31 Days of Halloween: Alone (Pandemic)

 2020, Johnny Martin (Delerium) -- Netflix

Yay! Zombie night! Marmy is not as fond of the zombie genre as I am, so these are always a concession.

On Netflix you will find this listed as Pandemic, for no reason other than Alone must not sound enough like a zombie flick, and the word pandemic is serving double duty these days. Amusingly enough the thumb-nail on Netflix is for an entirely different movie called Pandemic from 2016.

Alone is meant to be a study in being alone when trapped by the zombie apocalypse going on outside. The idea was already visited somewhat in the French zombie movie, The Night Eats the World but this one does a rather decent job of it, especially when he discovers he is not so alone, and does his best to connect with other people. I also mentioned my own personal recurring dream related connection to this particular aspect of the genre when I wrote about that French movie.

Sexy, tattooed Aidan wakes up with sexy, nameless girl who soon after leaves. On the news weird things are happening and people are panicking: infection, cannibalism, avoid people, stay safe. Almost immediately after a neighbour barges through his door, Aidan demands to know WHY and then, just after convincing the guy to leave, he watches the guy change before his eyes, a bite on his back revealed. Rage Zombie! Aidan pushes the guy outside and blocks the door with his fridge.

If the French movie replaced the moans & groans with an eerie teeth chomping silence, this movie replaced it with the infected repeating the last thing that went through their head before the virus took it over. Imagine being chased by people continuously yelling, "Help me! Help me!" or "Kill me! Kill me!" Along with the usual roars and cries of rage, these utterances are utterly unnerving. Are the people still trapped inside there, a body controlled by a virus but the conscious brain still active. THAT is the real horror.

Aidan runs low on food, and patience. His family has died on voicemail and he is truly alone, for the first time in his life. As he is about to kill himself, he sees a woman in the apartment across the laneway. He had his windows covered up, to hide himself from alerting the zombies, and did not notice her in the 50 odd days. Till now. The rest of the movie is about Aidan desperate to connect with her, in a more personal human contact way, but also in an inevitable romantic way -- they are two young, beautiful people after all.

While the parallels between the French movie and this one abound, I was not adverse. As mentioned, my brain-pan seems focused on the idea once again, so I was happy to see another exploration of the idea. Also, I now get to watch the Korean version of this movie, based on the same script my Matt Naylor!

31 Days of Halloween: Midnight Mass

2021, Mike Flanagan (Gerald's Game) -- Netflix

Of note, this writing covers the three episodes (of a 7 run limited series) that we watched over two nights.

Speaking of comfort blankets, its nice knowing that something Mike Flanagan will come along pretty much every year. This is the third of his series for Netflix, but this time not even indirectly connected to A Haunting... But, he does bring back much of the cast from the previous two series, which is rather endearing as it shows he likes working with these people and that they like working with him. 

This time we leave a house for an island, a small isolated island off the coast of New England, not only isolated geographically, but also seemingly lost in time. Gone are the days of prosperous fishing, gone are the days when the young were not expected to leave. The island is emptying and those left behind are stuck in their ways, for better or worse. 

The world building for this island is meticulous, but not in the "look at the details!" way that Midsommar presented, but more in a grand way of filling out the background in which the characters inhabit. The houses are all low and flat, to have the nor'easters blow over them. Everything is weather worn and grey-green-brown. The electric street lamps are from a by-gone era, the roads are still only earth. The Sherriff's office is in the back of the convenience store. There is a bar, but we never visit it, as all our main characters are God Fearing Christians, well all but the recently hired (appointed? elected?) Sherriff Hassan (Rahul Kohli, iZombie) who is a devout Muslim, but one who converted himself. He less plays the odd duck on the island, and more the voice of reason in the furor to come. Everyone else we meet is a Catholic.

Into this small Christian community, there are two returns. Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford, Friday Night Lights) returns from "the mainland" after having spent 4 years (of a 4 to 10 year conviction) in jail for vehicular manslaughter -- he killed a teen girl in a drunk crash. He has lost everything and so returns to the island, to the home of his parents, to meet the terms of his parole. We immediately see that he is truly and wholly haunted by the image of the girl he killed, an eerie image of her face embedded with glass, reflecting the flashing lights of the first responder vehicles. He sees her every night. The second "return" is the arrival of a new priest, Father Paul (Hamish Linklater, Legion) who arrives to replace Monsignor Pruiit, an aging man who fell ill after his return from the Holy Land, and is recovering on the mainland. But things are not as they seem; well duh.

*Spoilers*

Given she is only a seven episode run, Flanagan doesn't leave much room for filler, thank the Lord. In episode one we get hints of something strange going on: Father Paul dragging a massive sea chest into the rectory with him, with a thumping coming from within, the kids hearing and seeing something on the island they canoe to, to drink and smoke, the death of all the stray cats that said island was inhabited it by, each one drained of blood before being washed up on shore by the first episode's storm. He is not going to play the mystery game with us, and by episode three we are secured in our understanding that a vampire has come to Crockett Island, a big leathery creature brought by Father Paul. 

But that is not the horror, the horror lies in the devout Christian faith being subverted by the corruption of this monster. Even Dracula relied on the connection between vampire mythos and Christian mythos. It is no coincidence that one drained by a vampire rises from the dead three nights later. It is no coincidence that a Christian mass involves drinking "the blood of Christ". And Father Paul, nee Pruitt, sees himself as having found not a demon, but an Angel of the Lord, in the Holy Land of all places, and has brought it to Crockett to heal the wounded, and bring youth to the aging.

And fuck, do I hate Bev Keane, the right hand of Father Pruitt and an utter cunt, excuse the word. She embodies all that is wrong with Christianity, all the corruption and bitterness and slander and hate, all masked in a friendly, saccharine, condescending veil.

I hope she gets what's coming to her.