Almost All Horror Movie October
2024 in descending order of interest
The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024): 4/5
There’s a lot of filmmaking going on here, some of it good. The last act gets away from Fargeat, tonally—but it’s all still a pretty fun ride. In part, the movie is about loving the part of yourself that is old and getting older. There will always be a part of you that feels young and timeless, but ya gotta love the aging part too. I also get heavy The Giving Tree vibes, with the younger self taking and taking and taking. Demi Moore earns Oscar nom.
Strange Darling (JT Mollner, 2024): 3.5/5
A wild genre ride and, miraculously, satisfying. I didn’t take the flipping of protagonist and antagonist as a surprise twist exactly, just a bit of narrative fun. Both leads are good.
In a Violent Nature (Chris Nash, 2024): 3.5/5
There’s a great movie somewhere in here, where we follow 10 feet behind a hulking entity as it wades slowly and inexorably through a series of adolescent dramas, solving through elimination. The viewer’s satisfaction is derived from the commitment of the filmmakers to the formal structure. Unfortunately, this film strays from this rigor too often—like, why is this character lurking!?! It doesn’t lurk!!
V/H/S Beyond (Jordan Downey, Justin Martinez, Kate Siegel, Virat Pal, Christian & Justin Long, Jay Cheel, 2024): 3.5/5
I like these VHS movies. Here we have three good ones and three ok ones. No build ups or disintegrations or slow burns. Just all killer no filler.
The First Omen (Arkasha Stevenson, 2024): 3.5/5
This movie is grounded in real characters with their own history, depth and psychology in a way that really makes it stand out from the giallos and Substance’s I’ve been watching recently. Unfortunately, the result is a real bummer, highlighting the real, powerless, rape-y trauma experienced by women in every culture. I heard this very talented director say that Lynch’s Fire Walk with Me is a central text in her artistic life, and this film has that movie’s same equation of violence, sadness, anger, and trauma turned inward.
Wolfs (Jon Watts, 2024): 3/5
Floats by on charm alone, but then again so does, say, The Philadelphia Story, and that’s a classic, right? Austin Abrams produces one of the best scenes of the year. And uh yeah, is that fucker Brad Pitt somehow getting even more handsome as he ages?
New Life (John Rosman, 2024): 3/5
A nifty first feature that completely delivers on its simple and streamlined (i.e., limited) premise—everyone is after the girl, but why, and who will stop her? 83 mins.
Oddity (Damian Mc Carthy, 2024): 3/5
Creepy, but like Longlegs, it never really settles into a kink. Just a bunch of supernatural and non-supernatural elements tossed together. Fun from moment to moment, but hollow all around.
Alien: Romulus (Fede Álvarez, 2024): 3/5
In the first half I admired the world building and cast of characters, but the second half is simply overwritten. They somehow can’t figure out how to make one of the best creatures in the history of film scary, so they try to create tension with periodic zero-gravity, plunging elevators, and collisions with planet rings. These hats are wearing hats, friends.
Speak no Evil (James Watkins, 2024): 2.5/5
The first two thirds of the Finnish version had themes—namely, how far one will go maintain civility and how hard it is to make couple-friends. This version glances at these but then adds a half hour of material having nothing whatever to do with these themes. On the other hand, I remember rejecting the ending of the original too.
A Quiet Place: Day One (Michael Sarnoski, 2024): 2/5
They made an Alien 3 here—meaning internal, emotional and minimal. But is this the best story they could think of to tell—cancer, pizza, cat and all? At least Terminator 3 had a hot female Terminator. That was cool.
It’s What’s Inside (Greg Jardin, 2024): 2/5
Fun premise, but two big things. We should understand the personalities of the characters before they start switching around. And our protagonist should change in some way as a result of her experience. Agree with David Ehrlich who said, “hard to imagine a less interesting film with the same premise.” The eager-to-please filmmaking reminds me that TikTok is changing our culture.
When Evil Lurks (Demián Rugna, 2023): 3/5
Some folk horror from Spain in gonzo vein—a “cursed” human puffing up and spewing out disgusting bile, etc. But it made me realize how much the The Substance really moved the goal posts on the “gonzo” idea this season, and more power to it.
Southern Comfort, rw (Walter Hill, 1981): 5/5
Probably this is a thriller, not horror, but, man, this is the way thrillers should be done—expert action filmmaking, textbook group dynamics, Western and Vietnam analogy, the inexorable pervasiveness of destructive forces from within and out. Movies like this are why I always remain the Bugs Bunny-ish, wry and emotional Captain Hawkeye Pierce (here played by the dream team of Keith Carradine and Powers Booth) in any dynamic instead of the Major Burnses of the world.
The Entity (Sidney J. Furie, 1982): 4/5
Classic Sirkian melodrama built around keeping women in the house. Her psychiatrist keeps insisting that the Entity is just her, but she’s saying it’s not her and what she’s really afraid of is the house—meaning conformity to the (rape-y) patriarchy and its repressive models for women’s behavior. Scientists later even recreate her house as a literal cage. It's also— whew—pretty scary in the first half as the world shakes and vibrates around her in a Repulsion sort of way. The myriad split diopter shots also attest to the film’s debt to DePalma (a compliment). The great Barbara Hersey’s best performance? (Or is it Hannah and her Sisters?)
Outer Space, rw (Peter Tscherkassky, 1999): 5/5
The Entity, chopped and screwed. Here Barbara Hershey is terrified not only by the penis and the patriarchy but also by the movie frame itself that traps and fractures her. Passes through a system of moods, and ultimately transforms and exalts Hershey ala Falconetti.
Il Demonio (Brunello Rondi, 1963): 4/5
A stark tale of a young woman in a sere and superstitious southern Italian town. Is she possessed or just mad, obsessed and harassed? Prefigures some of The Exorcist, including the upside-down spider walk that Friedkin would cut then add back upon re-release. The scene of gorgeous Daliah Lavi writhing on a bed in some unseen ecstasy or anguish is powerful and sexy, summing up the ambiguity of the entire film. Directed by the screenwriter of La Dolce Vita and 8 1/2, which are also equally drawn to and repulsed by women.
Wild at Heart (David Lynch, 1990): 4/5
Droll and narratively dense, filed with intense eddies of memory, fantasy and trauma. Also Lynch’s funniest film. “One time, she found Dell puttin' one big cockroach right on his anus.”
Pieces (Juan Piquer Simón, 1982): 3/5
A Spanish giallo full of flamboyant kills and bright red blood. A top ten slasher according to Alex Ross Perry.
Cannibal Ferox (Umberto Lenzi, 1981): 2.5/5
Scuzzy, disgusting, take-a-shower filmmaking. The ample machete- and anaconda-kills of actual animals pushes the film to repellent and reprehensible even before the amoral acts, eyeball gouging and murder start. Comes all the way around on the idea that cannibalism is just what colonialists told the world to justify their exploitation of tribes.
The Painted Lady, rw (D.W. Griffith, 10.24.1912): 5/5
A primary horror text featuring a trauma that compels obsessional re-creation. Quoth me April 2023: “Key image: the sexy black shawl that “plain” Blanche Sweet once wore to a clandestine meeting with her only suitor and now will never take off again.”
Giallo Film Fest
All of these films are in Letterboxd’s top 15 giallos, and, hey, they’re all good—although it can be a bit difficult to differentiate them from one another, with their Italian dubs, who-done-it murder mysteries, women in peril, stylish nudity, and driving synth scores. Some are merely more or less colorful, more or less “real” feeling, or in combination with other genres.
The Evil Eye/ The Girl Who Knew Too Much (Mario Bava, 1963): 3/5
B/W giallo. A murderer is on the loose, and our female protagonist serves as our detective on the way to a pretty random solution (as usual). In the end, the movie is a series of images of Leticia Roman’s horrified face and her hand turning doorknobs that get her deeper in trouble.
The Laughing Woman (Piero Schivazappa, 1969): 1.5/5
Not really a giallo, more like colorful, flirty, torture porn. Unlike the traditional faceless, black gloved killer, here we have a gabby blonde guy who captures a woman and keeps her as his slave inside his creepy overly art-designed mansion while mansplaining the philosophical grounds of his misogyny. In the final third she turns the tables, and somehow the movie becomes even more misogynistic.
Don’t Torture a Duckling (Lucio Fulci, 1972): 3/5
Overrated as the sixth-highest rated giallo on Letterboxd. Although it does have a who-done-it aspect (never a giallo’s strong suit), this is more of a folk horror. Kids are being murdered, and everyone blames the outsiders— the so-called witch and the so-called slut. Shot in a relatively lurid, gonzo, pop style.
All the Colors of the Dark (Sergio Martino, 1972): 3/5
A beautiful brunette is terrorized in her dream and in real life by a man with ultra-blue eyes, who turns out to run a friendly neighborhood satanic sex cult. Relatively colorful, broad, formal, imagistic, and Lynchian. Also the dreamiest of all the giallos I watched, which I think probably accounts for its high standing, although for me, the making-it-up-as-we-go-along mix of dream and reality denudes the movie of tension.
Torso (Sergio Martino, 1973): 4/5
Ample gore and some real moments of horror, a couple of terrific suspense sequences in the last third, and tons of nudity. What more can one ask for? Prefigures so much from (my beloved) Halloween, including an injured ankle, ample killer POV, last girl vibes, and closet-hiding. This one’s a winner.
What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (Massimo Dallamano, 1974): 3.5/5
A straight-up police procedural hunt, clue by witness by clue, for a guy who has killed a couple of people. A pretty good, long car chase, some blood, some porno flashed briefly, the killer putting witnesses and then the investigators in mortal danger.
Tenebrae, rw (Dario Argento, 1982): 4/5
The second-highest rated giallo on Letterboxd, and absolutely there’s style, suspense, and gore in the extreme. Argento simultaneously cranks up the intensity of the Antonioni/Bertolucci artiness as well as the repulsion and violence. I did periodically marvel at my own ability to enjoy this nastiness, but there’s no doubt of the originality of Argento’s vision and moves.
Michael Haneke Film Fest
I can’t find Haneke’s (poorly received) most recent film, Happy End, which again features Huppert—even on my scary Russian site. I also haven’t seen the American Funny Games because for it to be meaningful, I would have to watch the original again, and therefore hang out in that sadistic world for almost 4 hours, and just no.
The Seventh Continent (Michael Haneke, 1989): 3.5/5
Focused largely on a family’s mundane tasks like shopping, eating, getting a car wash, anonymous tasks at work, and the like, with an alien viewpoint: this is what I have observed in humans. Wraps up with an even-slower-motion version of the end of Zabrinski Point. Ultimately, harrowing in the extreme.
71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (Michael Haneke, 1994): 2.5/5
Has the fragmentary (we were warned), discursiveness of The Seventh Continent, but here the strategy is used to even less emotional purpose. Both films lead up to a massive act of violence, but this one isn’t as horrifying or potentially meaningful.
The Castle (Michael Haneke, 1997): 2/5
Circular reasoning, nonsense, bureaucracy, and stasis. But enough about working at USC. (Did you know that Haneke had adapted Kafka? I didn’t.)
The Piano Teacher, rw (Michael Haneke, 2001): 5/5
Passionate and frank—and still shocking. A character unraveling to rival Taxi Driver and Bad Lieutenant.
Time of the Wolf (Michael Haneke, 2003): 2/5
Perhaps not surprisingly, Haneke finds the post-apocalyptic world just has empty, pitiless and meaningless as our own.