31 Days of Halloween: The Beast Within

2024, Alexander J Farrell (documentary Making a Killing) -- download

I have always enjoyed a horror movie that establishes itself strongly in the mundane, often introducing a family in a grounded manner, doing so better than other genres because the actual meat of the movie is usually so far removed from said family dynamics. What do I mean by this? A crime movie, if it shows a family in the establishing phase, they will always be either a cop family or a criminal family, inherently tied to the genre, and therefore beholden to the tropes. Many of the horror movies we watch, and I enjoy, just have "a family" or "a couple" and the horror element is put upon them.

This is not that movie. From the get go we see a family in distress tied directly to whatever is happening to them. They live in isolation, somewhere in the wilderness of England, maybe near Scotland? Willow (Caoilinn Springall, The Midnight Sky) has breathing issues and is often seen dragging a bottle of oxygen with her. She sees her mother depart with a pig in a cage. When mom returns, sans pig, she tries to act normal but there is tension everywhere: tension between mother Imogen (Ashleigh Cummings, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries) and her father Waylon (James Cosmo, The Hole in the Ground), Imogen trying to act normal through pained expressions, Willow sensing the adults anxieties but not understanding what is going on.

When the dad Noah (Kit Harington, Eternals) finally appears wrapped in a bloody bear-skin rug (coat ???) he wants things to be normal, but they aren't. It is without spoiler warning that the movie presents itself as a werewolf movie. But immediately I am asking, "Wait, are they doing an allegory for familial abuse?" All the trappings of an abuser are there, including the being sweet when chooses to be, being all about protecting (and keeping) his family, and the sudden bursts of anger & violence. Imogen is played like someone at the centre of a true horror movie, and Cummings portrayal is probably the most true to how this movie was pitched -- that she is living each day as if she was in a horror movie.

And yet the movie plays itself as a werewolf movie up until they "oh no, they are going to fucking do it..." final scene. Yeah, the whole movie was an allegory. No werewolf, just an abuser. And it wasn't even a particularly good werewolf movie as it had to rein itself in to not be too monstrous, because the message would be lost if a monster in reality (an abuser) was less horrible than a fantasy monster. But no, the movie was a failing on all ends.

KWIF: Inside Out 2 (+5)

 KWIF = Kent's Week in Film.

This Week:
Inside Out 2 (2024, d.  - Disney+)
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023, d.  - Netflix)
Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins (2021, d.  - Netflix)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974, d. Tobe Hooper - Tubi)
Memories of Murder (2003, d. Bong Joon-Ho - Tubi)
The Hidden (1987, D. Jack Sholder - BluRay)

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I'm reminded of the scene in The Empire Strikes Back  when Luke espies a dark cave that seems to be drawing him in. He asks Yoda "What's in there?" to which Yoda replies "Only what you bring with you."

As much as I use movies for escapism, I feel like approaching every new movie is very much the same scenario as that Force Cave. What one experiences, and how one reacts, is entirely shaped by what you go in with. Because of course it is.

With Inside Out, I literally went into the film with my child who would have been six-years-old at the time. I couldn't help but see my child as Riley, despite their being younger than the child in the film, and I empathetically experienced all those primary emotions the film presented in their primordial state. I was familiar with them all as exhibited by my child. If I wasn't a father, I don't know if my reaction would have been more stilted, kept at a distance, as Toasty's was.

I approached Inside Out 2 with reluctance. Pixar has developed a pretty uncomfortable dependence on sequels, which, despite not being overwhelmingly diminishing returns, it's just unfortunate that the new ideas aren't coming as quickly in the company's second 15 years as they did in their first.  I wondered what a second Inside Out could bring to the table that the first one didn't.  Surprisingly, the answer points to Toasty's complaint about there "only being five emotions representing everything for everyone". 

In the summer between grade school and high school, Riley hits puberty, and everything changes. Introducing Anxiety, Envy, Ennui, and Embarassment.  These new emotions come in boldly and brashly, taking over the controls, supplanting the more rudimentary emotions that got Riley this far, and it couldn't be more disastrous as Riley's core beliefs start forming about herself.

Anxiety (an exceptional vocal performance from Maya Hawke) exiles Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust, and it dominates Riley's personality, leading her to do many an awful thing, like abandoning her friends at hockey camp to go hang out with the high schools girls she idolizes, where she perpetuates lies to seem part of the gang.  As Joy and gang try to work their way back to central control, they start to see the dramatic changes in Riley's mind with Anxiety in charge. The sar-chasm was a particularly inspired touch.

I did not watch Inside Out 2 with my child, now a year older than Riley in the film. I wish I had. The film made massive box office this past summer, and I know it clearly resonated with my child's peers (their friends were going back to theatres for second and third viewings), but they seemed disinterested, probably because it wasn't anime.  My child has General Anxiety Disorder, and so watching a film where anxiety governs the actions of a child certainly has resonance for me. I also witnessed the horrendous turmoil that the surge of pubescent hormones had on them and their peers. It was two years of excruciating, soul crushing, heart-wrenching capital-"d" Drama that swung many of those kids I've known for decades onto dark paths of bullying and fighting and running away from home because they just can't process what's happening to them.

Inside Out 2 sort of dumbs down those conflicting, raging, hormonal emotions into individualized, personified beings that mess around with an increasingly complex inner world. It doesn't provide answers so much as awareness, it provides a mirror to view those emotions one may not understand, and encourages introspection.

The Inside Out films are about connecting and relating to the emotions of adolescence, both for those going through it, and for those watching others go through it. For those who are sans children in their life, it may provide a portal to connecting to those past emotions, or it may just not connect. It is a series dealing with the inner emotionality of a girl, and it doesn't cover all bases. It may not represent those dealing with young boys, or trans children, or neurodivergent children, or account for cultural differences. Again, we can only view these through the lens of what we take with us.

I took with me my parenthood, and it delivered an experience I could very much relate to.

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I threw on Bumblebee for Lady Kent a few weeks back, in part to share with her it's pretty radical awesomeness as both an 80's-styled throwback, an actually good Transformers movie, and a great showcase for Hailee Steinfeld, an actress we've both really come to enjoy over the years. Also, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy, and that, indeed it was a good film. 

It's good, maybe even great. 

I gave up on Transformers after the second one (yet, I still reluctantly watched the third, and enjoyed it?), but since Bumblebee I've also started reading the Skybound Transformers series by Daniel Warren Johnson, and it's created a little (all)spark of fandom in me that wasn't there before.  The comic has just passed its first year of publication, so it wasn't a thing when Transformers: Rise of the Beasts came out, so I didn't have any desire to see this in the theatre. Or watch it on VOD.  Even when it first cropped up on Netflix, exported from Paramount plus, I still waffled. It certainly wasn't priority watching.

Honestly, I put it on as something to fall asleep to.  I guess to its credit I didn't fall asleep. 

Taking place in 1994, Rise of the Beasts finds.... you know what, I'm not going to bother explaining the plot in any great detail. It's overly complex and kind of dumb. It has transforming robots chasing after two halves of a Maguffin that can open up a wormhole in space (we're back to LASERS IN THE SKY in 2023!?!) and draw forth the Galactus of the Transformers universe, Unicron. It wants to eat our planet. It's ups to Optimus Prime and his small band of Autobots to team up with some transforming robot animals to save the Earth.

The film is messy. It's overstuffed with robot characters who have a bit of personality but not much else. There's no character journeys here As with all previous Transformers movies I've seen, even Bumblebee, these films seem afraid to make the robots the lead characters of these films. Instead they opt for human leads for us to invest in. Sometimes it works, but not often. 

It works here... to a point. Anthony Ramos' (Hamilton) Noah Diaz is a veteran who has returned from the service but is finding employment hard. His mother is pulling double shifts, and his little brother has a sickle cell disorder and the bills are piling up. That this film gets so heavy with systemic racism, veterans issues, economic disparity and the failings of privatized health care in its opening act was absolutely impressive. Ultimately, with Noah's brother's health failing he has no other choice but to turn to crime for money. He goes to steal a Porsche which winds up being Mirage (voiced by Pete Davidson, Bodies Bodies Bodies), a playful, trusting Autobot who takes a shining to Noah.

Meanwhile Dominique Fishback (Swarm) plays Elena Wallace, a grad student working at an intern at a museum where she has proven herself to be the smartest person in the room but her whitelady boss takes all the credit and gets all the reward. Once again, this film is very much pointing at systemic racism, though it never really examines it beyond that. It's not like it's dealing with parallel issues between the Autobots, Decepticons and Maximals.  

In this opening act, the human drama was really good, and both Ramos and Fishback were very likeable in their roles, but as soon as they come to play with the Transformers, there's a pretty big disconnect between what the humans are capable of doing versus the big shape-changing robots, and that disconnect gets bigger and bigger the more shape-changing robots appear on screen, and we have two very crunchy/squishy humans in their midst. 

As noted, the robots have so little to contribute. They're the good guys and the bad guys, but these films seem afraid to focus on them as complex beings. Optimus Prime is a total asshole in this one, and he learns a lesson about trust and allyship but it feels sooo forced.  Bumblebee gets seemingly killed shortly after he first appears, which, with this being an legit sequel to Bumblebee seems like a slap in the face ...if it actually meant anything emotionally, which it does not.  Beyond Noah's relationship with his brother, there's no emotional connection to anything in this film, and even his relationship with his brother doesn't really connect to his motivation to venture with giant robots to Peru to fight a planet-eating threat.

The film has an incredible dad-rap hip-hop soundtrack. Every track is a bop from back in my heyday of the genre. But it's all just artlessly tossed into the film, when it could have been so, so, so gooood by timing the beats to actions or connecting to the sentiment of the scene. Alas, this is not an Edgar Wright or Quentin Tarantino production.

It's passably watchable as entertainment, but not impressive in the slightest.

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Oh, and just like stupid prequels/origin 
stories of old, Snake doesn't get his
iconic looking helmet until the final scene

I followed up one Hasbro property with another in the same sitting. Like Rise of the Beasts I started the stupidly backwards-titled Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins expecting to fall asleep to it. It was successful, but moreso because I started it after midnight and was utterly exhausted by that point.

Of all the hundreds of G.I. Joe characters, Snake Eyes is at best in the middle, but more likely the middle bottom of my rankings list. I never connected with ninja stuff in general as a kid, and, in the 90's, he was forced down our throats as "the cool one" or "the extreme one" like Wolverine or Ghost Rider. I frequently rebel against any effort to tell me what's cool. Not sure if you noticed.

What's definitely not cool is this G.I. Joe origin for Snake Eyes. It's a spectacularly muddled mess of a film that misses the mark of pretty much everything it is trying to do. Origin story for the silent, scarred, commando ninja: modest fail. Complete reset of the G.I. Joe franchise: total fail. 80's ninja throwback movie: utter fail. Modern action-fantasy franchise movie: epic fail.

Its a film that doesn't exist to tell a specific story, but instead do everything it can to build a franchise out of that story, and it's like Hollywood never learns. The Mummy. Green Lantern. Man of Steel. Iron Man 2. Madame Web. Hobbes and Shaw. etc. etc.  With this film, the moment it tries to plug in G.I. Joe and Cobra, what tenuous treads that were holding the thing together fall completely apart. 

From the onset we learn that Snake Eyes' father was killed in front of him and he's been angry and vengeful ever since. He's developed into handsome Henry Golding (Last Christmas), but also a fierce fighter besting everyone he comes across in illegal fighting venues, until one day he is given an offer: work for this stranger and he will be given the man who killed his father.

So he works for the stranger's criminal enterprise, only to quickly betray him by helping Tommy, a spy, escape. Tommy is who Joe fans will know better as Storm Shadow. He is intended to be the leader of his ninja clan, Arashikage, who are also allies of G.I. Joe and protectors of a sacred stone of power. Snake Eyes is actually a double agent, working for the stranger to infiltrate the clan and steal said stone.  The stranger, it turns out, is Tommy's uncle who was cast out of the Arashikage for being a selfish dick...or something.

Snake Eyes wrestles with acceptance in the ninja clan, and the dangling carrot of the man who killed his father. But barely.

The film conveys through dialogue the fact that Snake Eyes is torn between his loyalty and his thirst for vengeance, but it never actually feels like the character has this turmoil, mostly because it's too busy with dumb setpieces and inane character decisions to let the emotions settle.

Spoilers, if you care, but the final act has Snake Eyes betray the clan, steal the stone, hand it over to Tommy's uncle, who is going to wield it to destroy the clan, and then give it to the the Baroness of the terrorist organization Cobra. Snake Eyes is then given his dad's killer, only to learn he is a Cobra assassin. In other words, Snake Eyes has just done the bidding of the group that killed his father. So after freeing the assassin (what?) he turns around to try and save the Arashikage with Tommy, who now hates him so much. 

Scarlett joins the fight out of nowhere (what?) and Baroness is betrayed by Tommy's uncle so she sides with Scarlett and Snake temporarily (what?) and Snake says "Yo Joe" for no reason (what?) and Tommy uses the stone to kill his uncle and is told that he's broken a most sacred Arashikage vow, and now can no longer lead them, and he's so mad and hates Snake Eyes now so much and Scarlett recruits Snake Eyes to G.I. Joe but he's got to go find Tommy first, and he's now allying himself with the Baroness, and this movie is so, so dumb.

I didn't even get into Akiko, the head of Arashikage security who is absolutely terrible at her job. She falls for Snake Eyes and does some very stupid things blinded by her attraction. Pretty much everything everyone does in this movie is because it's in the script, not because it feels true to their character. Even after spending two hours with him, I never got a sense of who Snake Eyes was as a person, what his ethics were. Nobody should trust him, yet, everyone does, and it's pretty much all of their undoing. Snake Eyes could be considered the villain of the piece, not by intention, but by action.

It's an ugly looking movie for the most part. It's shot like a cheap European direct-to-VOD action movie. The only thing that saves it (well, nothing actually saves it) are gorgeous sets and some cool motorbikes. This made my brain hurt.

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I've blathered on too long about movies about toys that I have no energy to talk at length about the grandpappy of torture porn horror, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

I've avoided this film my whole life. The title in itself just sounds completely unappealing. Who voluntarily wants to see something with that title? I know there are people who do, I'm just not one of those people.

I've been pelleted with Leatherface imagery for much of my life, and that just doubled down on my "no thank you" stance towards this film.  

So what prompted me to watch this? It was Electric Boogaloo, the documentary on Canon films. In there it mentioned how the Canon-produced sequel to TTCSM was more of a satirical horror film in the Evil Dead 2 vein, and that piqued my curiosity. But in the weeks since, I forgot they were talking about the sequel and not the original.

Four college kids are in a van, going to rural wherever to visit a family-owned property. Along they way they pick up a weirdo hitchhiker who does some weird stuff before being kicked out. Then they stop at a gas station with no gas, before heading up to the abandoned house. The kids start exploring the property and two of them are killed by a disturbed man in a butcher's gown, a wig and a mask made of flesh. Then other go searching for them and are killed with a chainsaw, until only one of them is left. She is chased after, caught, and forced to sit through a torturous dinner scene with the guy from the van, the guy from the gas station, the human leather-face chainsaw murderer, and a feeble and decrepit old man who seems barely alive. She eventually escapes, frustrating the leather-faced one.

I wasn't bored, necessarily, but I found the whole movie to be tedious. I was intrigued by it initially, as the opening moments with is screeching flash-bulb imagery have been so iconic in the horror genre, but I've just never witnessed their origins. The sequences in the van, the easy, rambling conversations, then the weird encounter with the hitchhiker are well done if not necessarily well performed. There's a lot of capital-"a" Acting happening there.

I by the time the kids encounter Leatherface, I wasn't feeling the build of tension, and at no time was I ever really scared by the events. I guess watching this film after sort of knowing about it for over 40 years, it all just seems inevitable. 

The final act is 25 minutes of Marylin Burns (as Sally) scream pretty much non-stop. I'm sure if I were in a theatre witnessing this for the first time in the 70's or 80's, as a younger person less experienced with cinema, this would have been pretty intense. But now I just found it annoying. The prior kills were just so abrupt that they weren't really shocking or gruesome, and we're not really given much to invest in these characters so watching them die seems like a formality of horror filmmaking (this is how I feel about most slasher and torture porn horror). Sally's screaming ad nauseum is so grating... at a certain point what is it accomplishing? It's the only trick in her book. It is impressive work by Burns though, I must admit.

I mean, as a piece of horror history, I get its place. But what's its point? To horrify and disgust? Fine, but it didn't do that for me.

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After two not-great toy franchise movies and a classic horror film showing its age, I needed a palette cleanser. I needed something from someone trustworthy, something stimulating. I needed Bong Joon-ho.

I had no idea what to expect from Memories of Murder. It's an evocative title, but meaning what, exactly? Is it a character study, a drama about someone who has killed? Is it a psychological suspense film about a therapist and their disturbed patient? Is it a genre picture, where someone can enter peoples memories and finds a murderer within? I wouldn't put any of these past Director Bong.

But Memories of Murder is instead the director's tribute to grotty 1980's and '90's suspense procedurals, like Witness, Bad Lieutenant, Blue Velvet, or half the Coen Bros output from the era.  

It's 1986 and a woman if found dead after an assault, left in a drainage ditch in rural Korea. The crime scene offers few clues. A short while later, after a rainfall, another woman is found, but the local police forces are so inexperienced they're unable to keep the evidence untainted and the crime scene clear. A suspect, a mentally impaired young man, is brought in for questioning, and coerced after days of abuse, into giving a confession. A new recruit from Seoul does his own investigation, leaving the dirty cops to their dirty deeds. The boy, once brought into the open, it turns out, has an alibi they didn't bother to check.

They try to catch the killer, knowing he will strike next during the rainfall, and some actual detective work yields the potential for clues, but they're just too many steps behind. It's never quite clear if the killer knows they're looking for him, but it still feels like a cat-and-mouse game, mostly as it involves two very different Detectives with two very different procedures for solving crimes. But over time Detective Park's corrupt, gut-feeling tendencies start to give way to Detective Seo's evidence and tactics based procedures. Conversely, Detective Seo, once he locks in on a target, embrace Detective Park's shadowy tendencies and it's up to Park to be the rational one.

It's not that we have not been aware of the corruption within policing institutions in the past, but it seems only in the past 5 years has it becomes part of the conversation, out in the open. Policing institutions are given so much latitude to abuse and circumvent the rules set out for them, and even calling it out changes nothing. This film, from 21 years ago is keenly aware how these abuses in the name of justice come about, and unlike a lot of American "copaganda" it's not forgiving in the slightest for it.  

It presents our Detectives as humans, for sure, but people who are allowed to let their bases impulses be acted out with impunity, and feel justified for it. It shows how the police look at everyone outside of them as something else, not equals, but others. They see a population fill with potential perpetrators, potentials suspects, potential victims. 

The tone of Memories of Murder is grim, but also blackly comical. Before Detective Seo arrives, the police are buffoonish. We can see the ineptness and laziness at play. It'd be funny if it weren't so upsetting. Plus Detective Park, ostensibly our protagonist, is pretty terrible. A misogynist, an abuser of power, and maybe even a little dumb...he's not a likeable character, and yet in the body of Song Kang-ho (a mainstay of Director Bong's work), he's compelling. You want to hate him fully, but there's just a little something there that you're kind of charmed by, even though you should know better.

If this movie has a more direct parallel than the 80's and 90's movies it's inspired by, it would be Zodiac. I have to wonder if David Fincher was directly inspired by Director Bong's work here, because they feel like kin.

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The Hidden is an 80's cop movie that Director Bong definitely wasn't using as inspiration. 

Sgt. Beck (Michael Nouri, Yellowstone) has been chasing a man all over town, a seemingly everyday, average, genteel citizen who all of a sudden snapped and starting assaulting, murdering, robbing and terrorizing Los Angeles, often with a smile on his face. Eventually the law catches up to the man, and he winds up in the hospital in a coma, with no answers to give for his sudden shift.

FBI Agent Lloyd Gallagher (Kyle MacLachlan, The Flintstones) turns up at the precinct and has Beck assigned to him. Turns out Gallagher was  looking for the same man man...shortest lived partnership ever. Except that when the accused turns up dead in his hospital room and his roommate is missing, going on his own similarly violent and impulsive spree, things for Beck and Gallagher seem to be just getting started.

The film's not shy about it, it's an alien parasite hopping from body to body. Yeah, sounds absurd, but holy hell is it a fun 97 minutes of nearly flawless filmmaking telling the story. There are no false moves in The Hidden, at no point am I screaming "come on" at people who should know better, at no point is the suspension of disbelief I've granted the film stretched even close to the breaking point. It seems like every question that should be asked by a police detective is being asked, and even when the answers are skirted by Gallagher, it's clocked by Beck.

MacLachlan plays Gallagher like a true weirdo (like a warmup for Twin Peaks), and Nouri's glib yet analytical nature isn't ever fooled, but his intuition is telling him something.

It's not the prettiest film, but Sholder never reaches too far. He's not trying for anything fancy, he's just telling a fun story and he does it very, very well. 

In Men In Black, Vincent D'Onofrio delivers the greatest alien-in-human-disguise performance in cinematic history. In The Hidden we have the prototype for that very performance with Willaim Boyette's turn as the alien-in disguise. Boyette's physicality and verbal ticks and little nuances are all just divine. Three other performers - Chris Mulkey, Claudia Christian and Ed O'Ross - all deliver exceptionally fun performances as the skin suits.

In my memory, having last seen this film in the mid-1990s, this was a much more serious production, not the rollicking buddy cop romp where they're chasing an alien terminator through the streets of L.A. But yeah, it's a romp, just a straight up better-than-a-B-movie/not-quite-an-A-movie grand time of film, with perfect vibes.

Pairs well with: They Live, but honestly, I think it's an even superior film.

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31 Days of Halloween: M3GAN

2022, Gerard Johnstone (Housebound) -- Amazon

Oh! We like his previous movie! And TBH it kind of vibes with how this movie was presented, as in an entirely trope driven AI horror movie where you cannot help but laugh at the ludicrous situations the movie leads us through, even though they are played entirely seriously. As Kent said, there is a very clear, very telegraphed plot progression here, but it is skillfully done. Still weirded out Kent saw it, and liked it.

Cady (Violet McGraw, Black Widow) is in the backseat of her parents car as they complain about her obsession with a Furby-analog toy called a PurrPetual Pet(z). And then they die by snowplow. She goes to live with her aunt Gemma (Allison Williams, Get Out), a roboticist with zero work-life balance and the inventor of the PurrPetual Petz. Gemma has been somewhat secretly working on a lifelike android she calls M3GAN  (Murderous Model 3 Generative Android) which is meant to be a child's best friend & companion. Gemma is caught between doing what she wants to do (complete M3GAN) and two things she doesn't want to do -- bond with Cady, and come up with the sequel to PurrPetual Petz. So, she "pairs" Cady with the newly awakened M3GAN (Amie Donald/Jenna Davis).

And she immediately goes on a Terminator-like killing spree.

OK, maybe not; that's my headcanon because I really really want to watch this movie from an "emerging AI" perspective, but its not That Movie. This movie is purely written for the AI For Dummies crowd that assumes every "smart device" has the potential to become a killing machine.

But again, somehow, skillfully, Johnstone is able to make a fun movie while entirely telegraphing all the things these movies, and leave it at that level.

Of course, the beta test of M3GAN goes swimmingly, with the doll connecting with the girl, even going beyond "her base programming" to comfort and protect the girl. That is, until Gemma tries to limit some of its behaviour. "You Ain't the Boss of Me!" yells M3GAN. "Actually I am YOUR MAKER !!" yells Gemma. Not really, but you get the point.

Eventually the doll (I tired quickly of the all caps spelling) kills to protect Cady and Gemma starts catching on. But not once does she utter a, "holy shit, my smart doll is becoming self-aware." I did have to remind myself it was not That Movie. This is basically Chucky but in creepy Uncanny Valley doll format, instead of evil spirit inhabiting doll format. As the doll becomes Moar Evil, Gemma establishes a real, genuine affection for Cady, becoming her true protector, even from herself until eventually she has to fight off the murderous little fake-girl.

When I wrote about The Artifice Girl I commented how trailers for both movies came out around the same time, and I assumed that both movies would be about Fake Little Girls killing people. The other movie really, truly was That Movie, in that it was about the emergence of self-aware AI, but wrapped up in the depiction of a little girl, and went beyond embracing the creepiness, in that it was directly about the creep factor. I was actually really surprised they pretty much bypassed the creep factor in this movie, as in entirely ignore the possibility. Other than the "buy too big for his age" stealing M3GAN, only to be murdered by her, there was never even a possibility of someone being... icky with her. This movie was meant for a certain Horror Entry Level audience and didn't want to wrestle with any Big Ideas. And yet, it still satisfied.

31 Days of Halloween: The Watchers

2024, Ishana Shyamalan (Servant) -- download

Yes, Ishana is the daughter of M Night Shyamalan. She cut her teeth on his show Servants and has served as second-unit director on a few of his movies, but likely being raised in a household with such fondness for horror movies led her here.

There are many movies we watch during this season that I enjoy during the act of viewing, but in thinking about them, so I can write about them, they leave me cold and disappointed. The premise of this movie, and thus the trailers, was pretty grand. A woman lost on a mysterious forest is brought into a room with a giant windowed wall, where she is to stand, to be viewed, watched, by whatever mysterious creatures are on the other side. Its a Twilight Zone style premise, and TBH, something probably best left to a sub-thirty minute episode, for the premise almost immediately breaks and becomes and entirely different movie.

The funny thing is that we have seen enough of the "entirely different" movies, and enjoyed them, that, as I mentioned, in the act of watching, I was enjoying myself. That different is hinged on the idea that this is an Irish movie, a movie set in a forest in the west of Ireland, a forest we have seen in a few other movies, and we know what is usually hidden in forests in Ireland? Yes... spoilers!

Mina (Dakota Fanning, The Runaways) is an American living in Galway, Ireland. She's a depressed girl working in a pet store who likes to spend her nights dressed up as other American women in Galway. The town cannot be that big; eventually someone should realize she plays that game. Its the anniversary of her mother's death, she is ignoring calls from her sister, and instead of dealing, she takes on the task of delivery an exotic parrot to a zoo in Belfast.

Unfortunately GPS takes her into The Forest where the UFO Thing happens -- her car breaks down, her cell phone dies and the radio goes all wonky before it cuts out. So her and the parrot go traipsing into the forest, for some unknown reason. She doesn't even make note that the GPS brought her into a wood on a road that is no longer a road, but before she can turn around there is no car, there is no road, there is nothing but trees and an older woman yelling for her to follow, to run!

They run to the bunker with the big window wall. Inside, just before dusk, she is instructed on the rules: always stand facing the window. They will come, they will watch. The humans inside don't have to do anything, just be... themselves. Inside are Mina, of course, and Madeline (Olwen Fouéré, Texas Chainsaw Massacre) the already creepy enough looking old lady, young Ciara (Georgina Campbell, Barbarian) and younger Danny (Oliver Finnegan, Creeped Out). From inside, the wall is just a mirror so they cannot see their watchers, just hear them doing the usual litany of monster chittering, scratching, growling and ... applauding?

The rest of the movie is Mina deciding she will get out, she will ignore the entreaties of the others to just follow The Rules, because she has Main Character Syndrome, which is helped by her being the main character. We know, by these movies, that she will eventually discover things, do things she shouldn't, and by such activities learn more about what is going on, and she will lead them away, but not without some danger & death.

Now, the major spoiler, the thing I hint at of the top. When I saw the trailers, before I knew this was a movie set in that forest in Ireland I thought, could it be aliens? Could it be creatures from another dimension? Humans from the future? The idea of not knowing was the juicy bit. But once I knew where this movie was, it was not hard to guess it would be The Fae. And I was OK with that, except the movie spins entirely out of control once it explains itself.

The idea that a mad professor, an expert with Irish mythology, obsessed with Shape Changers, Changelings or "halflings" would find a spot in the woods to build a bunker from which to study them, a place stolen from Lost, is... mildly interesting? But dude, the premise states that all things powered die once you enter this part of the forest. Even if you accept he got some sort of counter-magic generator to keep things going, it does not explain how all the construction equipment required to dig out and build a BUNKER underground could happen. Sure, they hand wave some things by stating he conned people into helping him doing it, that he would leave outside to be eaten by the monsters in the wood, it still stretchers believability.

And I won't even go into how as the movie comes to a conclusion, that the characters have escaped, that it still wants to go on. It wants to tell more, to do a Shyamalan Twist, which by this point, we were both rolling our eyes and looking at our phones.

Oh! I cannot leave without mentioning that the movie also has redirections, that wants to lead us to believe that Mina, and her twin sister Lucy (Dracula fan their mother was?), are something other than just Americans with a tragic history. But.... it never explores it, it just hints at it, and abandons.

Of note, the "other movies" were The Hole in the Ground which shared the exact same holes in said ground, and The Hallow.

31 Days of Halloween: Longlegs

2024, Osgood Perkins (Gretel & Hansel) -- download

 Starting in 2011 we (Marmy and I, as Kent is not much of a horror fan) began celebrating the Halloween season (all of October, of course) by watching too many horror / Halloween related movies, most of them bad.  2012 had a few flicks but not the full month. Un/Re-employment killed 2013. Apathy slayed 2014. But we returned in 2015 with a full run. 2016 had a good start, but stalled in the last few days, likely due to work life. 2017 almost started with a fizzle, but then I remembered, "It's October 1st !"  It still fizzled. Life abounds. And in 2018, almost the entire year was Halloween *ahem* as in the year of posting was mostly October. 2019 did alright for itself, considering I went off to Las Vegas sometime in the month. 2020 was it's own horror fest, and I am not kidding or being pithy in the least; the horror movies we watched were almost a relief. 2021 was in full form, some good, most OK and some great/terrible. 2022 gave us a full run, counting in the TV we watched, which we did. Also, I absolutely love that Kent jumped in with some themed movies and even a We Agree(ish). Aaaand 2023 had a pretty good run, even if it was interrupted by Vegas Redux. I am not sure 2023 was a Good Year for horror, as we didn't have a whole lot lined up, not like this year. I have at least half a dozen movies in the hopper without even trying.

I think we like Osgood Perkins? We as in The Peanut Gallery / Marmy, my horror viewing companion (and life companion, so she gets the horror of me as well), not Kent. Kent did not like The Blackcoat's Daughter. We rather did, even thought it wasn't a 31 Days post. And again, Gretel & Hansel which we also did not watch during the season. We never completed the TV show, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House... dunno why.

Not gonna comment on how you started this post even before watching the movie, cuz you are THAT EXCITED to get into this year's 31 Days? Shaddup you.

Later. Watched it. Today I learned someone I knew died recently, rather horribly. Not sure if the knot in the pit of my stomach was the movie or the knowledge. Either way, this movie did as all horror movies are supposed to do --- left me in a 1 hour and 41 minutes state of anxiety.

Loved it !!

Crass.

No, seriously, from the opening moments I knew I would like this. Just the way it was shot, the moodiness, the creepiness, the colour filters chosen for the cinematography. If so often, I watched movies solely from a "meh" as to the techniques of film making (not noticing or not giving a damn) this movie caught my attention from pretty much scene one. And kept it, and built upon it.

Lee Harker (Maika Monroe, It Follows) is a fledgling FBI agent assigned a partner and an objective -- knock on doors, show his picture and ask questions. That doesn't go well, or goes perfectly well, depending on your viewpoint and whether its your brains splattered all over the walkway. Instantly Harker knows the Bad Guy is in "that house" and immediately afterwards she is tossed into a room to determine if she is "half way psychic" -- which is better than none. They label her "highly intuitive".

She is assigned to the Longlegs case, a 20 year long run of murders that display as family annihilators, but the FBI believes are murders because of cryptic notes left behind. The father always murders his family and then himself, but they believe he was influenced to do so, but they know not by whom. Also, its the 90s so the amount of surveillance tech will be diminished. It must be the early 90s because nary a cellphone is to be seen.

Harker immediately sees a connection with these murders, followed quickly by someone leaving her a note in her house, with a threat, "reveal you got this note and your mother will die." The scenes include uncomfortable phone calls with her mother, because horror movies rarely have good family relations, especially if members of a police force. The scenes also introduce the framing technique that just leaves me uneasy for the rest of the movie, wherein Harker is shot left or right of centre, and there is something framing, like a window or doorway, over her shoulder, just waiting for something to be seen filling that void.

Of course, Harker's "intuition" comes into play and she leads them to a farm where the first murders took place. By now she has also decoded all Longlegs secret messages and connected them to satanic beliefs. At the farm they discover a lifelike doll that looks like the surviving daughter, a girl (Kiernan Shipka, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) who has been catatonic since the murder of her family, and in an asylum. Inside the doll is a humming orb with no easily defined purpose.

The more Harker investigates the more she feels tied to the events, which eventually leads her home to her mom (Alicia Witt, Christmas Tree Lane), to her own personal belongings, and a polaroid of a strange pale faced man in off-white. And that leads to his arrest (which is strangely a void in my memory, as to how a photo immediately led to an arrest.....) but that's not the end of it. Longlegs (Nicolas Cage, Mandy) kills himself in custody and a shaken Harker is driven home by a fellow agent, to reveal how directly tied to it all Harker and her mother are.

Perkins knew there would be a thousand blog articles with "Ending Explained" in their titles so he chooses to just fill in that blank himself, providing us an entire "tell and show" segment where we learn how Harker's mom has been Longlegs accomplice all along, delivering his creepy dolls that he makes for Satan. And yeah, Satan is behind it all, even providing some evil magic in the little metal orbs that control people, which, when Harker's own orb is destroyed, releases her into the final scenes emotionally unhinged, literally decades of being repressed. The movie may end the murders, but it does not end happily, nor cleanly nor entirely satisfactorily, which pisses off half the Internet.

Creepy, chilling, eerie, a thousand descriptive terms that are meant for well crafted horror movies. And Nick Cage being himself, but also reined in under a face full of makeup, allowing for an even more eerie villain bound to become a costume at the end of the month.

KWIF: Wolfs (+ a double dose of Flanney)

KWIF = Kent's Week in Film. TV has exploded with great new and returning shows, so filmic viewing has dwindled in its wake. These are what I managed to squeak in within the past two weeks.

This Week:
Wolfs (2024, d. Jon Watts, AppleTV+)
Doctor Sleep - Director's Cut (2019, d. Mike Flanagan, Blu-Ray)
Oculus (2013, d. Mike Flanagan, Netflix)

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What a terrible poster

Marvel has been picking out directorial talent from the most random of places for over 15 years now. I don't know if Swingers or Elf were really telltale benchmarks foretelling a successful Iron Man movie. Kenneth Brannagh on Thor was a surprising choice. Joe Johnson on Captain America: First Avenger was pretty logical. The Avengers seemed to be the thing Joss Whedon was born to make (besides inappropriate passes at women). But then the Marvel machine took over, Alan Taylor, James Gunn, the Russo Brothers, Peyton Reed, Scott Derrickson, Ryan Coogler, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, and on and on. None of these directors really had "tent pole action/sci-fi spectacular" notable in their background. Certain directors figured out how to work within the machine and thrive, others were swallowed by it. With few exceptions (Gunn, Taika Waititi and Sam Raimi primarily, and maybe Chloé Zhao) the voice of the director gets buried under the spectacle.

Jon Watts did three (dare I say it?) amazing Spider-Man movies. But what stands out to me about those Spider-Man films is not the action or special effect, but the characters, the performances, the pathos and the comedy.  Sequences don't stand out to me because of super-powered action, but instead because of character engagement, how people are relating to each other in a scene. Watts' gifts as a director aren't necessarily striking visuals, but drawing out fantastic performances from his actors, having young talent hold their own in the same scene as heavyweight veterans.

So Wolfs, being sold as a George Clooney/Brad Pitt reunion, has two such heavyweights, but it's the tertiary lead, Austin Abrams (from the spectacular Xmas teen romance Dash & Lily), is the absolute scene stealer of this film. This kid (playing "Kid"...he's actually 28) dominates every scene he's in, which is kind of hard when you're dealing with such sexagenarian handsomeness on screen.

The premise is the Kid is dead, and the politician who was with him when he overdosed (the everywhere-these-days Amy Ryan, Sugar) calls for help in cleaning it up. Enter the Wolf, Jack (Clooney). He's seen everything, and knows how to handle it. Nothing to worry about. Until there's another knock at the door. Enter the Wolf, Nick (Pitt), called in by the hotel. Two cleaners? Complicated things get even more complicated as a stash of heroin is found, and the Wolfs are charged with working together to find the owners and return it, lest the heat catch up to them. Doubly complicated things get even more complicated when, it turns out, the Kid isn't dead after all, leading to an incredible and hilarious foot chase that had me giggling nonstop (Abrams' verbal noises and the sound design of his sock feet slapping the pavement are just incredible).

It's all framed in a "one crazy night" cinematic fashion, going from location to location, one strange or tense encounter after another, as the odd couple start to find kinship with one another, and even start taking a very unprofessional shining to the Kid.  It's a tried-and-true formulae, and it works really well here. Clooney and Pitt have a very easy chemistry with one another, and even when they're not supposed to like one another there's a playfulness to their rivalry. 

Written into the script is the fact that both these men are aging. They have wounds and aches and problematic parts which plague them, and as fit as they are, they're still hovering around six decades on this earth. They aren't ready to leave it just yet, but there is a weariness about the life they're leading. It's used for humour, sure, but it's also used (mostly silently) to provide context. Jack specifically looks at the Kid and every time you can read into Clooney's eyes that he will probably have to kill this kid, and he really doesn't want to.

It's a fairly lightweight, breezy watch. There are no Spider-Man vibes to it at all, but Watts draws out a surprising amount of depth from what could have been two very cookie-cutter lead characters.

[I'm choosing to sidestep any particular discussion about Brad Pitt, as it didn't really impact my reaction to the film. There's a recent hit piece on him in Slate poking at the cracks in his well curated image if you want to explore it.]

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Toasty is a big Mike Flanagan fan, and has said so on multiple occasions, and more than once has inquired with me if I have been exploring the Flanagan fundamentals. But, not being the horror guy Toasty is, I haven't had the impulse to dive into his various Netflix shows of the past half-decade. His films work all came out pre-2020 and haven't had the same groundswell of cult support that the works of, say, Ari Aster or Ti West has. 

Independent of Toasty's provocations, the Blank Check podcast crew have very much championed Flanagan's adaptation of Steven King's Doctor Sleep. I wrote off King years ago (quickly: full of ideas, consistently terrible endings that frequently ruin the whole story), and I thought a faithful adaptation of King's sequel to The Shining would be full of King's sour grapes stemming from the Kubrick film.  But these Blankies, these titans of film nerddom, kept bringing it up...for years now. There must be something to it... specifically denoting the Director's Cut being the superior rendition.

So I wound up with a Director's Cut of the blu-ray of Doctor Sleep earlier this year and stashed it for a rainy day. I didn't realize that I needed to set aside over 3 hours to watch it, but was pretty happy I did, almost immediately.

Flanagan's TV storytelling sensibilities from The Haunting of Hill House very much infected this film it seems. While it isn't episodic, per se, it is told in "chapters", and the juggling of a cast set in three different locations from each other (as well as flashbacks) until basically the final hour of the film feels more television than movie. 

The story starts in 1980, first with Rebecca Ferguson, who looks flat-out gorgeous in a sort of bohemian aesthetic but is also scary as shit as her character Rose the Hat sacrifices children so her and her coven (including prominently Zahn McClarnan, a Kent favourite) of nomadic, ageless, psychic vampires suck their "steam" and get high. Theirs is a tale of addiction, and the desperation they have in acquiring their hits.  At the same time, Danny Torrence and his mom (Alex Essoe, doing a very uncanny valley impersonation of Shelly Duvall) are attempting to recover from the fallout of their time at the Overlook Hotel. It's not going great, but Danny's still learning things from his Shining pal, Dick Hallorann (Carl Lumbly, taking over from Scatman Crothers), despite Dick being dead.  It's sort of a force ghost thing.

30 years later Danny's living the life of a junkie (not unfamiliar ground for Ewan McGregor), barely scraping by, when he finally abandons his hedonistic, addictive ways for a small town life, where he settles in comfortably. A few hundred miles away, a young girl named Abra has been exploring her powers, and she may just have the most powerful Shine of anyone. Unlike Danny, she's not afraid of it.  She connects with Danny remotely and they become pen pals, of a sort.

8 years later, Danny is clean and sober and stable, and though the "weird girl" at school, Abra is generally comfortable and confident in life. But when she sees Rose and the crew sacrificing a young boy to steal his Shine, she can't let it stand and gets Dan involved.  From there it's a cat and mouse game between all the players, the advantages ever shifting.

For the film, Flanagan takes King's sequel novel in earnest and also makes it a sequel to the Kubrick film via visual reference: Danny's parents are visual cues (Henry Thomas is made up to look like a haggard Jack Nicholson and the sort of confusing uncanny valley of it all is deftly used), and Flanagan reshoots some of the Overlook Hotel sequences as they suit certain narrative purposes in the story but serve to only remind that this lives in the shadow of greatness. In some respects, I felt the film at times leaned a little too heavily on the references, repeating things where there could have been more invention, and Essoe's impersonation of Duvall I found highly distracting.

But Doctor Sleep could live outside of the Shining, outside of needing it as a reference, at least in the Director's Cut.  You'll have a head start if you're familiar, but it does fill in the gaps if you're not. 

It's remarkable to me how sinister Ferguson's Rose is, how credible a threat she and her coven feel, and yet the peril that young Abra could face never actually materializes. Where Danny has cut himself off from his powers for decades, Abra has been exploring, and she is powerful. She is so powerful that Rose, as dangerous as she seems, is barely a credible threat to her. So it falls upon McGregor to be both the protector and the prone, he's the one most susceptible to the villainous troupe, but as the adult in the situation he's also responsible for protecting Abra from these vampires.

I really dug this world of "shine" and "steam" as fleshed out by King and Flanagan. I understand why some may see any form of sequel to Kubrick's masterpiece as blasphemous, but it's a pulpy story with a lot of world building around these superpowered individuals so it makes sense why I keyed into it so readily.  It feels like a space that has rules and boundaries, and different levels of access. If the logic isn't overtly presentd on screen, then it seems for damn sure Flanagan has it all figured out in his head. 

But it's not just about the flights of fancy. At the core of Danny's story is the cycle of abuse, trauma and addiction. The supernatural elements do undercut the potency a bit, but it is a key element to the story and generally it cohabitates well.

Doctor Sleep isn't a horror movie. At best it's a supernatural suspense film in the guise of a legasequel (it fits all the earmarks of one), but has a quite satisfying ending (is it King's ending or did Flanagan refine it).  I don't doubt that King has an Abra novel in him that will go bonkers-wild in exploring the world of Shine in the modern day (whether it gets made into a halfway decent film or not).

[Toastypost - we agree]

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do all of Flanney's posters have a 
"hands over the eyes" thing?

With my first venture into Flanagan territory exceeding my expectations, I immediately wanted to dive into another. Ouija: Origin of Evil was not available on any of my streaming services but Oculus was... and, what? Karen Gillan? Katee Sackhoff? Yes please!

If I'm being perfectly honest, I do remember when this was coming out. My crush on Gillan was already on firm foundation, but my disdain for stupid-sounding horror movies was stronger than whatever libidinous impulses might draw me to watch a particular performer in a film. An evil mirror? Come on....

What I *just* realized whilst watching Oculus is that most, if not all horror movies sound stupid if you distill them down to their most basic premise. It's all in the execution.

Oculus takes place over two time periods following siblings Kaylie and Tim. The younger versions, around 12 and 10 respectively, have just moved with their parents into a new home. Their prosperous father, Alan (Rory Cochrane) has deferred to his wife Marie's (Sackhoff) decorating tastes, which is largely antiques. A gorgeous, massive wood-framed mirror is the centerpiece of Alan's home office. 

In the modern day, Tim (Brenton Thwaites, Titans) is just being released from an institution where he's been in its care since childhood, having shot his father and experience severe trauma. Kaylee (Gillan) is there to pick him up, and immediately throws him back into the fire. They had made a promise as children and now she intends they keep it.

In their old vacant family home she has set up an elaborate, controlled scenario, with once again the mirror as centrepiece to the experiment. Cameras positioned everywhere, with timers set to go off reminding them to eat, drink, change out data storage, etc, and should all else fail a massive homemade swinging anchor set to a timer that will bash the mirror to bits should they be unable to.  

This tantilizing scenario, elaborately, painstakingly detailed by Kaylie, poses the question for the audience: what is this all about? Certainly it's personal for the two of them, but Tim's time in the facility has reshaped his understanding of their shared history. The memories of that horrible time just a manufactured trauma response to the ugliness of an abusive father who killed their mother.

But the film jumps back and forth in time, revealing the "truth", or as much of it as the mirror's distortions will allow. And therein lies the problem for our protagonists, just as it was a problem for them and their family as children... the mirror's evil deceives, spreads lies into the mind, makes one think they're seeing what's not really there.  

Flanagan's deft use of his two time periods comes to a head in the third act when the lines between them literally blur. Adult Kaylie might cross her 10 year old brother, or Tim might be running down a hallway just as 12-year-old Kaylie slams a door he's running past. At certain times it's unclear which time, which reality we're in or whether the time periods have merged. Flanagan's use of deceit is pretty masterful here, even if the conclusion is all but inevitable. 

As far as horror goes, it's not far afield from the James Wan camp, dark, but playful, in structure here rather than tone. The finale feels like a bloody homage to Rod Serling, a real downbeat ending that also seems like the only place it could go. 

I'm definitely in for more Flanney! 

[ToastyPost - we agree]

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

1966, Sergio Leone (Once Upon a Time in America) -- Amazon

That's it, I'm done with the iconic trilogy. I knew I had seen this movie before, probably back in high school on VHS but I don't recall an iota of it.  

You know, I am not all that impressed by the trilogy as I thought I would be, but at the same time, I can see the immense amount of progress made between each? And if I am going to use the age-old excuse, the film making was probably incredible for its time. There are elements that impress me, but as a whole, I am hesitant in my respect. I am not going to claim admiration just because the rest of film critique feels so.

Or I am just not in the mood for it; my moods (which now come in years long swathes) do change how I feel about things I may have once adored, or at least respected more.

Anywayz.

If the first movie was about a small plot, setting two families against each other, with The Man with No Name (who always has a name) playing the focus, and the second movie having The Man with No Name (again, this time named Manco) pitted against a nemesis come ally, then the third movie expands to three main characters, the titular Good, Bad and Ugly. But, they are all Bad. 

You know, the whole Man with No Name was just a marketing scheme put on the trilogy by the distributors? Frickin' Purple Suits, man...

This movie is set during the Civil War. The Ugly is petty criminal Tuco (Eli Wallach, The Holiday), always on the run. The Bad is classic Black Hat gunfighter "Angel Eyes" (Lee Van Cleef, The Octagon) who starts as a bounty hunter but becomes more interested in chasing down some stolen Confederate gold. And the Good (debatable) is a con-artist, bounty hunter (Clint Eastwood, Magnum Force) who is running a bounty con with Tuco, wherein he captures Tuco, turns him, claims the money, but then frees Tuco just as he is about to hang. That is, until he betrays Tuco as well. Yeah, not so Good.

This is a big story, a sprawling story, with lots of extras and covering lots of geography. The opening acts are establishing the characters, the setting and the personalities involved but then kicks into full gear once Tuco and "Blondie" find out about the stolen gold. Tuco knows the graveyard in which it is hidden, Blondie knows in which grave. On their way there Tuco makes a strategic blunder and they are captured as Confederates by dusty Union soldiers.

In the prison is where Angel Eyes makes the connection and formulates a plan with Blondie's help. Tuco is dispensable but he is also a cockroach and follows the pair, as well as Angel Eyes new gang. In an abandoned town, being shelled by one side or the other, a scene more reminiscent of a WWII movie than a western, Angel Eyes and his gang have a traditional western confrontation with Tuco and Blondie, i.e. the pair walks up the middle of the road while the Bad Guys patiently wait to get shot. No matter, Angel Eyes has betrayed his own gang and escaped on his own after the gold.

Best buds again, Tuco and Blondie are once again interrupted on the route to the gold by the war, this time coming across a river crossing contested by both sides. This act is a massive set piece, trenches and cannons, and designated times of the day for both sides to rush each other on the bridge, slaughtering many, accomplishing little. The pair pretends they want to sign up and are taken before a drunken disillusioned captain who blurts out he really really wants someone to just blow the bridge up so this senseless death can end. The pair complies.

On the other side, after a wee bit more betrayal, we get the final confrontation. The graveyard is massive, and Tuco drives himself half made running from grave to grave trying to find the right one. Tuco thinks he is brilliant having conned the location out of Blondie but not quite. Angel Eyes appears, we get a proper Mexican Standoff (in Texas), and they put him in a grave. And they actually find the gold, with one last betrayal, where Tuco is forced to stand on a grave marker, his neck in a noose, while Blondie rides away with his share... just his own share. Tuco should have expected a reversal, and Blondie is The Good, and from a distance, he shoots the rope.

Ennio Morricone signing off.

Yah, not sure why it didn't grab me. I guess I just prefer my westerns stripped down. Admittedly another draw to westerns for me has always been the grandeur of the American Old West, when shot in actual America. Italy looks dusty enough and they did a good jobs building those fake old towns, but it was lacking a certain something for me. For me, that is, for I am well aware that the Spaghetti Western became such a staple that westerns following them, including video game depictions, movies and TV shows all ended up being more Italy dusty than border of Mexico dusty.

So much for my exploration of the Spaghetti Western, it might not be my thing.

An amusing side note, as I mentioned above, The Man with No Name is a marketing ploy. I guess it was popular enough that they even invented reasons to dress Eastwood in clothing familiar to the audiences, including a serape and his wool fringed vest.