October 2024 Reviews

10 11月 2024

In my quest to avoid simply logging things I've read and seen, I decided to write short reviews that archived my experience of going through these works. I do this because I'd like to read my older thoughts on media, and it makes me exercise my writing skills a bit.

This is a collection of 27 reviews from October 2024 to early November. There are a few science fiction books, but most of the works written about are horror-adjacent books and movies.

I don't have every work I've checked out because I plan to write longer articles about them: specifically, they are Dhalgren by Samuel Delany and the Revue Starlight TV show and movie.

Bester, Alfred (1953). The Demolished Man.

I was a fan of The Stars, My Destination, so when I heard that this was the better Bester book, I had to get it. Unfortunately, I also knew I had to buy a physical copy, because Bester likes to use peculiar typographical features to convey his science fiction world. A digital copy wouldn't look good. It took me probably seven years to finally get a cool copy of the book.

This book came at a time when I'm becoming interested in psychiatry and its hold on Western society. It is a police procedural set in a world where Freudian psychoanalysts are also telepaths. The protagonist, Ben Reich, is haunted by a figure known as The Man with No Face. He feels the need to murder his rival, Craye D'Courtney, in order to take over the business and consolidate with his company.

Since there are espers in this world who can see into people's minds, murder is virtually impossible. But Reich hatches a plan that includes jamming his brain with a catchy tune so the espers won't be able to read his mind properly. The only cop on the hunt is Lincoln Powell, who also has another alterego, Dishonest Abe, who is as cunning as his name suggests.

From this description alone, you can tell that the worldbuilding is immense and elaborate. The book takes the reader into different societies, streets, and organizations. In one section, it even addresses the reader like a tour guide. The book is also more than happy to switch formats, with one chapter interspersed with dialogue in script format. Rich details drip from small interactions that are mundane to the characters but bizarre to us. The narration also doesn't stop to consider whether the reader is catching up; it's invested in following the cat-and-dog chase between Reich and Powell.

The novel is thus closer to a thriller taking in the sights and sounds than an introspective mystery. For better or worse, the sentences can lead the reader to hop from one place to another. It's exciting, mind-boggling, and downright entertaining.

I also found the overtly Freudian parts fascinating. There's a part that introduces a new experimental therapy where a witness's psyche is programmed to be a baby again and grow up slowly and slowly to an adult in a matter of weeks. The final reveal is also a very unique, if distressing twist on Freudian psychoanalysis.

I had a lot of fun with the book, but in the end it was just entertaining. I enjoyed how unpredictable the writing was, but it was very much like riding a decent roller coaster. When I get off the ride, I don't feel like it did anything to me. It wasn't surreal or radical enough to provoke anything, despite my recent interest in the politics of psychiatric control. It was interesting at best, but not revelatory.

If you can track down this book, it's worth reading. The gender politics are unsurprisingly antiquated, but I think the highly quotable writing makes up for it. Bester is quite good at finding lines that tug at your senses and soul. Very enjoyable read, and I want to read more Bester novels soon.

El-Mohtar, Amal and Gladstone, Max (2019). This is How You Lose the Time War.

Yes, I read this book because of Bigolas Dickolas.

The book is about two enemies from opposing empires, Red and Blue, who used to taunt each other in letters before they found out they were in love with each other. As both factions fight between parallel timelines (strands) to solidify their hold on the future, the duo leaves letters to each other in hidden objects like feathers or an extra dot in a bill in historical sequences.

The formula goes like this: It starts with Red or Blue disguising themselves as someone from the historical setting (e.g. Atlantis). They may participate in conspiracies that threaten the stability of the opposing empire's timeline. But they will stumble upon each other's letters, and they will simply devolve into becoming gay for each other. And since the book has two protagonists, the writing labor is also divided between the two authors: Red's sections go to Gladstone while Blue's are written by El-Mohtar.

It's a fun gimmick for an LGBTQ sci-fi epistolary novel, but I can't say I like the writing of either author very much. There are many striking visuals of people entering camps located in time bubbles, or Blue stirring a cup of tea in the most picturesque imperialist London, but there are other parts of the book that make me wish the writing was plainer. I found it overwhelming with its impressionistic visuals; it's hard for me to ground myself and follow the plot when all I have is the feeling of the wind, the love in the air and the letters, and a few historical references.

And without explicit references to the characters and the cultures they belong to, the writing voices seem to merge into one for me. Red and Blue like to go into these long monologues about how much they love each other in a very exaggerated way. Since everything reads so purple to me, I don't know if any one voice ever stands out. And I suppose the romance is too shallow for me to get into -- the two characters read too much like sentient thesauruses who have discovered poetry.

I also found it disappointing that the book doesn't really explore the time paradoxes and parallel universes outside as a backdrop. This is definitely an intentional decision: the book is about relationships that span many millennia, not silly time physics shenanigans, which is what I wanted.

All that said, when I reached the end of the book, I realized that I lacked the romanticism to fully appreciate this book. The ending is just too fantastical and lyrical for me, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

I can see the appeal of this novella. It articulates a whimsicality that the world needs: that despite the ongoing imperialisms of the world we live in, there is still true love and recognition. The fact that this co-written book comes together so gracefully is a testament to mutuality.

I ended up enjoying this book. It's not groundbreaking science fiction, but it's the kind of honest reaffirmation that wars are silly and love is good that the world needs. Nice book, I wouldn't mind more recommendations from Bigolas Dickolas.

Rumfitt, Alison (2023). Brainwyrms. (recommended)

Halfway through the book, the second-person narration breaks the fourth wall by addressing you the reader. It says that you "are welcome to take a break here given the extremity content explored in the next series of chapters. It isn't shameful to take a break. It is in fact encouraged to do so right here, so that this novel does not become overwhelming to you".

I read on, undeterred, and regretted not taking a break. It was the first time a book had made me gag.

The book is an explosion of sexuality and the grotesque. We (mostly) follow Frankie and Vanya, a trans woman and a nonbinary, respectively, as they navigate sex, TERF politics in the UK, and a lot of trauma. A gender clinic is bombed, presumably by a radicalized TERF mother. The Observer publishes a blatant article sympathetic to the violence. One chapter tells of the decline of antifascist homosexuals after homosexuality was legalized. Another bombards readers with CuriousCat questions about what it's like to have a tapeworm in your body. There's a jumble of voices, all screaming in pain and glee about the literal TERF brain worms rotting the United Kingdom.

It's a messy, exciting read from start to finish. The chapters are short experiments with different styles and formatting that make me want to read more. The storytelling, especially the sex scenes, is inviting, and the book won't let me go until I'm done. By the time I finished reading it, I felt deeply sick in a good way.

While the book is not for everyone, I'd like to at least highlight the themes of the penultimate chapter, aptly titled "Piss Ghost". It envisions a future in which TERF politicians take the next logical step and ban all public bathrooms. The unnamed narrator laments the great public bathroom and wonders how many aspects of British culture are a "sex thing", whether it's TERFs wearing dinosaurs or the Guardian dinners. Sex isn't just about power, it can be just a "sex thing". Echoing Freud, sexuality is more than just what we do in the bedroom. Even writing this review could be a sex thing. But people try to make it more than that and believe that their way is more dignified than others: "You haven't seen the future you're just horny and lonely and scared and that's okay, I promise." When I read that whole chapter, I felt like I had just read a kink manifesto that resonated with me.

This is the kind of book that will either be so effective that it gels with the poison in your internet brain, or so disgusting that you feel like you shouldn't have read it. For me, it's the former. This is the genre of literature I've always wanted to read: a book that understands what it means to be alive in this degrading sex-negative world that wants to reject you, and all you can do is just think about the gender brainworms on social media and real life. I'm sure this won't be the last Alison Rumfitt novel I read, because this is the kind of shit my life needs.

Thompson, Tade (2022). Jackdaw.

Writing something and putting it out into the world always feels like an act of vulnerability. You have to live with the strange metaphors, the glaring typos, and the awkward structure while everyone stares at your revelations. There's a deep sense that they're peering into your words only to find that there's nothing there.

The writing process is fraught with the realization that you might be writing nonsense that only you understand. And it could be worse if you're commissioned to write about Francis Bacon, the artist.

The fictional Tade Thompson does undertake this project: his real earlier novel has been compared to Bacon's paintings, the artist's estate has asked him to write something, and he gets lost in research. While dealing with his mundane life, taking care of his son and working as a psychiatrist, he also reads secondary literature about the people who knew Bacon.

This is much harder than it seems: Thompson is Yoruba and has very little in common with Bacon's white upbringing. He even asks a babalawo to look into Bacon's mind. Still, Thompson tries: he tells the reader snippets of his tragic and abusive life, while finding connections to Bacon's. He gets writer's block (apparently an unusual occurrence, and one I envy), and all he can do is freely associate words and hope that something thematic lands.

But as he dives deeper into his paintings and his life, his life begins to disintegrate. It starts silly enough -- he gets so horny he almost ruined his dick -- but he starts hallucinating dead people from Bacon's life and seeing his life in Bacon's eyes. The narration becomes more violent, bizarre, and finally too revealing to the reader. It crosses many boundaries of what a narrator based on the author shouldn't do.

His dangerous search for something that works, that captures a bit of Bacon's spirit, is the entire plot of the novel. There is little of Francis Bacon's life written down in these pages, but people with an inkling of familiarity with the subject may find something in these webs of words.

Whether that works for you or not (it does for me), I think the novella is an accurate representation of what the writing process feels like to me. When I get into a subject, I read everything around it and try to act things out like a method actor. Even if it's a bad idea. In fact, the book mentions the director of Marathon Man scolding Dustin Hoffman for his adherence to method acting and telling him to go act instead.

But when I write something, I always feel like I'm being enraptured by the mask I'm wearing. The toxic compulsion to write and research until you've written everything is something I want to wean myself off of, but it's also responsible for some of the better writing I've done. That's why I think the book has put into words what it feels like to be vulnerable as a writer hyperfixated on the subject.

I also find the dry humor quite delicious. For example, when the fictional Thompson is looking for the shop to meet the agents of Bacon's estate, he observes that "nobody tried to sell me anything or win me over to a cause during this perambulation, which was unusual for me. I have the kind of face that invites solicitation."

At the same time, I find it difficult to recommend this book. Plenty of Francis Bacon fans have expressed their disappointment with the work, and I can see their point to a degree: it's less an engagement about his work and more the process of interpreting the spirit of his work in someone else's life. It requires a reader who is familiar with at least some of Bacon's life and paintings, and who is willing to accept the novel for what it is.

But if such a reader exists, I'm sure they'll be talking about the book as much as I am. It's a fascinating book, and I'm very interested in the real Tade Thompson's science fiction works. The few body horror segments in the book are quite fun, and I would like to see him continue in that vein.

Felker-Martin, Gretchen (2022). Manhunt.

(cw: body horror, gender dysphoria)

I bought this book because Lilly Wachowski announced that she wanted to make a movie out of it, and I read a bit about it in Capitalism: A Horror Story: Gothic Marxism and the Dark Side of the Radical Imagination by Jon Greenaway.

The book follows Fran and Beth, two trans women who hunt men for their testicles, in a world where the t.rex virus has turned everyone with certain amount of testoterone into zombies. Later, they are joined by Robbie, a trans man with a rifle, and Indi, a midwife turned fertility specialist. Together they try to defend themselves against men, TERFs, and everyone in between.

Meanwhile, the book sometimes switches to Ramone, an active member of the matriarchy who hunts down trans women because they are considered "vectors" of the virus -- what happens when their homemade HRTs run out? Either lose your genitals or die so that the TERF utopia can flourish. Unfortunately, Ramone also likes T-girls with dicks, and she lives a rather dissonant life as a result.

As one can see, it's a pretty gruesome and action-packed novel. You read about knives slicing through bone and skin, guns firing through skulls, and so on. But the book is also concerned with how queer people care for each other today and what it means to have gender when the virus simply targets high testosterone levels.

Indeed, the middle section of the book doesn't show as much violence, focusing instead on how the systems of care that do exist in this post-apocalyptic society fail trans people. It's clearly meant to parallel real-world examples, including the dehumanizing aspects of trans sex work as well as the transmisogyny inherent in supposedly gender-inclusive communities. The sociological part of my brain was on fire as I read through this section, and I personally like it more than any other part of the book.

I also found the references to Twitter and Tumblr shenanigans quite interesting. Early on, a character is trying to remember tactics from a Twitter thread. Then, there's a community of queer people who are basically Tumblr caricatures. When I mentioned this to people, someone said it felt like a real modern horror story.

And I do enjoy the splattercore elements of this work too. There are some great low budget horror scenes that would work really well in a movie. Definitely interested in the film adaptation for sure.

Unfortunately, the writing always falls short of the pacing the story needs. It's bloated and sometimes bland: every scene is written with so much detail that it's hard to follow the basic plot at times, the character voices don't read that different from each other, the switches in narration are always jarring since there are very few markers to indicate who is narrating, and the writing has a tendency to hide necessary context from scenes (a thing I usually don't have a problem with, but it's done way too much). All of this combined makes the story quite irritating to read at times, especially when the action and sex scenes are so vital to what's happening emotionally.

So instead of overwhelming the reader with scenery details and action, I wish the author could have paused and given a few more interactions between the characters in these scenes. The beautiful, unsettling, and tranquil moments in this social and splattercore horror work are great. The trauma bonding, the stitching of wounds, the soap opera-styled bickering, and many more mundane scenes punctuate the book and give life to the characters. These five characters are all fucked up in their own way, and I find their relationships to each other quite fascinating.

That said, I've read 2019 reviews that balked at the premise of TERFs going after trans people, news articles that made a big deal out of an admittedly funny death of a certain British author, and comments from people who were disgusted by the gender dysphoric and sexual assault scenes. The book generated a lot of controversy, and the author seemed to carry a lot of baggage as well. Such an atmosphere makes it quite difficult to talk about the book's content on the internet.

Nevertheless, I think people should realize that the book is more than just its controversies. The book makes it clear that TERFs have made their identity all about suffering in order to survive. They fear that their victimhood will be overwritten by trans women and radical care. In a sense, they are terrified that trans women are as much survivors as they are. In other words, they can only connect through wounds, not through mutual understanding and solidarity. Meanwhile, here are some trans characters who are terrible people, but still find a way to love each other.

The world of Manhunt is a bleak world that shows how deplorable our current understanding of gender is. Even in a world where TERFs should thrive, they are not happy. They become more hypocritical, more violent, and make the world a worse place. As I flip through the book and think about how their societies are just an accelerated, depressing version of our world, I wonder how to get out of it and find people who care about each other and survive in this hellscape. I hope, as the book suggests, that this is still possible today.

Reed, Em (2024). More Bugs. (recommended)

This independent press book was written by a contributor to Domino Club game jams, so I was very intrigued. What I got was one of the most authentic slow burn stories about being trapped in adulthood limbo.

Amy moves back to her suburban hometown in central Pennsylvania after failing to fit into a queer urban art commune. Returning to the place she thought she had escaped, she feels defeated and unsure of what to do next.

While trying to settle down, she meets Martin, her ex, and his partner, Mollie, who is a literal doppelganger of Amy: Mollie resembles Amy's more feminine high school days. Amy also babysits two kids, one of whom is very interested in the possibility of a UFO taking away his father, for a hot widowed mother, Jess.

Together they linger, wallow, undulate on the mundane waves of suburban life.

While there are aliens and a little body horror in the book, most of it is Amy's observations on the drudgery of suburban life and its domestic politics. Open a page and you're likely to find descriptions of house interiors that look alike because they have the exact same floor plan, or poorly cooked burger meat at a gas station. Each paragraph drips with Amy's exhaustion with her old life, her need to escape suburbia, and the awkward space between her and the other characters.

The writing invites the reader to contemplate what little there is in suburban life. When Amy tries to rephrase her text messages to Jess or Martin because she's afraid she might convey the wrong tone, it felt like I was reading real thoughts going through someone's head. Lawns, unfinished building projects, Martin in a Best Buy uniform -- these drab images, sounds, and tastes make reading Amy's narration a lonely experience. I can feel her desire to find someone who shares her alienation. It's suffocating, but it is also so hypnotic: I keep flipping the page, mesmerized by how long the writing pauses on an image or emotion -- like a lingering shot in slow cinema.

Even when the advertised horror elements happen, the writing never speeds up or focuses on the grotesque. It's still Amy and her dreary life. The few aliens out there are just as alienated as Amy and her friends. Nothing exciting is revealed: it's just a little bit more complication that suggests possibilities but nothing more than that.

I found myself reading this book for long periods of time. It's an absorbing read if you allow the writing to do its magic. While I wish the editing allowed more commas for floating dependent clauses, the atmosphere the writing evokes is so strong that I could breathe suburban life.

It's not an environment I'm unfamiliar with. Although I have never lived in suburban America, I felt trapped when I lived in Singapore. I longed for the same artistic culture as Amy, but it didn't work out.

The novel is somehow able to capture that bleak feeling of defeat, that creeping realization that your parents might be right, that you're not cut out for a vibrant creative life, and yet you still want to get out because you might lose yourself if you stay in this place much longer. It's a deeply honest piece of writing that makes me think about the discomfort of running into old friends and seeing the world around you just not getting out of a rut. And it's also an attack on how many people like me think about our youth, but it's also an affirmation: yeah, living in the suburbs kinda sucks, and you should do something about it.

I hope more people read it. The book is currently published as a novel by Knight Errant Press (a queer Scottish press), but I don't believe it has an epub version yet. It's worth tracking down if you can, and I'm reminded that I should spend more time reading and writing about small press books. Back when I was trying my luck in the urban art world, I used to write pro bono reviews of books like this for my university. I want to find more sincere books like this that understand a "clean beautiful life" is disgusting.

It's a great book that deserves a wider, adoring readership.

Linden, Mitchell (1988). The American Scream.

The hectic nature of the production made this movie far more interesting and eerier than it should have been. On paper, the movie is about a family that brings some teenagers to a mountain resort for a vacation. But instead of allowing itself to be a conventional teen horror movie, the script, cinematography and editing are allowed to meander and just go out of control.

It's hard to describe what's intentional and what's not in the movie, which makes it quite unsettling. The jokes feel like they are not part of the movie, which is why they stand out so much. The gore doesn't always occur, but when it happens, it's bizarrely horrifying.

There are also some experimental sequences, including characters hallucinating people deteriorating and bleeding their heads off, and home camera footage that looks like some lost media shit in the middle of a conversation between characters. And all of this happens while goofball parents shenanigans happen.

The ending seems to suggest something about how horrifying conforming to adulthood norms is. It's an unusual take on the loss of youth innocence, even if it's underbaked. If you're open to weird watching experiences, this is a good one.

Davenport, Harry Bromley (1982). Xtro.

Uhh, my partner and I have seen some disgusting horror movies before. But this one gave us goose bumps. Ostensibly an alien abduction story following popular science fiction movie trends, it is actually a psychosexual drama about a disintegrating family that literally cannot divorce itself from its past.

The son has seen his father abducted by a bright light, and he cannot get along with his new stepfather. But Daddy's back, with a new alien body and superpowers. And his reintroduction creates new divisions in what turns out to be a family sustained by bandaids and repression.

There's a lot of sexual imagery, with aliens sucking juices from humans and childbirth. One of the more disturbing parts comes from the father sucking his son. The alien species clearly has a lot of characterization, but it remains opaque to the audience and the entire story. We know very little about their goals and why they abducted the father in the first place. They remain shrouded in mystery, but their domestic invasion eventually tears the family apart.

When the repressed sexuality explodes into the open, unsuspecting neighbors are swept away. The special effects, for how low-budget the movie is, are effective in disgusting us. It's also interesting how the child becomes the most violent monster in the movie, taking it out on other people, including the French housemaid with the sentient toys. The surreal horror in his violence is terrifying too: one of his toy soldiers just breaks into a neighbor's room, and his fear and hatred of her is on full display.

The horrific violence leaks out of the disorganization of this respectable-looking family, so it can only be resolved in the death of that family structure. It's a bleak, unhappy resolution in either the theatrical or alternate ending for the humans. But the aliens? They seem more welcoming, for better or worse. By the end of the movie, we felt like we needed a shower because it had affected us.

It's a shame that this movie didn't seem to do well, because in our eyes it's an effective horror movie. It's an incisive examination of the nuclear family in distress, with aliens pushing it to the brink of destruction. I recommend it if you have the stomach for the gore.

Armfield, Julia (2022). Our Wives Under the Sea.

While the novella is ostensibly about a woman returning to her spouse after a submarine trip gone wrong, it is more about evoking a specific white middle-class queer vibe: the book opens with a banging first line ("The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness."), it divides chapters into subchapters between the two lesbian partners, and the story takes its own time to reach its inevitable conclusion. You'll quickly find out if you like this book or love every word of it.

The book is filled with lyrical prose that describes the depths of the ocean and the complicated feelings of grief. As the story revolves around two characters in different time and place, the writing can shift between observations about how heterosexual relationships differ from lesbian ones and flashbacks to reading about deep-sea fish. Usually, books that try to have multiple POVs are unable to distinguish the writing voices of their characters; I find that this book is able to do so because the topics they cover and the way they talk about them are different enough to show different personalities. However, the book grounds itself in concrete emotions and memories, not places and objects. It requires careful reading, tasting every letter and punctuation, because it is clear that the writer wants every word and pause to count.

In some ways, this book reads more like poetry. While it uses novelistic techniques and magically realistic imagery from time to time, the prose is the main attraction. Everything from characterization to plot is in service of letting the writing flourish. If you don't feel captured by its allure all the time, I can imagine the book falling flat.

I like this book, but I don't love it. There are definitely beautiful moments of writing, and the few sections that veer into body horror are impressive. But I find my attention drifts when the characters are simply being introspective. Echoing Aida Edemariam's review on The Guardian, I recognize the author's attempts at "anatomising the women's relationship: the self-defensive blindnesses, the resentments and rituals and angers, grief for vanished joys – all the small moments of which lasting love consists", but the novella "feels stretched slightly too thinly over the body of an idea". I can see this working better as a short story.

But I also find myself unsatisfied with the themes. While it adequately explores the depths of grief, I just felt it had little original or personal to say. I've read stories, the yuri visual novel SeaBed for example, that explore similar themes with more success. I wanted more than just vibes. I wanted something more substantial.

Maybe I will pick up the author's collection of short stories later, but right now I feel empty. I certainly enjoyed the experience of reading it. I just feel like there's a book out there somewhere that will more fully satiate my hunger for queer grief stories.

Walter, Elizabeth and Freeman, Nick (ed.) (2024). Let a Sleeping Witch Lie: Welsh Gothic Horror Stories by Elizabeth Walter.

This is an entertaining collection of 1960s and 70s short stories set on the border between the city and the Welsh forests.

As the title suggests, the stories are slow and atmospheric. "The Sin-Eater" is the most gothic of the bunch, with a character investigating a past that seems to be tinged with the supernatural. "Telling the Bees" is a nice twist on premonitions and jealousy in marriage. Other stories aren't always consistent, but are worth reading for their combination of folk horror and social themes. I also found the introduction to be very helpful in contextualizing the horror stories and when they were written.

But I tend to be picky about short story collections. I wanted stories with more impact, especially in their conclusions. Also, it got tiring to read new stories with the same slow pacing. I can see myself enjoying the author's novels more, so I'll definitely check out her work later.

Johnson, Daily (2020). The Hotel.

This is a collection of short stories, first written as a radio play, in which the stories are linked by a common history, space, and misogyny. The book focuses on various women characters who are singled out for their connection to the supernatural or scapegoated for some crime, allowing the hotel/space to eventually absorb them.

The writing style is different in each story to be more historically consistent. It's fun to see how the hotel in different times shapes the story, and how each character has a different approach to the horror because of their economic, racial, and gender backgrounds.

It's an entertaining read, but it doesn't really use its medium to say anything about its setting or gender violence. The book seems more interested in creating different atmospheres than in having radical ideas. It makes me feel like I've just read a creative writing exercise, very well written but lacking in substance.

Makichuk, Jim (1985). The Tower.

The premise for this Canadian TV movie is pretty cool: a sentient security system for a skyscraper tries to conserve as much energy as possible, and it's programmed to suck up the heat that naturally escapes from people. Unfortunately, it's programmed too well for its own good, zapping people left and right.

The movie takes advantage of its setting, with characters on different floors working in different companies. The slow pacing of the movie and the dark music allow the movie to be immersed in what can best be described as a rich vaporwave atmosphere for our 2024 eyes and ears. The movie would definitely be considered too cheesy when it came out, but to my partner and I it felt like a serious attempt at science fiction crystallized in time: people were worried about the energy crisis and the rise of technology, so it makes sense that people would try to speculate on how green technology could be useful and violent. It dates the work, but that's not a bad thing: I found it quite fascinating as a historical relic, and the vibes were kind of nice.

It suffers in some places: the blatant misogyny towards characters, including a sex worker who has clearly read a few books, seems to be an attempt at some kind of feminist critique, but it doesn't land well. The characters, with the exception of the two advertising and design guys and the secretary, are not interesting stock characters in this situation -- a strange thing to say when there's a thief in the midst, but it's true! And the last third of the movie isn't very satisfying, as it tries to be an action movie climax and just ends up lackluster. It would have been more interesting if it had stuck to the arguments between the characters and the sentient security system, which could have been an interesting way to explore class and technological fears. Despite the clever setting and the wide range of characters and their classes, everything seems underdeveloped.

Still, I thought it was an interesting mix of science fiction and budget horror. I might steal some ideas from it for a future horror story. It's worth a look if you're at all interested, and the YouTube video upload includes a comment from one of the people who worked on the special effects.

Vickers, Lindsey C. (1982). The Appointment. (recommended)

It's hard to describe this TV movie because it's all about the build-up. While it is correct to describe the movie as a nightmarish horror, the movie plays on the audience looking for clues to anticipate the climax, which is so obviously going to be violent.

The film begins with a narrator coldly reading the case file of a dead young girl who was mysteriously and violently dragged into the bushes. The film cuts abruptly to a typical wealthy British family: a father, a mother, and a spoiled daughter. But their tensions come to the fore when the father apologizes to his daughter that he couldn't make it to her violin performance due to an emergency appointment.

This would make for an ordinary family drama if it were not for the incestuous tension between father and daughter. There is a scene where he is going up the stairs and he has to pass her door, but he stops there. She is waiting in her bed. It's an uncomfortable silence, all the more so when the audience is probably trying to figure out how this all fits together. There are also symbolic scenes that make this quest for meaning even weirder: the petals of a flower falling on the table, the pocket clock the father has, actual nightmares experienced by members of the family, etc. Nothing in this movie can be taken for granted, which evokes a deeply paranoid atmosphere about the inherent relationships in families.

The ending is gorgeously bleak in its commitment to the psychological violence perpetuated in the drama of a family. There is no promise of redemption, and I can see productive family abolitionist readings that try to make sense of the contradictions of the nuclear family model. I found the film quite disturbing, and it has stayed with me since I saw it.

Cammell, Donald (1987). White of the Eye. (recommended)

This should have been a horror/thriller about a serial killer of housewives. This should have ended with me groaning at the end of the movie, since serial killer stories tend to be police procedurals or psychoanalytical portraits that use dubious science to solve cases with contrived twists. Instead, this movie takes many steps back to depict a landscape of memories, of Arizonans drinking coffee, and of a perfect family.

After the first bloody murder, the movie seems to forget that it is supposed to be a serial killer movie. We see flashbacks interspersed with present-day events: the mundane lives of Arizona housewives take precedence over the police investigation. The non-linear story gradually shows how the movie's central family came to be, how the characters met, and how everyone lives in this Arizona town.

The editing is jarring, with no indication that the next scene is in the present or a flashback. But once you get used to the rhythm, this becomes less of a problem. The movie is edited in this way in order to reveal certain backdrops, to make connections between symbols and seemingly unrelated events, and to show that memory and time are not continuous. The audience has to train themselves to see the disjointed timeline as a meaningful series of events that influence the characters' motivations. I found this approach more compelling than many serial killer films because it doesn't rely on popular human psychology, but on how fragmented moments in time and space can actually reveal why people behave the way they do.

This film understands its medium through its manipulation of time and space. It's a slow-burning masterpiece that shows how the city, the desert, the culture and the families can harbor a serial killer who can operate in secret and feel compelled to do what he thinks he has to do. The horror that culminates in this panorama is hard for me to shake off. It is certainly one of the best films of all time for me.

Balaban, Bob (1989). Parents.

Despite first appearances, the film takes its time in revealing its monstrous parents. It's more interested in indulging the children's paranoia: maybe their parents aren't who they say they are, and their food sucking ass may have a more sinister background.

It relishes in satirizing (dys)functional American families and the education system. The sitcom-styled parents can't communicate with their child because they hide their seemingly sexual activities. Instead of an in-house psychologist, the school hires a social worker who smokes in her office. There are no safe spaces for children to learn and exchange ideas, except with other children from similar backgrounds.

But there is no thorough investigation of the problems of the family and the education system. It points out their failures and how they can create the perfect setting for a horror film. I found this film refreshing for that reason: no attempts to get into the weeds, just a shrug and the assertion that "isn't all this childhood stuff fucked up"? It's an enjoyable movie that doesn't aspire to be anything more than a decent horror flick, and I respect it for that.

Sasdy, Peter (1972). The Stone Tape.

This TV movie has a fun take on the haunted house premise: an electronics company has moved into its lavish Victorian premises, and its employees have learned that the ghosts that periodically appear in a particular room may be some kind of audio-visual psychic impression recorded in the wall -- a "stone tape," if you will.

But the way the film gets there is even more interesting. These characters, all but one male, are enterprising scientists trying to compete with the rising Japanese nation. When the one woman sees an apparition, the team leader begins to make up hypotheses about how spirits and sounds are recorded. However, each man keeps stepping over the woman who first told them about these phenomena. It is clear that the film is very interested in interrogating the hubris of men, of science taking on the unknown, and of the British arrogance of the 70s.

While it is commendable that the film attempts to question the British condition, it relies too much on misogyny and racism as a supplement to this very slow science fiction tale of the occult. There is very little to look at in the drab sets and the performances are too standard to be compelling. All you can do is latch on to its depiction of unsightly British behavior for contemplation, and sometimes it can be too much.

I think the story and premise are worthwhile enough of the watch, though I've also read that the 2015 BBC radio drama is a much better and more sensitive adaptation of its ideas and themes. It feels undercooked as it is, and I can see how a modern radio adaptation might solve some of its glaring problems. The film doesn't really make use of its visual elements, which is a shame: I think it could have been an underrated hit.

Lord, Jean-Clause (1986). The Vindicator.

It is peculiar that this film precedes RoboCop by a year as it feels like a cheap imitation. Rather than satirising the tough-on-crime atmosphere of the US, the film speculates on the companies that carry out animal testing and the unethical science they practice.

The first thing we see is the manipulation of anger found in chimpanzees. Later we discover that this is being used for a top secret project, literally called the Frankenstein Project: an employee is murdered by the company and his brain is used for an invincible killing machine. However, he wakes up too early for the scientists to attach a remote control to his body, so anything that touches him makes him extremely angry and he starts killing people left and right. The film drops any pretense of being a work of science fiction by becoming a revenge film for the protagonist to save his spouse.

It's a silly budget film with characters questioning the inner motivation of the antagonist and some decent practical effects in between. There are some creative kills, and the characters do an alright job of making the suspense and action work. I really enjoyed the film for what it is: a VHS rental perfect for a weekend night with your pals. The ending made me laugh, and I think it would have been a perfect choice for Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Harrington, Curtis (1961). Night Tide.

My partner and me watched this historically significant independent movie because some of the top Letterboxd reviews brings up that the director is a gay man and the movie has subtle queer themes. What I got is a rather Gothic take on sirens set in Santa Monica.

A sailor on leave awkwardly tries to pick up a girl in the bar, only to learn that she is a mermaid in a sideshow attraction. He is clearly enchanted by her beauty, but the captain who found her on a remote Greek island and the various denizens of the amusement park warn him that her previous partners have mysteriously drowned. Nevertheless, the mystery and charm of the woman make him want to investigate further into her upbringing.

While I didn't like the movie, I found it to be a faithful adaptation of Gothic themes in modern times. And the queer gaze inherent in the movie is interesting: while it's not overt, there are some good shots of naked men and some amusing lines ("Hello, Captain, ya want me to pound you later?"). There is a decent, though deeply theoretical essay in the Journal of Homosexuality that looks into the filmic language and how the director tried to navigate the codes and norms of heteronormative cinema at the time to include the gay stuff. Its emphasis on how beautiful young male sailors actually are is fascinating, and it points to the emergence of queer cinema and how it challenged heterosexual audiences who thought they were just going to watch a nice tragic romance. It's quaint for my eyes today, but an admirable piece of queer cinema.

Luna, Bigas (1987). Anguish. (recommended)

The less said about this movie, the better. For people who have never seen it, I'll just say that it's my favorite movie on the entire list.

Munch, Christopher (2011). Letters From the Big Man.

The film cannot be judged by the usual cinematic rubric. It is a personal essay by a Bigfoot enthusiast in the guise of fiction, exploring the relationship between humans and nature, the various reasons why people might search for the Sasquatch, and the interest of the US state in taking over the forest more and more.

While the film follows a hydrologist as she moves on from a relationship and is hired by the National Park Service to assess the health of the forest after some logging, it focuses more on how she is one with nature. There are lots of shots of her canoeing down the river, cutting firewood, reading books, and just making coffee under the stars. Like the audience, Bigfoot watches her from the shadows, contemplating how she seems to understand the rhythm of nature.

While she notices their footprints and listens to their voice, she doesn't interact directly with Bigfoot. At most, she talks to the forest about her awkward relationship with her current fling (an environmentalist and Bigfoot researcher who lost a lawsuit against the National Park over logging) or leaves food out for the Big Man to eat. She simply gazes out the window and sketches portraits. The Sasquatch leaves her messages in the form of unusual symbols on the ground. What a strange, yet comforting relationship between these two characters.

But it works. The movie is the way it is because the director believes in the existence of Bigfoot as an ancient sentient species that embraces nature on a deeper level than humans do. It is against the more opportunistic and sensationalist research on these wise and ancient beings. The Sasquatch is taken for granted in the first quarter of the movie, so the rest of the movie is dedicated to understanding what that means for humanity and how they, especially the United States, would colonize the forest even further if more people knew. The film is an earnest attempt to untangle this contradiction: the desire to know the truth without hurting nature or Bigfoot.

And the movie is a real visual treat: many scenes are straight out of nature documentaries, the protagonist is strongly developed through her gestures and minimal dialogue, and the costume design of the Big Man looks fantastic.

That said, it requires a lot of good faith on the part of the audience, especially if they don't believe that Bigfoot is roaming the woods somewhere. The sincerity in this movie is overwhelming and hard to take seriously. I'm not sure how it fits into the cinematic discourses of Bigfoot and its believers (GoodBadFlicks has a decent video detailing the movie's place in the pantheon and how the director sees Bigfoot), but it is often called a great Bigfoot movie by several members of the Bigfoot movie community simply because it doesn't portray Bigfoot as a serial killer and it grapples with the issues the community cares a lot about. For better or worse, this makes the movie insular and niche, with very little entertainment value for general audiences.

But for me, I found it to be an unusual movie enough to give it a decent write-up in lieu of a recommendation. There's a scene where the protagonist and her coworker attend a local performance of The Tempest and when asked by her coworker on what it means, she quotes her mom that it's better to groove and not to think about it. I don't understand the full implications of this movie, but to be able to watch this obscure independent film in its entirety and realize that it has acquired its own language to explore what it wants to do makes it a worthwhile journey in of itself. If you're interested in any of this, it's worth renting from Amazon or Vimeo. Even if you come away bored, at least you've seen something very, very different that independent and arthouse theaters can't even offer.

Bass, Saul (1974). Phase IV. (recommended)

This movie takes the usual budget horror premise of mutated ants seriously. Instead of watching the ants destroy cities and homes, we see the ants grow and adapt to every obstacle in their path. It takes a while for the human characters to arrive, and even when they do, the ants are there to outwit them.

The hard science fiction present in the film allows the monstrosity of the ants to be overwhelming. The two scientists often explain to a survivor what they're doing, including deciphering the language the ants use to team up and fight. However, we see these strategies fail because the ants can understand what the humans are trying to do. These scenes leave the impression that human science, no matter how advanced, is no match for the ants' strength. The scientists cannot evaluate the multiple evolutions that the ants have undergone, let alone adapt to them. They are true enigmas that cannot be studied.

For that reason, I thought the original theatrical ending was more effective. The alternate ending explains way too much of what happened. The dread of the original ending feels appropriate; it leaves so much to the imagination as to what the ants have become and what the title actually means.

This is one of the best science fiction horror movies I've ever seen because it focuses on how horror can still overwhelm science. The helpless feeling that the invasion cannot be stopped with current science is incredible. It is an easy recommendation without much hesitation.

Yuzna, Brian (1989). Society.

This movie takes the simple question of "am I born into the right society" and lets it gorge itself on paranoia. It follows a jock who seems to have been born into a rich family in Beverly Hills. He doesn't seem to belong here, but he keeps trying anyway, even as his mental health deteriorates.

It takes a while before he learns that his paranoia is justified: something is wrong with his family and the society around him. There seems to be an incestuous vibe going on, and evidence that points to something bigger seems to disappear or get altered into something more innocuous. The big reveal at the end may not surprise many viewers, but it is spectacular and disgusting even for my iron stomach.

The film rightly recognizes that the rich are a kind of alien horror in society and doesn't pretend that class warfare doesn't exist. It literalizes the dynamic of the rich draining the poor and makes no apologies for its politics. It doesn't say anything radical, but it's nice to see a movie that addresses class so prominently. And the practical effects in the movie are just great and disturbing.

My only complaint revolves around the unfinished nature of the ending. It's clearly supposed to be a sequel hook, but that didn't materialize. This leaves the fate of the protagonists too up in the air and makes it rather unsatisfying. I'm not sure where the characters should go next or how the rich will retaliate because it feels too much ike a Part 1.

Still, I thought it was a wonderful 80s movie. It's revolting enough to make me have second thoughts about attending an orgy. I just can't believe there was a movie that made orgies so unsexy and uninviting. This is perhaps the best anti-orgy propaganda film to date.

Cregger, Zach (2022). Barbarian.

I won't say too much about the movie because it plays on the audience's first impressions, and I don't think it would be that interesting to explain its ideas to people who have seen it either.

It's just a fun, if shallow, look at Detroit and patriarchal norms. It's sensitive to a lot of issues that affect cis heterosexual people, but it doesn't present anything more critical than a Twitter thread on those issues. It hits some beats pretty well for a movie that at least tries to bring up these issues.

I have no complaints about this movie, but it doesn't really allow me to have anything more to say since it is so focused on bringing up these issues to flavor its horror story. Inoffensive entertainment, perfect for air travel.

Goddard, Drew (2011). The Cabin in the Woods. (recommended)

I know, it's weird that I hadn't seen this movie. I vaguely remembered some of the plot details, but I figured I should see it since I was on a long-haul flight.

There's not much unique to say about this movie that has been written and discussed by so many horror fans over the years, but I'll just say that it remains quite fresh and the script is funny. I just like a good ol' diegetic satire that loves to poke holes in the teen horror movie industry.

Perkins, Osgood (2024). Longlegs.

For a movie that seems to have generated a lot of controversy through its viral marketing and discourse about elevated horror, this is a surprisingly conventional movie.

While the movie plays with aspect ratios to distinguish present day scenes (2:39) from flashbacks (4:3), it doesn't try to incorporate more formalistic techniques. Instead, it's a throwback to FBI procedurals like Silence of the Lambs with a Satanic panic twist. The movie feels like it's supposed to be from the 90s, without any awareness of the criticism of the FBI and police investigations. Everything is played straight: a woman investigates a series of serial killings by solving ciphers and codes, only to realize that she's somehow connected.

I found the movie too derivative to have any strong words for or against it. While thinkpieces lament about how elevated horror has allowed trauma psychology overtake the scary bits, I see movies like this as a continuation of dreary tradition: pathologizing mental illness and apolitical police procedurals have always been the bread and butter of this breed of horror. I suspect that this movie would not be discussed much if it wasn't published by one of the elevated horror publishers.

It's a competent movie with some great performances. I didn't expect more than what it said on the tin, and it's a middle-of-the-road FBI procedural for what it's worth. There is some questionable plotting and the ending isn't great, but I enjoyed the intrigue of uncovering more and more of the mystery. It's also fun to know who the serial killer looks like from the beginning, and he makes a lot of appearances throughout the movie. The movie is just entertaining and that's about it.

Personally, I'm more confused by the hubbub. It's easier to watch than Silence of the Lambs because it doesn't have the transphobia. But I guess you don't get clicks unless you make a mountain out of a molehill these days.

Jae-Hyun, Jang (2024). Exhuma.

This movie follows a team of occult experts (shamans, a geomancer, and a funeral director) as they exhume the grandfather of a Korean national living in Los Angeles. As the geomancer protagonist points out, the case seems very fishy, and it gets worse when he tastes the soil where the man is buried and realizes that it is deeply unsuitable for burying the dead.

While the film presents itself as a serious exploration of funeral rites and geomancy, it is better described as a film about Korean identity in modern history. The first language spoken in this movie is not Korean but Japanese: one character flies to Los Angeles on a Japanese airline and speaks decent Japanese to the stewards. The LA client has a wife who speaks to him in English, and he keeps reasserting his duty as the patriarch of the family, to the chagrin of his aunt.

It sticks to its core premise quite well: the movie features some great funereal performances, and we also get some Buddhist chanting here and there. The political themes that emerge in the second half of the film are filtered through its supernatural lens. And the movie has some fun pacing: I often thought the movie would end, but it keeps going, showing chapter headings in Hangul and subheadings in Japanese. It's always exciting to realize that there's more going on than I expected.

But I found the movie's latter half quite weak. Without giving too much away, I'll just say that the thing the movie is really trying to talk about isn't explored deeply enough, and the ending is far too optimistic for what should be a rather bleak subject. It's brave of the movie to tackle it for a more general horror audience, but I can't say that its approach to such an important subject satisfying.

For better or worse, the movie is too much popcorn horror for me when it could have been something more with a certain reveal. And I would have appreciated more blood and gore, but I wasn't expecting much from a movie that was rated PG-13 on the plane I was on. It's just disappointing to me because it has some good potential to be a sleeper horror hit.

Philippou, Danny and Philippou, Michael (2022). Talk to Me. (recommended)

Set in Adelaide, the film follows a group of teenagers who play with an enbalmed and severed hand. They don't know where it came from, except that one of the members got it from a friend of a friend. But when they hold hands with the hand, they can see spirits. They say, "Let me in," and the spirit takes over their body.

But the main character is distraught after losing her mother to an alleged sleeping pill overdose. She and her friends get into this exercise only until things go wrong.

So yeah, this sounds like another elevated horror movie about trauma. It plays with drug allegories and addiction to escape grief. Those parts are obvious, and there's no nuance around it.

However, while there are no strong ideas in the movie, the execution turns these simple ideas into an effective and dark horror story. It's fun to watch the teenagers get involved in this conjuring and possessing thing, but when bad things start happening, it becomes exhausting and sad to watch these characters get hurt.

The movie works for me because everyone, especially the main character, is an asshole. It's a real teen horror movie made in 2024: these characters listen to bad Australian music, talk about TikToks, and are just mean to each other. They feel real and annoying to listen to. It's easy to criticize them for being careless and ridiculous because they're teenagers, true and true.

Their actions (and inactions) feel like something teenagers would do in this situation. I was impressed by how much the movie was committed to this, because it got more and more irritating. Part of me wants to tell these kids to rethink this situation, but they won't listen to reason. They think they can solve their problems without any adult help. And while it can sometimes be cathartic to see unlikable characters suffer, watching the main character's downfall was somehow more painful. I think it's because I understood how her flaws led her there. The ending scared me because I felt like I was watching a younger version of myself go through this disastrous series of events.

It's a truly terrifying movie because it taps on our emotional vulnerability and how we can do senseless shit. While its drug PSA message is shallow, its execution makes it a horror movie masterpiece. It's bleak, irritating, and most of all, sad. It's a teen horror movie that get it: dealing with life as a grieving teenager is scary enough, and inviting ghosts to possess your body is bound to make it an even more terrifying experience. I cannot recommend it enough.

Well, this was a long article. I plan to keep doing this as people seem to be interested in my "shorter" reviews, and I hope I have made people's backlogs much worse.

If there's any feedback on the format and writing, please let me know in the comments.