though Oliver fully knows his wife is possessed by a demon, he still has her cook and clean for him, no problem. Because the patriarchy! Weirdest Moment: When devising a grocery list, neither Susan nor her maid can spell "guava" so they decide to get cantaloupe instead. As if that's easier to spell. Champion Dialogue: "I'm not in the habit of seeing my patients light up." Body Count: 7
Man is force-choked and his head smokes.
Drunk Lech Who Looks Like a Silver Fox Version of Jim Henson explodes in a car.
Ben is stabbed with a trowel.
Cora is levitated and telekinetically ripped in half.
Delivery Man has his face telekinetically crushed.
Art Dealer is dropped three stories and impaled on a fountain.
Oliver has his rib cage crushed in a deadly hug.
TL;DR:Mausoleum is amusing enough, but its languorous pace and lack of interesting characters make it a blander affair than it has any reason to be. Rating: 6/10 Word Count: 1239
Year: 1983 Director: William Byron Hillman Cast: Michael Callan, Joanna Pettet, James Stacy Run Time: 1 hour 34 minutes MPAA Rating: R
I'm really trying not to open every slasher review by talking about the poster, because I don't want to rely on this as a crutch to dump out an easy intro. But Double Exposure not only has a fun poster, it uses the white color scheme that hasn't ever been common in horror except for the brief time that the Saw movies were in vogue. We'll just have to see if the movie runs as against the grain as the poster does!
So far so bad!
Double Exposure follows Adrian Wilde (Michael Callan, who probably wouldn't be pleased to learn that I recognized him from Leprechaun 3, although he was also in former Cardboard Science offering Mysterious Island, so I think he's the first person to appear in both my 80's slasher marathon and Hunter's 50's sci-fi flicks which is neat) a photographer for a men's magazine. He is dealing with the emotional ups and downs of his divorced stunt driver brother B.J. (James Stacy), who is missing an arm after a terrible accident. He has been having his own ups and downs, what with those terrifying dreams of murdering people, including cops, prostitutes, and even his own models. When these people keep winding up dead (typically murdered with what is either an awl or a very sharp douche), he begins to suspect he may be having a psychotic break.
This could not have come at a worse time, because he is in the middle of a passionate love affair with Mindy Jordache (Joanna Pettet), a senior home caretaker who he met in the elevator coming out of his shrink's office, followed into the parking lot, and wouldn't allow to leave until she agreed to go on a date with him.
You know, a normal meet-cute!
I suppose since we're already talking about it, let's call it out: Double Exposure is dripping in misogyny. It's not like the slasher genre's habit of having films where strippers and prostitutes are murdered is giving us a solid foundation to start from. But not only does every single female character take her top off with almost every one of them summarily being murdered afterward, every frame of the film is packed to the edges with toxic masculinity as well, just as an added bonus.
The treatment of the lead character as some kind of bizarre middle-aged lothario who women find irresistible actually made me pause the movie to look up if the writer-director also starred, because it seems like the kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy that a lot of these wannabe auteur filmmakers imbue within their movies.
Let's put aside the scenes where Mindy gazes longingly at Adrian while he mansplains football to her, or the scenes of B.J. feeling up every woman who comes within four hectares of him, which ends up leading him to the love of his life. Just listen to this scenario: Adrian boxes Mindy's car in until she agrees to go on a date, which he then shows up late to, invites her to enter his motorhome, and takes her to a deserted parking lot to drink. Which she gleefully does, and leads her to falling head over heels with him. This is not a normal human woman, folks.
Weirdly, Double Exposure has a gay character who is fully self-actualized, good at his job, doesn't have AIDS, and is neither murdered nor revealed to be the killer. So that's nice. Though of course he is on the receiving end of constant verbal abuse.
80's gotta 80's.
All that aside (and it's a lot to put aside, I acknowledge), Double Exposure is actually pretty well made. There are a few honking technical missteps (like the fascinatingly ugly blur effect put on Adrian's entire first scene that makes everything look like it's taking place in the "Take On Me" music video, which I am desperately happy does not get used at any other point), but it's generally slick to look at and sometimes even pretty. OK, once: the discovering of a dumped body, which is elegantly arranged on a hillock like a centerfold model.
And the score is certainly interesting, more layered than the typical Halloween riff we get in movies like this. Between lush strings and bombastic brass speckled with peppy blasts from a tuba, we get a kind of anti-instrument that sounds like metal blocks crashing into each other. It's propulsive and exciting, and way better than any scene in the film deserves.
Although it's not like the kills here are lacking. There's not a lot of blood to speak of, but they're packed with surprisingly brutal detail (in particular the gurgling breath drawn from a slit throat is not something I'm likely to forget anytime soon), and sometimes provide a burst of wacky fun (the one where a lady has her head shoved into a garbage bag with a rattlesnake in it, which is more reminiscent of The Office than anything).
All in all, Double Exposure is far less than the sum of its parts, because each part has to be slathered in some of the worst gender politics of a genre that doesn't ever traffic in good ones. And also the scenes where we're really supposed to dig our teeth into Adrian's psyche are just scattered and confusing, over-edited into utter oblivion. But if you want a sleazy movie that sometimes tips into the most undeservedly saccharine romantic montages this side of Silent Rage, this one is not entirely a miss.
Killer: B.J. Wilde (James Stacy) Final Girl: Mindy Jordache (Joanna Pettet), I guess Best Kill: The opening kill, which has shades of Friday the 13th, with the awl piercing through the back of an undercover cop's neck. Sign of the Times: The movie is literally named after a photography process involving film. Scariest Moment: Literally any time the Wilde brothers interact with a woman. Weirdest Moment: At the end of a scene that has very little to do with the bartender, a random lady shows up to demand an alimony check from him before it cuts away. Champion Dialogue: "I find carrying equipment to be very sensual." Body Count: 7
Charlie is stabbed through the back of the neck.
Model #1 is drowned with a pool skimmer.
Prostitute is strangled.
Model #2 has her face shoved into a trash bag with a rattlesnake in it.
Cowboy is stabbed in the armpit.
April has her throat slashed and is split down the middle.
BJ is stabbed in the neck.
TL;DR: Double Exposure is a fairly decent entry in a slasher subgenre I really want nothing to do with. Rating: 5/10 Word Count: 1127
Year: 1983 Director: William Wiard Cast: Donna Reed, Larry Wilcox, David Ackroyd Run Time: 1 hour 34 minutes
You know a couple things ahead of time when you head into a TV movie slasher. You know there's going to be a bunch of random TV actors assembled for the honor of dying in order from least to most famous (the absolute most famous either don't die at all because they're just a cameo for one day of filming, or they're the killer. Or both.) And you know the kills aren't going to be what you're used to, given network censorship against violence, especially at that time. Although, given the way the MPAA was cracking down on the genre in theaters by this point in the 80's, there's hardly any difference.
So I always try to keep an open mind when approaching one of these things, and Deadly Lessons, which originally premiered on ABC, had a couple aces up its sleeve that I was keen to check out. First, it comes from director William Wiard of Fantasies, which was the best TV movie slasher of 1982 (yes, there were several. You couldn't escape the slasher film on any medium in the 80's, including NES games and 900 numbers). And it was written by a woman, in this case prolific TV movie and miniseries writer Jennifer Miller. Any time a slasher even glances in the direction of having anyone behind the scenes be female, it's worth paying extra attention.
Even when that movie is unwatchable like A Night to Dismember, which also came out in 1983.
So our story begins with young Stefanie Aggiston (Diane Franklin of Amityville II: The Possession) getting a scholarship to go to the prestigious rich girls' boarding school Starkwater Hall. It takes a while for her to fit in with the upper crust brats over summer session, but right when she starts feeling comfortable, someone starts murdering the girls one by one. Enter Detective Russ Kemper (Larry Wilcox of CHiPS!), hellbent on discovering the identity of the murderer. But can Stefanie, fueled by her Nancy Drew moxie and obsession with the Clue-esque board game Evidence! beat him to the punch?
Deadly Lessons has a shockingly huge cast of characters, almost all of whom are played by someone of note ("of note" includes the rather generous definition of people who were in another Census Bloodbath movie, but still, these names!). Let's start with the victim pool, AKA the girls of Starkwater Hall: literal Saudi princess Shama (Vicki Kriegler); the worldly - see: "horny" - Rita Armstrong (Ally friggin' Sheedy); her best friend and Token Black Character Cally (Renee Jones of Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives); and shy overeater Libby (Nancy Cartwright, Bart Simpson herself).
Then we have the suspect pool, AKA the staff of Starkwater Hall: ice queen headmistress Miss Wade (Donna friggin' Reed); equestrian teacher and Wade's secret lover John Ferrars (David Ackroyd); requisite creepy groundskeeper Robert Hartigan (Donald Hotton of Freeway Maniac); handsome stable boy Eddie (Bill Paxton of Bill Paxton, but also Night Warning and Mortuary); stuffy bow-tied English professor Morgan Rank (Robin Gammell of Murder by Phone); French teacher Mrs. Grant (Ellen Geer of Bloody Birthday); and prim assistant headmistress Miss Hunt (Ruth Silveira, also of Bloody Birthday).
And the review hasn't even started yet! You ready?
I've already mentioned that we knew going in the kills weren't going to be remarkable, but they're actually even more demure than in Fantasies. There was never going to be any blood dripping around the place, but here we exclusively get either cutaway gags or people discovering the body after the fact. Luckily the filmmakers made the smart move of having the victims be strangled or drowned, so they can at least show the bodies without too much fretting. We're at least aware we're making a slasher movie here.
But what Deadly Lessons can't deliver in gruesome murders, it does in heaps of playful whodunit mayhem. The parlor room sequences abound here, as the plot thickens and two factions of sleuths race to the finish. There's a little too much cop nonsense in the movie, which you know I don't like (they needed as many scenes for Larry Wilcox as possible), but any moment where Stephanie and her Babysitters Club gaggle of Sherlocks are trying to get to the bottom of things is a delight. Unfortunately the Encyclopedia Brown sleuthing (there's a lot of material mined from whether or not people's boots are covered in mud) doesn't get us all the way to the finale, which kind of chucks murder mystery mechanics in exchange for a Big Grand Villanous Motive Explanation Speech. But it was fun while it lasted.
And even though there isn't a murder setpiece around every corner, Deadly Lessons does its best to deliver overheated melodrama action as often as possible, including hay bales falling to crush Stephanie out of nowhere, and a bucking bronco triggered by an electric shocking gadget beneath the saddle. These are the moments where the thrills come, and while they're certainly not actually thrilling, they're deliciously cheesy in the way of all the best old school TV movies.
You must remember, this is back before all TV was movies.
And probably the biggest accomplishment of Deadly Lessons is making such a huge cast of characters seem unique and compelling in their own right. Sure, there are a couple of the tertiary characters I could never quite get straight, but on a whole the morass of identically clad schoolgirls is actually quite easy to parse through, thanks to a set of distinct performances that capture each girl's personality and her dynamic with the rest of the group.
The cherry on top is Donna Reed parading around as the frigid grand dame to rule them all, playing off of several saucy love triangles. Sure, it could have been better if it was a theatrical movie with the guts to include more guts. But within the narrow realm of what it is, Deadly Lessons is nothing short of a delight. I certainly wish William Wiard had continued to work in the slasher industry, because I could use a couple more sparkling gems like this to unearth coming down the line.
Killer: Det. Russ Kemper (Larry Wilcox) Final Girl: Stefanie Aggiston (Diane Franklin) Best Kill: There aren't any kills onscreen, but I'll say the death of mean girl Tember is the best because it's surprisingly early and means we don't have to deal with her for the rest of the movie. Sign of the Times: You know this is pre-1985 because Ally Sheedy doesn't have the lead role. Scariest Moment: The Obvious Red Herring Groundskeeper goes absolutely bananapants and kidnaps Ally Sheedy to tie her up and tell her all about how much he loved her mom. Weirdest Moment: See above. Champion Dialogue: "Who could be so barfy?" Body Count: 3; though there is a fourth pre-Final Girl attack sequence where the victim just happens to survive.
Tember is drowned offscreen.
Althea is strangled with wire offscreen.
Shama is strangled with her scarf offscreen.
TL;DR:Deadly Lessons is limited as a slasher by the nature of being a TV movie, but it leans into all the other things that make TV movies great. Rating: 7/10 Word Count: 1214
Year: 1983 Director: Don McBrearty Cast: Lawrence Day, Lora Staley, Neil Dainard Run Time: 1 hour 28 minutes MPAA Rating: R
American Nightmare might just be the most Canadian slasher movie ever made, and that includes the title that cravenly wants you to think it's from the U.S. In front of and behind the camera is a coterie of Canadian slasher royalty, including screenwriter John Sheppard (Mark of Cain), producer Paul Lynch (who directed Prom Night and Humongous), composer Paul Zaza (Prom Night, My Bloody Valentine, Ghostkeeper, Curtains, and Body Count), and the word "abote." And the director doesn't have other credits in this marathon, but he does in another because somehow, some way he ended up directing a million Hallmark Christmas movies including Pride, Prejudice, and Mistletoe.
Now it's the accepted party line that Canadian slashers are of a piece a step above their American brethren, so let's kick the tires on that theory with the ne plus ultra of Canadian crews, shall we?
Pour some maple syrup on your popcorn and get to reading.
In American Nightmare, Eric (Lawrence Day) arrives in an unnamed American city (Toronto) to investigate the disappearance of his sister Isabelle (Alexandra Paul). He quickly discovers that she has been mixed up in the seedy underbelly of the city, namely a local strip club. The local detective (Mike Ironside, better known to everyone who isn't the credits designer on this movie as Michael Ironside, also of Visiting Hours and Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II) isn't super invested, so Eric enlists the help of stripper with a heart of gold Louise (Lora Staley).
All the while, a killer wearing an evil beret and a pair of clear gloves is stalking people involved in the club, including dancers Tina (Lenore Zann of Happy Birthday to Me, Visiting Hours, and Murder by Phone) and Andrea (Claudia Udy of Edge of Sanity and Skullduggery), as well as transvestite Dolly (Larry Aubrey). Oh, and also Eric's father Hamilton Blake (Tom Harvey) owns a TV station with his business partner Tony (Neil Dainard of The Incubus) that is putting on a huge New Year's Day telethon for UniSave, which is something something underprivileged children. Suspects include Tina's boyfriend Mark (Page Fletcher of Humongous), and literally any other man onscreen for any amount of time.
Men! What would we do without them?
There are two types of exploitation slasher movies. There is the kind where everyone is in on the joke and ready to have fun embracing the over-the-top ridiculousness of it (usually teenybopper sex romps full of boobs and bloody murder ie. Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter), and then there is the kind where everything is just grimy and sleazy and makes you want to take a shower afterward (anything focused on horrible rape, sweat dripping down a maniacal man's face, etc., ie. Don't Answer the Phone). It's all a matter of tone.
American Nightmare is somewhere in the middle. It doesn't have the finesse of Visiting Hours to position itself as a commentary on the misogyny of its killer, or the benefit of having a female director like the later (but similar) Stripped to Kill. But it has its merits in its own idiosyncratic, lopsided way. In the negative column, the kills are more brutally functional than creative (lots of slits throats and angry choking), and are thus pretty rough to watch. It's easier to watch annoying upper middle class teenagers get bumped off than sex workers who deserve better. Don't ask me why. Slasher viewer ethics are a gray area at all times.
But, on the plus side, American Nightmare takes the Stripped to Kill approach of including burlesque sequences that are of course meant to titillate, but also have an explicit interest of showing off a variety of talented women expressing themselves. And the characterization of the women is deeper than one might expect from the slasher genre. Hell, just a few entries ago, we reviewed Boardinghouse, where every female character was like the Phoebe Cates pool scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High had a baby with a wooden block.
There is a great deal of empathy in the portrayals here, especially Louise, who genuinely likes her job even though in some respects she is trapped in it (note the freedom she feels while performing topless vs. the torment and horror when she attends a TV audition and is forced to take off her clothes - powerfully performed by Staley). This movie posits that sex workers are real people with real feelings who deserve respect, even as it brutally punishes them with violent death. In a way, the movie is doing its job. It makes you care for its characters (including Dolly, who would probably have identified as transgender in a modern milieu, and is given an unusual depth of emotion for 1982) and thus infuses the murder scenes with extremely high stakes.
Maybe it's harder for the slasher genre to express both sides of the body count coin when it's dealing with typically oppressed people, because - intentional or not - the themes of these movies do tend to politically align the audience in some way with the killer's actions. Note how the killer only targets women and queer people, not the straight white pimp who is actually responsible for the crime he wants revenge against.
Honestly I don't have an answer here. Let me move on before this becomes a full-on thesis.
There's a great deal of good or at least above average in American Nightmare. It's frequently well lit and occasionally throws in a pretty shot or two for good measure. And it's part of a time honored slasher tradition of being a secret Christmas movie (the impending telethon is on New Year's Day after all, and there are some threadbare Christmas trees tucked into corners). Plus Lenore Zann is intensely compelling with her huge, glistening doe eyes.
Honestly, the only weak spots in the acting are Day and Harvey as father and son. Their climactic confrontation is frankly baffling to witness. One flatly intones accusations while the other mutters lines under his breath that should have been shouted. It's all very high school one act festival. But really the only thing holding me back from giving this a full-fledged 7/10 is the extremely complicated feelings that led me to philosophize for objectively too many paragraphs earlier. All in all, not a bad start for my first real attempt at tackling 1983!
Killer: Tony Shaw (Neil Dainard) Final Girl: Louise (Lora Staley) Best Kill: I can't say I really liked any of these kills, but Dolly's murder, where they are lifted off the ground by the killer's sheer strength is pretty impactful. Sign of the Times: There's a loooooot of business with VHS tapes going on. Scariest Moment: The killer puts on vinyl gloves right after washing his hands, which I can tell you from experience over a year of quarantine is a recipe for disaster. Weirdest Moment: Eric sits down to a movie marathon of his sister's sex tapes (to discover the identity of the killer, but still). Champion Dialogue: "Things are really bumming out for me." Body Count: 6
Isabelle has her throat slashed with a straight razor.
Andrea is drowned in the bathtub.
Dolly is stabbed in the gut.
Tina has her throat slit.
Hamilton Blake shoots himself.
Tony Shaw is pushed off a roof.
TL;DR: American Nightmare is grossly exploitative, but also has a surprisingly deep approach to character that redeems it somewhat. Rating: 6/10 Word Count: 1258
2020 was over almost as soon as it started, and we all know why, so let's try not to dwell on that for the moment. Whatever weird dregs of pop culture we got this year still count, so I'm going to break down the best and worst, as is tradition. The scope of this post will be drastically reduced from previous years. Maybe I'll wish I had reduced films to just a top 5 the second I click "publish," but the only category that won't be getting an all-out top 10 is television. I don't know if that's because television took a bigger hit than any other medium during the pandemic, or because I spent most of my summer binge-watching Sex and the City. Who's to say.
Also, as usual, I will say that me not liking a movie doesn't mean you're bad for liking it! I do include "worst of" elements in this wrap-up, but that's just my personal opinion. If your opinion tends to align with mine, maybe avoid those titles. If your opinion doesn't align with mine (a sadly common occurrence), full steam ahead. There is no objective truth in criticism, y'all!
Let's do this thing, shall we?
FILM
2020 Movies I Missed That I Wish I Had Seen Before Compiling This List: Soul, Bill and Ted Face the Music, Disclosure, Becky, The Old Guard, The New Mutants, 12 Hour Shift, Mulan, Antebellum
2020 Movies That I Missed, Don't Regret Missing, and Will Go Out of My Way to Continue Missing Until the End of Linear Time: My Spy, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, King of Staten Island, Greyhound, Corona Zombies, Scoob!, Tenet
A 2020 Movie I Have Recused Myself from Including Anywhere Because It Was Co-Written by a Friend of Mine: Freaky
The Ten Best Films of 2020
#10 American Pie Presents: Girls' Rules
There's no reason for an American Pie spinoff movie to be so well-fitted for the modern sex-positive milieu of Gen Z teenagers, and yet here we are.
#9 The Thing About Harry
The Thing About Harry, which is essentially a gay retelling of When Harry Met Sally starring irritating millennials, is more "notable" than it is "good." I had a totally OK time watching it, but the primary wonder of it is that it even exists at all, being as it is a television movie (it premiered on Freeform) starring people who (gasp) aren't even straight!
#8 Happiest Season
There's definitely a bit to grouse about here (and I have). But I could basically just copy and paste what I said about The Thing About Harry here. Lesbians? In my holiday movie? Well, I never!
#7 Host
So far, this is the only satisfying "we filmed this during quarantine" bit of filmmaking I've seen, mainly because it doesn't depress me like all get out. It's a fun, zippy Unfriended clone with Zoom jokes that weren't tired yet, a delightful slate of terrific special effects, and a gloriously brief run time.
#6 Underwater
I just have to admire the audacity to hit "holy fuck everything is exploding around us" at the 45 second mark, and never letting up until the end credits roll.
#5 Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan
Billed as Bollywood's first romantic comedy with queer lead characters (this has been debated, as is any claim about any movie being the first of anything), Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan is a delight, whether or not it's a pioneer. The structure of the story will be familiar to anybody who has seen even one movie about gay people (though it is a little more violent in its depiction of homophobia, be warned), but I for one am not immune to Bollywood production numbers, zany family comedy, and the freakishly handsome Ayushmann Khurrana.
#4 Palm Springs
Dare I say Palm Springs is the best take on the Groundhog Day time loop formula? I probably would if Happy Death Day wasn't sitting right there staring at me. But regardless, it provides a fresh spin on the material by giving more than one character actual agency, and when both of those characters are the kind of caustically hilarious trainwrecks that only Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti can create, it's a hell of a good time to be stuck in a day with them.
#3 The Invisible Man
One of the last movies to be released in theaters in 2020 was also one of the best! The Invisible Man has enough hokey sci-fi elements to please fans of the original, but it modernizes the concept in the best possible way. Rather than slathering it in chintzy CGI and top 40 tracks, it harnesses the emotional power of a hot-button topic (namely the way women have been treated by men for centuries) to fuel a thrilling, enervating narrative.
#2 Spontaneous
I would have loved this movie in any year, but in 2020 watching Spontaneous is like having a bombshell dropped on your head. Its story about a group of teens who mysteriously begin exploding for no reason is impossible to read as anything other than a COVID-19 metaphor, even though it was pretty clearly intended as a school shooting metaphor. Wow, what a decade we've been having. Anyway, Spontaneous is an ingenious film for the teens of today, combining adolescent snark with earnest generosity, and telling a tale of stark, nihilistic horror that never feels too crushing because it's so goddamn funny so much of the time. And when it does decide to crush you? Boy, does it.
#1 Emma.
This is the type of movie I created the Jane Austen marathon to find, so it's appropriate it arrived unto the world in the same year that project ended. It's set in the Regency time period, but never skimps on the color or humor, breathing new life into old language with its exquisite candy box sets, terrific batch of performances (Mr. Knightley is the weakest link, but not that weak), and irreverent approach that shows the seams of all this buttoned-up carrying on. By which I mean we see Emma's ass. It's the single Jane Austen romance that most captures her sense of the ridiculous, and for that I am eternally grateful.
Best 2019 Film I Missed: Good Boys
This movie still wouldn't have made it into my top 10, so I'm not entirely sorry I missed the deadline. But it was a surprisingly sweet film that overcame its truly horrible marketing campaign. Sure, it's naughty and raunchy and relies on a lot of punchlines being "a child said the F word." But its heart is squarely in the right place, and it manages to be salacious without leaning on misogyny or any of the other horrible tropes that hamper rewatches of older films like American Pie.
The Five Worst Films of 2020
#5 After We Collided
The first After is a generic tissue paper white people romance that immediately dissolves upon contact, and this one is way worse. You do the math.
#4 La Llorona
I already knew going in that La Llorona had the look of one of them "elevated horror" pictures where nothing actually happens, but I'm on the hook for anything Llorona-related from here until the end of time. And it's a shame the movie was so pretty, because it would be a huge relief to hate everything about this text that reinterprets La Llorona into oblivion, stretching the legend much too far from its original source. And also hinging its tension on a bunch of incredibly stupid Scooby Doo fakeout gags. Two thumbs down.
#3 The Turning
The Turning is bad in almost every conceivable way, but it's at least a glorious mess that's fun to think about, which is why it's this far from the top slot. It even inspired me to read The Turn of the Screw, which I also didn't like! Good times.
#2 The Grudge
A real miscalculation on every level, starting with the fact that it's set for no apparent reason during the time period of the original film, even though it's clearly trying to remake certain aspects of it. Not all the aspects mind you, just a handful. And yet it doesn't add anything to that handful, so it's a largely unscary horror film composed almost entirely of negative space. Yippee.
#1 Holidate
I still wasn't certain if this is the actual worst movie I saw this year, or just the one that rubbed me the wrong way the most (with its snarky mockery of the very rom-com tropes that form its entire plot, including the "why are we still doing this" sassy black best friend who has no function in life other than to serve the romantic travails of the mediocre white lead). There is a difference between those two things. But then I remembered that there's an entire three minute scene that's shot like this:
Yeah, Holidate sucks.
Best Worst Movie: Baaghi 3
This is "best worst" in a very different way from most years. It's not "so bad it's good," because I actually think the over-the-top action setpieces in this Bollywood cheesefest about a mostly shirtless man trying to rescue his kidnapped brother from a shadowy cabal are a work of demented genius. The "worst" part comes from the film's truly heinous conservative politics, which are admittedly a mainstay even in American action cinema. But American filmmaking is at least a little less likely to depict a heartfelt scene of a cop committing extrajudicial murder. A little.
Worst 2019 Film I Missed: The Lion King
I watched this at a particularly dark moment during quarantine, and dear god was that one of my biggest mistakes of 2020. I barely tolerate the original Lion King, and this unnecessary flume ride through the Uncanny Valley is not what that text needed to earn my appreciation.
Best Dramatic Actor: Ewan McGregor, Birds of Prey
Here he effortlessly embodies the one percent, slipping imperceptibly between polished man about town and pure amorality. He is 2020's ultimate embodiment of the evil of the banal.
Best Comedic Actor: Bill Nighy, Emma.
One of Emma's greatest strengths is that it breathes life and humanity into a text that can be perceived as stuffy and archaic. Nobody exemplifies this better than Bill Nighy, who takes what is perhaps the Jane Austen character whose comic aspects have aged most poorly, and made him into a lightningrod of gut-busters.
Best Dramatic Actress: Catherine Langford, Spontaneous
As someone who has only seen one episode of 13 Reasons Why, I never really had a reason to notice Catherine Langford in anything. Well, now I fucking do. Spontaneous is such a tightrope act in and of itself, and her performance expertly blends the nihilistic terror of its premise with the bubbly comedy instincts it embraces. Her character is like if a Kevin Williamson teen actually had a soul, and if performances like this are where teen media is heading, I for one can't wait for what's next.
Best Comedic Actress: Cristin Milioti, Palm Springs
I'm hesitant to even make this comparison because of my deep abiding love of Ms. Byrne, but Cristin Milioti's turn in Palm Springs reminds me of Rose Byrne's showstopping performance in Neighbors. From this point on she will no longer be "oh, that actress I know from [insert title here, probably How I Met Your Mother]." She will be Cristin Milioti, the woman who blazed across this movie leaving nothing but fiery debris in her wake, effortlessly blending vulnerability, pitch black sarcasm, and pitch-perfect comic timing so offbeat it borders on anarchy.
2020 MVP: Natasha Rothwell
Natasha Rothwell isn't always in the best projects, but she's always one of the best things in them. This year she busted guts in projects as varied as Like a Boss, Sonic the Hedgehog, Love, Victor, and Insecure, and that was just in the part of the year where we were actually getting pop culture!
Worst CGI Creation: The Bacon, Lovebirds
I get that we don't want to actually splatter Kumail Nanjiani in the face with bacon grease, but we also don't need to see a loving close-up of little CGI blobs of bacon floating above a pan like a Windows 95 screensaver became self aware.
Best Soundtrack: Birds of Prey
Whether it's the acid-tinged "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" musical number, Jurnee Smollett-Bell's smoky vocals as chanteuse Black Canary, or the heap of modern bangers delivered by women of all stripes ("Sway with Me" by Saweetie and Galxara is a standout), this film is never not a pleasure for the ears.
Biggest Laugh: The Chiron, Princess Switch: Switched Again
No screenshots exist of this moment, because why would they? But let me set the stage. Exterior, big giant snowy castle. A chiron appears, reading "Castle Montenaro" or some such. A bunch of scenes happen in this castle, then a ball begins the next night. Exterior, same big giant snowy castle, only it's nighttime this time. A new chiron appears, also reading "Castle Montenaro." Might I remind you that we never actually left the castle during this entire span? It's such a ridiculously basic flub that it really caught me off guard and tickled me pink, the only moment in the movie to actually elicit a genuine laugh.
Biggest Cry: The Ending, Peninsula
No photo, no spoilers. This sequel to Train to Busan could only be a disappointment, especially considering that it jettisons the well-constructed tightness of the setting in favor of an expansive post-zombie apocalypse Korea that is more Fast and the Furious than 28 Days Later. But the ending still packed an emotional punch, or at least enough of one that my stress-addled brain was willing to shed a few tears.
Biggest Scream: Old Man, Gretel & Hansel
Gretel & Hansel isn't a film packed with wall-to-wall scares, which is why the moment that a desiccated old figure rises from behind their slumbering forms packs even more of a horrifying punch.
Best Line: "If the Academy allows, I would like to get a Texas Chainsaw, split the Oscar trophy in five, and share it with all of you." - Bong Joon-ho's acceptance speech for Best Director
Don't look at me like that. It's certainly the line that stuck with me the most this year. It's not too often that you get an Oscar winner mentioning a 70's horror classic in their acceptance speech. Also, remember when people could gather in the same room as one another? Good times.
Worst Line: "I don't do fiction - have you seen how I dress?" After We Collided
Dylan Sprouse, what does this even mean? It's not quite as laugh-out-loud funny as the previous movie's horrible misinterpretation of the end of The Great Gatsby, but it's pretty damn close.
Best Poster: La Llorona
Never let it be said that this movie didn't have its aesthetics down pat.
Worst Poster: The Hunt
And onto a movie with no recognizable aesthetic, and a poster that's too mottled blue to even bother attempting to discern whatever terrible visual pun is going on here.
Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist was surprisingly deft at blending its wacky musical comedy flavor with bitter, heart-wrenching emotion. While I don't want to give short shrift to those tearjerking episodes, the emotional moment I found to be the most tender was the scene where, in the middle of an argument, two people dealing with enormous grief and loss decide to dance out their rage and fall into a giggling heap, exorcising an entire season's worth of demons.
#4 "Welcome to Creekwood" Love, Victor
Love, Victor is a spin-off of Love, Simon, a groundbreaking gay young adult movie that is extremely white and digustingly upper-middle class. And Love, Victor knows it, opening with a bang on this episode that declares to the audience it's aware of every one of Simon's shortcomings and is about to blow them all to smithereens. It's about as meta as something can get without actually breaking the fourth wall, kind of like The Rise of Skywalker but actually good.
#3 "Four Stories About Hand Stuff" Big Mouth
This series of vignettes about characters' first experiences with, well, hand stuff, is both grotesquely hilarious and - as ever - an accurately awkward exploration of the horrifying depths to which puberty takes us all.
#2 "Lowkey Done" Insecure
This episode zooms in on one day in Issa's life, where her attempts to simply do a good deed go awry, at first hilariously, and then with more and more emotional bite. It steps away from the tumultuous drama of the season to remind us of what a fascinating and well-shaded character study this show is.
#1 "Ghosts" What We Do in the Shadows
When our lead vampires discover that they left behind ghosts when their bodies died and then meet them, pure hilarity ensues. This is way better than a measly flashback episode for exploring what our characters were like long before we met them, and the hilarious, frequently filthy ways in which theyinteract with their former selves are top shelf comedy television.
Bottom Five Episodes of 2020
#2 High School Musical: The Musical: The Holiday Special
OK, this might be a little my fault for expecting it to be a Christmas-themed episode of the show proper, rather than a sub-DVD-special-features level package of interviews with the cast on the subject of The Holidays leading into shiny, polished, and incredibly boring renditions of Christmas standards.
#1 "Due Date" Muppets Now
It takes a lot to turn me off of a Muppet project, but Muppets Now did it right out of the gate with this scattershot package of uninteresting tropes, sketches that stretch a single threadbare idea across three different segments, and the grating vocal stylings of Kermit 3.0. I haven't followed the Steve Whitmire firing stories well enough to know if putting my hat in the ring for him is a moral quandary or not, but I will say from an artistic standpoint that without him at the wheel, Kermit may never be the same.
Best SNL Sketch: "Sands of Modesto" SNL
This was definitely a lot funnier before we knew the full scope of how much COVID-19 was going to impact our lives, and for how long. But it's still a lovely bit of pitch black humor, prematurely embracing the ridiculousness of the world we now find ourselves in.
Best Musical Performance: "Dynamite" BTS
I must admit I had never before had a taste for the BTS machine (I prefer my K-pop groups like my country singers - women), but the choreography in this performance really is beyond reproach. These boys are well-oiled cogs that work in alarming synchronicity with one another's movements.
Worst Commercial: "Now, More Than Ever"
If I never hear this phrase again, or have to be assured that Arby's has my back in this global pandemic, it will still be too soon.
MUSIC
Top Ten Songs of 2020
#10 "Zurück in die Zukunft" Nena
Nena is back, y'all! I mean, she never really left after the U.S. one hit wonder "99 Luftballons" was inescapable in the 80's. But this throwback number fits right in line with any of her delectable Europop albums from the mid-80's.
What's better than Spanish ladies being really sad really loudly? An ultimate "scream along in the car" melodrama song.
#8 "Pporappippam" Sunmi
I don't know about you all, but this was the song of my summer, and it at least helped me close my eyes and imagine anything fun was happening around me. And those synth horn blasts in the pre-chorus! Sublime.
#7 "Easy" Troye Sivan
Troye can be a little hit and miss with me, even though I appreciate his work as a whole. And while "Easy" isn't my favorite of his tracks, it floats ethereally through an cloud of electronic warbles that I find incredibly calming and appealing. And I must always give kudos to gay artists who use "he" pronouns when singing about their lovers. Big fan.
#6 "Nights Like This" Loud Luxury x CID
Yeah, I'm aware there's not a lot to it. But the infectious melody really gets my blood pumping in a way I can't really explain.
#5 "Aisi Taisi" Mika Singh
I love foreign pop songs that can capture the modern trends of the day without losing a single shred of the local style, and this Hindi track from the movie Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (on my top 10 movies, if you hadn't noticed) is a perfect electric pop single pumped to the gills with luscious Indian instrumentation and tonality.
#4 "React" The Pussycat Dolls
Pop culture is all about resurrecting old brands right now (and will continue to be for a long while as entertainment desperately claws to make enough money to earn itself a future). But when reunions are producing such delectable pop gems as "React," how could I complain? Building your entire song off a series of tuba blasts is a brassy move, pun intended, and it's just as big and bold as that motif deserves.
#3 "If the World Was Ending" Julia Michaels & JP Saxe
I really had no choice but to fall under the spell of this song, having gone through a breakup at the beginning of a global pandemic. The lyrics about yearning to maintain a connection with someone you're well aware isn't The One but is a human you still need support from because everything is fucking bugnuts right now? Yeah, I get it. 2020, man.
#2 "Angels Ain't Listening" Basshunter
Basshunter music was a staple of my high school days, and he's returned after more than half a decade with a track that blows all his Eurodance baubles out of the water. It harnesses the current trend of slathering a track in 80's synths to its fullest potential, knowing that synths were always best meant to be dark John Carpenterian underscores to brutally dour lyrics. It's Basshunter being introspective, which is fascinating because we've literally never gotten before. I mean, come on, it's Basshunter.
#1 "Father Daughter Dance" Kesha
I have long maintained that Kesha's emotional tracks are among her best, but the sheer unvarnished yearning of "Father Daughter Dance," lamenting the relationship she never had with a father she never met, is bone-crushingly tragic. And that key change in the bridge? Yeah, sign me the hell up.
Bottom Five Songs of 2020
#5 "Alice" Lady Gaga
I guess I'm just not a disco gay, but Chromatica wore thin pretty quickly for me, and opening on "Alice" is a mission statement of the kind of underproduced mediocrity we were gonna get from this album.
#4 "I Hope" Gabby Barrett ft. Charlie Puth
I just really really hate that this song relies on the trainwreck of meter and grammar that is the line "And then I hope she cheats, like you did on me."
#3 "Let Me Reintroduce Myself" Gwen Stefani
Gwen Stefani is reintroducing herself to the world of pop, and reminding us all that she's been stealing beats and stylings from people of color from day 1. Hooray!
#2 "Never Worn White" Katy Perry
I shouldn't have expected different from the woman who sings "Unconditionally" like "un-kun-di-SHUN-ally," but oh boy does the word "delicately" fail to please the ear when sung as "duh-LICK-ut-lee." Also, what does it mean to be man enough to answer one's mama's prayers? Also, I get that not every pop song is autobiographical, but in a song about her impending nuptials with Orlando Bloom in which she revealed her baby bump, it's perhaps a smidge strange to imply you've never been married when your previous marriage was one of the biggest gossip stories of the 2010's. Just saying.
#1 "I Believe In Santa" Meghan Trainor
Nevermind what in the holy Jojo Siwa hell is going on in the video, this song is like a candy cane made of black tar heroin.
Best Music Video: "WAP" Cardi B feat. Megan Thee Stallion
These women are just having fun, combining sexy and silly in equal measures, but what really pushes this video over the top is that M.C. Escher production design, liberally pouring its lovely pastel color scheme directly into your eye sockets.
Worst Music Video: "911" Lady Gaga
I desperately wanted Lady Gaga to drag herself away from countrytown and back to her weird self. I certainly got that. Beggars can't be choosers I suppose, but frankly I was asking for the "Alejandro" Gaga and not the "Artpop" Gaga. This video is so far up its own ass it can see daylight.
Best Quarantine Music Video: "En Mis Tacones" Fanny Lu, Patty Cantu, & Melanie Pfirrman
This song about women forcing men to walk a mile in their heels came early in the Stay at Home era, and the magical puppetmaster element is a really clever and enjoyable way around these Latin pop stars' inability to actually dance with their normal crew.
Best Guilty Pleasure: "Boys Will Be Boys" Dua Lipa
There's no type of song I will gobble up more readily than the faux feminist empowerment pop anthem. And this one is actually pretty good! As much as it is clearly ripped from the Twitter trending topic headlines, the lyrical switcheroo at the end of the chorus is very clever and drives its point home like Van Helsing's stake into the heart of a creature of the night.
Worst Guilty Pleasure: "Kings & Queens" Ava Max
This is the dark side of the "Boys Will be Boys" coin. This ditty is an undeniable earworm, but I'm so frustrated that of the manifold ways that Ava Max chooses to elevate women above the terrible men in their lives is by saying "if I had a dick, it'd be real big," which is cheeky but super off-message.
Best Album Cover: Chromatica, Lady Gaga
Maybe what bothered me the most about the album is that it isn't exactly like every detail on this wild, bubblegum punk album cover.
Worst Album Cover: ABORVFT, J. Sands
If you're not going to have an image, then you should probably run your album title through a grammar check first. Also why is it arranged like an acrostic when it spells nothing?
BOOKS
I've always toyed with the idea of doing a Top 10 Books list, but when I really sat down to do it, I realized that the only book I'd read from that year was Final Girls by Riley Sager and I didn't even like it all that much. Ditto the ensuing years. This year (I wonder why), I've had a lot more time to read, and the discovery of free audiobooks on the Libby app has really boosted my ability to get through material. I still don't have the ability to do a top ten books that came out in 2020, but I'd like to share five books that I read this year that really impacted me. And wouldn't you know it, some were even released this decade.
Top Five Books I Read in 2020
#5 Solutions and Other Problems, Allie Brosh (2020)
Allie Brosh's blog Hyperbole and a Half (and its subsequent print book) have been a major source of comic relief for my life since high school, and her essays about struggling with depression are some of the funniest, most meaningful passages ever written on mental health. She continues her efforts to provide a light in the darkness in this seven-years-later followup, which grapples with extreme nihilism and horrible tragedy that gave me my most potent sobbing fit in a year that had a slightly higher proportion of those than normal anyway, and yet provided so many laugh out loud moments alongside them, sometimes even delivering both simultaneously.
#4 The Lady from the Black Lagoon, Mallory O'Meara (2019)
As a rule, I pretty much never read biographies unless they're about people I already care deeply about. If every biography was written like The Lady from the Black Lagoon, I'd have to rethink that rule. Part exploration of the fascinating life of the woman who designed the Creature from the Black Lagoon, part memoir of author Mallory O'Meara's life in Hollywood and process of researching this book, Lady draws parallels between two amazing women and their solidarity against the patriarchy of the film industry across time.
#3 Aristole and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Sáenz (2012)
An overwhelmingly large part of my literary diet is YA books about queer teens, so I thought I knew what I was getting with this one. But no, Aristotle and Dante is unlike anything I've ever read. Lyrical without being overly stylized, deeply felt without sacrificing the emotional reality of a lead who never quite understands what he's feeling in the first place, and telling an aching love story while still packing emotional punches within all the relationships in the novel, romantic or otherwise.
#2 Pet, Akwaeke Emezi (2019)
I had a good run with queer YA this year. Pet is a story about a young trans girl born into a world without monsters, who accidentally summons a guardian creature which tells her she must join the hunt for a new one. Again, the only way I can describe the prose is lyrical, and though the plot itself is pretty easy to suss out at an early stage, that doesn't diminish the impact of this allegory for all the monsters we face in our day to day life and how to slay them.
#1 Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel (1989)
Do you really need me to tell you that Like Water for Chocolate is good? I hope not. But from page 1, it instantly became my favorite magical realist text. Structuring itself around a series of recipes and home remedies, the very text itself highlights the sstory's link between the domestic duties typically deemed too boring or unsuitable for "high literature" and the magic of the human soul. This is one of those novels that feels whole, like every single word is in the exact right place and it could never have existed in any other way. That's the mark of true genius.
Here's Some Stuff That I Did in 2020
Welcome to Prime Time
To support Black Lives Matter and COVID-19 relief, I created a podcast where I reviewed one episode of the horrible 80's anthology TV show Freddy's Nightmares for every donation. Friends, I ended up watching all of them, and this was the sitting-in-front-of-the-TV equivalent of running the New York marathon. I was so happy to get to produce a fun podcast where I chat with my friends in an increasing state of misery though!
Alternate Ending
I'd already written periodically for the film web site Alternate Ending, but this year I became their support reviewer, covering films that their lead reviewer didn't want to watch, from the glorious to the holy shit what have I done.
Also, on their Patreon site, I created a monthly horror review podcast with co-host Tim Brayton where we review a different horror movie each month! We've already covered The Rocky Horror Picture Show (that one's free), Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, and Anna and the Apocalypse!
We Are Horror
If you're so inclined to donate to the Patreon of online horror magazine We Are Horror, you'll find my article in their slasher special (issue #2), where I wrote in-universe reviews of concerts from slasher movies. It's by far the weirdest, most high concept thing I've ever written, and I'm immensely proud of it!
